Veronica: Believe it or not there’s an art to tide pooling and what better way to learn the ropes than with montage resorts resident tide pool expert Stacy Adelman. Stacy who runs the resort’s paint box childrens program is taking me down to the Treasure Island beach, home to one of the best tide pools in Laguna.
Stacy: We have this really, really great brochures and they basically, it’s a whole treasure map of the sea life down there. So level one are the things that are easier to find down there.
Veronica: Okay.
Stacy: And then, as it goes on, it’s little bit more difficult which makes even more exciting when the kids find them.
Veronica: Located just below the resort, the tide pools are formed when ocean water recedes during low tide. Each high and low tide occurs every six hours and of course low tides is best for exploration.
Stacy: But there’s so much to look for, things that you’re stepping on or walking over that you don’t realize are, they’re like the wonderful sea life down here.
Veronica: So are we gonna see some of these critters here today?
Stacy: There is, there is always something that you can see down at the tide pools. I went out and explain to kids, right now we’re are standing on sea life, and they’ll always tell me, no, we’re not, we’re not stepping on anything. And one of the first thing on the list to look at is actually these little baby barnacles.
Veronica: Oh yeah.
Stacy: So then they start believing that there really are some really interesting things that they have no idea. You can start really, really, really, really, really, really, really kind of searching for things like right here, it’s a chiton. Which is also on or list and that’s level three so it’s a little bit more difficult to find. Moving on a little bit further, one of the really great things that we can look for are the sea anemones, which are like those kind of, they look like little sea flowers and they actually use this little sea shells to reflect from the sun, so it’s a way of keeping them cool. And then also the sea urchins, which are purple and spiky things, that’s one of the reasons why we tell the kids make sure you’re wearing your shoes. There’s actually something that I love, it’s called sea lettuce, and this is actually edible. You know, just like Spiderman can spin a web and shoot web, this little mussels actually can make little thread and that’s what actually is keeping them all together. If you’re to kinda rip one out, you could see the little baby threads, that’s why whenever on the tide pools you wanna make sure that you’re really walking gently on them.
Veronica: Oh there’s some fish over here.
Stacy: There are, there are a couple kind of fish that are in these tide pools. You’ll that there’s some with little white dots on them, those are actually the opaleye fish. And then you see some other ones that are more camouflage and there are the sculpin fish. So I know the kids always get very excited when they see the little fishy swimming around there.
Veronica: Yeah.
Stacy: Well, the opal fish, when they get old enough, they’ll start swimming out and going into the ocean but for now, they really enjoy kinda swimming around the tide pools.
Veronica: They’re protected in here.
Stacy: Definitely.
Veronica: As we head back to Montage, Stacy points out a few more common sea plants and animals. I leave the tide pools with a greater respect and appreciation of these coastal treasures.
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