Tide Pooling

One afternoon, while driving into town, we noticed that the water was super calm...hardly any waves at all.  From what we've seen of the Pacific, that is pretty rare.  We scrapped our plans to shop for groceries and instead decided to go to the tide pools.  There are many areas along the Monterey Bay to go tide pooling, but none can compare to the sheer size of the pools that skirt Pacific Grove.

We started in Pacific Grove at Lover's Point, a beautiful little park right on the edge of town and the ocean.  From there, we followed  Ocean View Blvd. as it hugged the coastline.  It's really neat, all along this road are turnouts to park and walk down to the pools.  The turnouts are nice and big, too...small dirt parking lots, really.

the kids joked that these birds were waiting on the tide to go out and the buffet to begin :)

It wasn't low tide, but there was still lots to see.  Just the view alone was amazing...

see the kelp peeking out of the water just past the rocks?

We had fun climbing from rock to rock while trying to keep our feet dry.  We mostly succeeded at the dry part ;).  There were some interesting plant looking things amongst the rocks...

The primary resident that we saw that day?  Hermit crabs!  Lots and lots of hermit crabs.  They were ornery little things, fighting each other and trying to steal shells away.  Hahaha!  It was funny to watch them :)

the victor dragging away a new shell

The boys thought they saw a tiny octopus, it swam away too quickly for us girls to get a peek at it, though.

The tide pools are such a great place to visit.  It is so quiet and peaceful...a wonderful spot to explore and dream...

We stayed until nearly sunset, hungry tummies demanded that we head back towards town.  To continue our spur of the moment kinda afternoon, we decided to just pick up some food to take home and get the groceries another time.  What could be better than a bread bowl with warm clam chowder from Fisherman's Wharf...

...so good :)