Our trip Part 2

On day three we drove out to Cape Perpetua to see the tide pools at low tide. We saw tons of typical critters such as sea stars, sea cucumbers, anenomes, urchins, crabs, mollusks, and other such creatures,



but the coolest thing was catching a glimpse of an otter playing around in the pools like the one pictured right. Julie hiked up one of the basalt rock hills and screamed "otter" when she saw it. It surprised her and she surprised it. I managed to see it briefly, munching down on a sea star, as it clampered over the next rock out of sight. Unfortunately, neither of us got a picture.



As the tide went out, we were able to scramble down off the rocks and actually get down to beach level. This is what it looked like as the tide was coming back in from a viewpoint 800 feet above the rocks. (You can click on any photo to see an enlarged picture for greater detail).

and this is what it looked like at low tide when we climbed off the rocks.


As you can see, there was a great

difference in the tide level that day.