in search of hermit crabs

around two o'clock this afternoon while we were in san juan capistrano picking up our greens we were hit with a westerly wind and followed it (with a quick detour for cocoa and gingerbread lattes) to dana point past the harbor, past baby beach, past the tall ships, past the ocean institute until we were hanging over the rocky peninsula and noticed something peculiar.  wonderfully peculiar--the tide was at 1.2 (i don't really know what that means but the ocean docent told me it was why we had so many marvellous tide pools--yes he really was an ocean docent with a name tag and everything) thanks to a full harvest moon and the timing of the westerly wind.  really, now that i'm typing this it is sounding like a strange but beautiful dream and it played itself out like that.  we were handed these gorgeous hand-illustrated "low impact" pamphlet to southern california tidepools and went on a scavenger hunt ("mom--do you see this stick?  ok, don't poke it at the sea aneneome.  they don't like it and it's disruptive.").  we found tangerine orange sea stars, gritty sea anenomes, mountains of mussels. . . and searched and searched for hermit crabs.  although owen's curiosity granted us a "hermit crab expert" ("usually they're right under here. . just look for walking shells" explained steve the docent) we didn't find any--but we did spot the resident seal (who doesn't like to get wet "he just curls those flippers up and cringes when the tide comes back in") and the inside tip that december 31 would be the best low tide of the year. i can't think of a better way to spend the last day of the year. . .

here's the mini-slide show:

j