Fitzgerald Marine Reserve

Ford is rediscovering the coast and he asks to go back, time and again, to Santa Cruz. However, I’ve blissfully started introducing him to different shoreline habitats and today I figured was the perfect time to indulge myself, and the kids, in a low tide experience along the rocky surf at Moss Beach. I’d actually never been before. As it turns out, the park is a refuge for the Harbor Seal, who swims between this beach and the harbor, in lower Moss Beach; and, during low tides, this is the safest refuge for them to rest, atop the black rock that crops up through the crest of low tide. In fact, the rangers set up construction cones around the rim of the beach to give the seals privacy. Otherwise, they might flee the beach and swim to exhaustion, unable to find the refuge they need anywhere else along this shoreline.
We had just reached the beach, at the end of a short trail, when the camera battery died.

Ford was so anxious to recall what we saw today once we returned to the hotel. He quickly synopsed the visit with a drawing of his favorite finds (which deserved better light when I took this photo, but this will have to do):

With a stick, we had turned over an organism in the sand that resembled an enormous, wide cow tongue. On the underside of the orange beast, a flat foot with a central groove, in the shape of a U. On the backside, a row of partially hidden plates under thick hide-like orange flesh. A chiton relative? A grapefruit from outer space? Actually, I was right: Cryptochiton or Gumboot chiton (named after the color and texture of its flesh). Way cool, but also very dead and intensely rank. Next!:

Ford’s favorite of the day: the Green Sea Anemone. He discovered that he could stick his finger into the flowery nubbins and make them close up, squirting water out in a tiny little stream clear up to his nose. Very entertaining, he did this for the longest time until the tide started swallowing us. But not before we investigated Turban snails and rescued a parching Pisaster.