Tide pools

Thursday, Seattle again had the lowest tides in many years, just like last month. Nicole took the kids to Golden Gardens to see the long beach, and then to the outdoor pool in Magnolia to clean up. They look like some of them got a little too much sun. Rachel showed me photos of starfish and a crab.

I met them at the farmer's market after work, mostly for dinner. Nicole got a few vegetables, including sunflower sprouts, but we didn't opt for any berries this week. We have lots of apricots and cherries from our CSA already.

The kids and I walked home from there, while Nicole drove the car back. We spent the rest of the evening inside.

Since Dad alerted me to the missing piece in my island travelogue, I'll fill it in tonight. When we arrived at Lime Kiln State Park, it was lunch time, and we immediately ate at a picnic table in the parking area. When we discovered many more tables down by the water we probably regretted that decision somewhat, but on the other hand, it would have been a hassle to carry everything down.

From the lookout, we saw a sea lion just as we arrived, I think, but it went under and never came back. Then we saw a few porpoises surfacing at a distance, but no orcas or larger whales. We walked down the trail to the lighthouse, where we encountered a wedding party taking photos. The lighthouse has been converted into a whale study outpost. They have microphones down in the water, and a big board visible from outside where they've recorded the whale sightings each day this summer. There had been no resident orca pods for a couple days, but I learned later that one was seen with a new calf later on Saturday in Haro Strait, so we may have just missed them.

Deprived of megafauna, we climbed down the rocks to the water's edge and looked at tide pools. There weren't many sizable ones, but we saw lots of sea anemones and a couple crabs. We left before too long to go elsewhere so the kids could actually get in the water.