Ebb and flow, ebb and flow. Come and go. Come and go. When the sun and moon align at the solstices, our Salish Sea waters retreat to their lowest levels. These lowest tides reveal an ephemeral world— a hidden realm unveiled for only a few minutes twice a month before the tide returns.
A June crescent moon in the evening reminded me to go to the beach the next morning to find a super low-tide beach. Kath and I drove down to the forested shores of North Beach at Deception Pass. There lies a half-mile, half-moon sweep of sand and stone. The tide was out – a long way out. We could walk the beach around Gun Point headland all the way to Little North Beach. We discovered a shallow cave in the rocks, hidden from view for most of the year.
Dozens of people explored the shoreline with us. A mom and her little daughter sat at a table with stacks of flat stones, keeping some to paint when they got back home. The girl said her stuffed-animal friend, Oreo, chose which rocks to keep. Oreo chose well. A family emerged onto the beach and began jogging to the other end. An older couple walked their two large dogs. Other folks enjoyed an early picnic. Out on the water, fisher folks gathered salmon out of their nets.
The air was still, the waters calm; the blue sea and sky blended as one.
We walked along the beach’s edge, finding wishing rocks with stripes around them, and another that looked like the face of Jupiter. These rocks have been here for how long? And where did they come from in their long-lived journey?
At West Point, the low tide revealed a mesmerizing world of bedrock polished by the swift currents flowing through the pass, as it has for millennia. This is a world concealed from our landward lives, exposed only at these lowest of tides, and teeming with life—long draping brown kelp, emerald green sea lettuce and eelgrass, and a multitude of creatures lurking beneath, crabs clinging tightly, chitons and limpets anchored to the rocks with their muscled feet as if glued, and barnacles literally glued to the rock with their superglue secretions. Thousands of barnacles opened and closed their doors, creating loud, incessant chattering. Anemones aggregated among them wherever they could, filling any remaining space to form a rainbow wall of life, eagerly awaiting the return of their protective blanket of the sea.
We wandered slowly as silent visitors in a world not meant for us, marveling at the lives revealed and soon to be hidden again with the moon’s pull. We were guests to this fragile yet tide- and storm-resistant life rarely exposed to air.
You can’t rush past a tidepool and expect to observe anything more than a collage of rock, barnacle, and seaweed. A tidepool at low tide is in suspended animation, waiting for the tide’s return for protection from the rising heat of the midday sun and from potential predators from the land and air. For a brief time, these intertidal lives are fully exposed and vulnerable. So they hide, and wait.
And soon it began to return. Tides, like time, never linger. A current began to flow inward around the point, gentle at first, but soon picking up speed, gaining strength. Inch by inch, the seawaters rose. All these rocks would once again be under the waves.
We returned to our car via the forest trail, wandering among cathedral trees, a shaded change from the wide-open sea strand below us. Too soon we had arrived back where we had started.
The tide had turned, ebbing and now flowing. Life in the tidepools ebbs and flows. Human lives come and go; history ebbs and flows; the life of the forests comes and goes; even the rocks come and go.
And Life itself flows on.
Directions
Directions: A mile south of the Deception Pass bridge, at Cornet Bay Road, turn into Deception Pass State Park, and follow the signs to North Beach. Valid parking pass required.
By Bus: Island Transit stops on both sides of Highway 20 near Cornet Bay Road.
By Bike: Highway 20 is a high-speed, narrow, winding, hilly road, with a pinch point at the bridge requiring a very fast ride with traffic or walking your bike on the narrow sidewalk with pedestrians difficult to get around.
Mobility: A short trail from the west end of the North Beach parking area is the easiest way to get to the east end of North Beach. Or park at the amphitheater at the west end for a short stroll on grass to the beach's edge. The beach itself is sandy in places, but mostly covered with gravel and large stones.
Republished with permission. Read the original article.