As long as the cameras stay dry ...

(Edgewater beach series, cont...)

It's a good thing the water was so clear. What we would have missed, otherwise!

Under an inch or two of water, visibility was even better than out in the air where the sunlight faded the colours and dazzled our poor cameras.

Purple shore crab, Hemigrapsus nudus, half-submerged. Love the purple-spotted pincers!

Laurie, in pursuit of a swimming nudibranch.

Above the water level, the anemones wait for the tide to come in curled in upon themselves. Some are barely visible under the sand, others have burrowed themselves into deep holes in the rock. Underwater, they blossom out.

Pink-tipped green anemone, opening up.

Pink and green anemones, looking for dinner.

Close-up of the wall of the anemone's column. Frilled all the way down.

Another column.

If the water had not been clear, I would have missed these, in ankle-deep water. I was walking out to a distant rock, on sand. I looked down to check my footing where I had to cross a few rocks, and saw that I had been walking on a living carpet. Sorry about that.

I think these are aggregating anemones. They are smaller than the pink and green ones, no taller than the pile of a shag rug. (Remember those? These would have made a good 1960s pattern.)

If the water had been any less transparent, we would have missed this:

Melibe leonina, the hooded nudibranch, swimming. Her shadow stands out more than she does.

The wide-open, traslucent mouth of a Melibe, with body and cerata following along behind. The yellowish green floater is one of those seaweed "blobs".

I saw one of these, and Laurie got two. They're the first live ones we've found since we first discovered one in Maplewood Flats, five years ago.

Yay! for clear water!

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