I am bent over double, unable to stop a steady slide down a slope of green slime, tennies soaking, shoulders in knots. Add a sniffly nose, blue hands, and legs that collapse like a folding chair when I try to stand. Without warning, the sea sends an occasional scout wave to lick hungrily at my cold, wet feet. I’m in heaven.

When moon and sun pull back the sea twice every twenty-five hours, marine life representing a variety of biological groups, from crabs to seaweed, are showcased for the beach hiker. Colorful life decorates rocky walls, shallow pools, and narrow channels. Some creatures become dormant when exposed to air, their shells closed like trap doors. Others occupy shallow pools, carrying on their normal lifestyles, defending themselves, feeding, even reproducing while they await the sea’s return, a promise never broken.

Photo by Nancy Sefton

I sit quietly on the edge of a shallow pool strewn with small pebbles. Shortly the bottom begins to stir. Two-inch fish, aptly named tidepool sculpins, begin skittering here and there in zigzag trajectories, well camouflaged against the pebbles, invisible until they move.

See if you can spot the tidepool sculpins. It’s easier when viewing the video full-screen.

Nearby, some little black rocks sprout jointed legs and lurch across the bottom – hermit crabs, dragging their borrowed snail shells like RVs as they forage for food. But in the next pool, it’s a free-for-all. A pile of hermits frantically joust over an empty snail shell that’s larger than any of theirs. Hermits grow, but their confiscated armor doesn’t; so periodically the vulnerable hermits must trade up for a larger home.

Sea star hanging from a rock by its tube feet.

Bat star photo by Nancy Sefton

Various kinds and sizes of anemones blossom like chrysanthemums, some open and inviting, others closed upon themselves. Seemingly created in a moment of whimsy, these flower look-alikes are carnivores, their poisonous tentacles spread to seduce the unwary. As I watch, a tiny blue crab accidentally wanders onto the central disk of an anemone, and oops, the outer ring of tentacles begins to close over it. Not a pretty sight, as the victim goes down  into the anemone’s gullet, only one tiny claw emerging in a silent plea for help. In the same tide pool, a neighboring anemone is busy spitting out shell bits from a luckless crab it probably dined on yesterday.

The anemone, a fairly stationary creature, has another trick up its tentacles. As I lightly brush one with my fingertip, I feel the characteristic sandpaper grab as myriad microscopic darts are fired into my skin, the anemone no doubt anticipating a grandiose lunch. While I can easily withdraw, a passing sculpin getting this close would be instantly paralyzed and sucked down (like that sorry crab) into the anemone’s central mouth.

Photo by Nancy Sefton

Nancy Sefton is an artist, writer, videographer, and photographer who specializes in nature subjects.  A former diver, she has contributed frequently to national magazines and newspapers, publishing over 300 articles about marine life.  Nancy now lives in Poulsbo and writes for Sound Publishing newspapers.