Sariah's Corner of the World

We loved our trip to Oregon so much that I have to share some more.......

Our first day there we went to the aquarium.  It was so interesting!  The amazingly beautiful jellyfish, sharks, seals and huge spider crabs......but in my opinion, one of the most memorable exhibits was the tide pool area where we were able to touch everything and marvel at the colors and textures of these strange creatures.

Afterwards, we visited a lighthouse that was very beautiful but was being infested with kelp flies that afternoon.  It about drove us "buggy"!

Torsten took a nice picture of the misty coast from the penisula.

We explored the tidepools in the cove near the lighthouse and it was so exciting to make discoveries of our own, after seeing the creatures at the aquarium.  

Tiny crabs....

Strange creatures that I'd never seen before......  This one that Taylor and I were examining looked like ancient dinosaur feet on the end of thick stems.  I found out later it is a type of barnacle.

A cute little seal.......

The boys used their new GoPro camera to take this underwater video of an anemone.  Let's see if my clip works.....

Now, the tide pools we found the next day, in a different area, were AMAZING, just dripping with starfish, anemones, urchins and large crabs.  It was very close to dusk when we went out, because that was when the minus tide was the lowest, so the lack of light wasn't good for pictures but it was wonderful for discovering . We were picking our way around the rocks and reefs with only 2 flashlights for 5 people which made for a lot of excitement but not much safety.  Next time, I would like to plan our trip around the tide so that we are there when extra low tide happens in the day instead of the night. We had 2 night/dark tidepooling expeditions during our stay and it made me a little nervous.