SeaWorld for free!

Did I get your attention? Ok, it's not actually SeaWorld- it's actually the tide pools at Swami's. But it is a lot better than SeaWorld and it is free. Since the tide dropped to a -1.5' last Saturday, lots of sea critters and tide pools popped up. So me and my family decided to go check it out. When we got there, the tide was super low.

The first thing we saw were of course sea anemones. I like taking mussels and feeding one to the sea anemones. I like how when you put your finger on a tentacle, they try to suck off your finger!

The next thing we saw you can probably see everyday- a seagull. Seagulls like to eat bread and walk around. You can not catch seagulls and my dad calls them rats in the sky. There's this game we play at Moonlight with the seagulls. It is called Seagull Football. You throw a piece of bread in the air and if your seagull catches it, you get a touchdown! If another seagull catches it, it's an interception.



If this looks like it came out of a book, you're wrong. It is a mini waterfall created by the dropping tide. The water on the reef is dripping down into the ocean.







This is Mr. Hermit Crab (the crab- not my brother). He's little and lives in a shell. These little guys hide when you pick them up. They like cleaning sea anemones and they like climbing on the reef.

This is the remains of two lobsters. They are the heads and I eventually found two more. Someone must have had a good meal and just left them on this rock.

It's a mussel farm! This picture must have more than 800 mussels in it. Each one of these is really stuck to this rock. There are TONS of mussels all over the rocks at Swami's.

Here is a shot of the reef where the tide isn't low enough yet to walk on it. I like this picture because it has lots of color.

This shell is called the wavey top shell (or at least that's what I call it). I call it the wavey top shell because it has little waves on it. This might look like it's huge but it's about the size of a muffin. Anybody in there?

This looks like it's on the moon but it's just sand. It looks like the Sahara desert because it has all those little sand hills in it. The little waves and the tide made it.

This is a brittle star. It can move across your hand easily- only if it's in a hurry. You can find them most anywhere in a tide pool- usually under rocks- and they're really cool because they're brittle AND look like stars!

I hope you enjoyed looking at all the tide pool pictures and the critters. Make sure you go down there the next time the tide is low. Happy tide pooling!