Temple of Tidepools

This is my third time down this road, through this forest, and to this beach. This beach holds so many treasures that I could hunt them for an entire year, which to me is an eternity to spend in one place. The treasure I found this trip lay at the end of one of the parking lots, where I found a trail up to some coastal bluffs owned by Pacific Gas and Electric. I checked in with the guard at the gate and hiked the Point Buchon trail. It was great fun in a short trail that encircled a wide open field. As I was leaving and heading back to the tidepools farther up the beach I saw the guy that had the VW with the license plate that read "P❤ZZA" again! I remember seeing him at Salt Creek in Death Valley, hundreds of miles from here. And I remember that someone had commented how much they loved his license plate which made me look up from my laptop and see it, and immediately thought how there could never be a truer plate. Today I wish I had stopped to say hello to him, but by the time I registered what I had seen I was past the parking lot and had a line of cars in tow. So cool to see another fellow traveler though. Our tribe of long nights and headlights. Of dashing yellow strips. Of the highway.

What do anemone eat? I pondered this with great interest as I walked along the beach at Montana de Oro. There are so many around here and they have to compete with each other, but some of them are also in tidepools where there aren't any fish.

This tantalizing question wracked my brain until I dropped a snail on to the still tendrils of one as it sat motionless in a tidepool. Once the two made contact, the tendrils immediately extended outwards and felt the snail, wrapping more and more appendages around it. I imagine the anemone was trying to sense what it had. Slowly these slithery tentacles pulled the snail in, and the last I saw of it was the hardened calcium of it’s shell disappearing under the grasp of more and more tentacles gripping it, passing it into it’s mouth/pit of death. Once the snail disappeared into the abyss I felt a pang of guilt at what I had done. But, I also felt like a little boy again, fascinated by yucky creatures. And I am become Anubis, god of death, master of fates, and this beach is my temple. Or perhaps I’m more like a Valkyrie, selecting those that may live while ushering the others into the life beyond. Either way I hold sway over these tidepools. Just as ocean current hold sway over what anemone feed on out there, these congregations of the tidepools have me.