The beauty and drama was like a magnet, drawing the child in and frightening him at the same time. There were a few seals and sea lions to swim around with, and there were, of course, sea gulls and other sea birds hovering around. In the background were endless crabs, emitting little permanent-seeming bubbles for amusement and sound effects, and threatening enough to scare a kid. The water so clear you could see everything as if encased in crystal. Then there were seaweed and the anemones, the mussels, the other mollusks, some segmented with chain mail, some volcanic, some like elongated clams and scalloped. There were purple sea cucumbers we liked to carefully poke to see their “clouds” emitted and waft around in technicolor for the gifted child (myself included). There were urchins of all sizes with their pointy spikes bristling like wild hairdos. There were all kinds of starfish - skinny and tiny, or bulbous and strong-footed with myriad bumps. There were little fish so colorful that it hurt the brain to think how they got to be so totally blue or yellow or striped, and then rock fish of various sorts milled around, looking like they had the souls of crags. What did I see? Hermit crabs galore were scurrying around in their various shell-homes, little spiral castles that looked pretty expensive and seemed to be what they were made of, but, then one could see the actual shell creatures that provided the crabs their “homes.” They glommed onto the rocks with their suction-cup mouths, along with little abalones all over the place, tentacles of some sort coming out of the shoelace holes and, even young, were hard to pry off the stone tables. The beaches were strewn with shells of all sorts and seaweed clusters here and there, and that was fun, but the tidal pools contained, for those short amounts of time during low tide, the actual live creatures that provided the bits of shells. I remember, so vividly, like I’m still there, what the La Jolla tidal pools were like back in the late 1950s - extraordinary visages of deep, crystal-clear tidal pools, like amazing jewelry, as they were absolutely teeming with the most colorful life and beauty imaginable.Ī 7- or 10-year-old could absorb his whole mind and being into those myriad fairyland pools and find an endless source of fascination with how intensely, achingly beautiful it all was. I’ve seen reference to them in, for instance, “Cannery Row,” the film about a scientist/collector who went to La Jolla for specimens. It reminded me of my own experience as a young child as I explored the La Jolla beaches and tidal pools. Then I learned about how she spent lots of quality time on the Maine coast, observing, in particular, tidal pools, which, evidently, were great because of the large tides and the diagonal rock structures that interacted with the sea there. The area is also covered with several deeper pools were visitors will find lots of crabs, more limpets and algae.I just watched a documentary on public television about Rachael Carson and her world-changing work “Silent Spring,” with descriptions of her life and how she fell in love with the ocean when she first saw it as a young woman, having been raised inland. These mollusks will frequently make these depressions and return each day to the same one making this their home. Each one has a chiton or limpet living at the bottom. The rocks in this area are covered with small indentions and depressions. I have seen more than one tourist get drenched and almost carried away by a rogue wave. This area is very exposed to waves so be carefully exploring this area when the waves are big. The best tide pools are located next to this sandy beach area near the point. It is a great location to see these animals hauled out on the beach. This area is also famous for the sandy beach were dozens of seals bask on the warm sand. There is lots of parking spaces along Coast road but very difficult to find an open space in the busy summer months. This location is located in La Jolla next to the Rocky Point Park, the lawn bowling center located on coast road.
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