Evening on the beach

I had an unexpected free evening, the last before I became responsible for a demanding kitten, so I went to wander on the shore and watch the light fade. It was raining slightly, off and on; I threw on a jacket, more to shelter the camera than for me.

While there was still light, I scrambled down to the water's edge and peered under rocks. Down in the tidepools, crabs scuttled away at my approach, tidepool sculpins dashed out of cover, and then froze, trying for invisibility in plain sight, not very successfully.

Random shot from a precarious, slippery balancing stone. I count 9 stripy sculpins here.

In the shade of the larger rocks, a pink encrusting growth covered many surfaces.

Pink encrusting algae, limpets, plumose anenomes, hermit crabs, snails, and sea urchins. If you look closely, you can find tiny orange specks; spiral calcareous tubeworms, feeding.

The pink encrusting algae, and a deeper red crust. I think the greenish sections are older patches of the red.

An assortment of red algae, including one iridescent species, growing higgledy-piggledy together. The little dotted lines are hermit crab antennae.

The rain picked up; I headed back to the top of the beach, close to shelter. The rain stopped.

Cloudy sky, looking north from Big Rock. 7:34 PM.

Looking east to the mountain peaks on the mainland. 8PM.

An orange glow just before the light fades. 8:15 PM.

And then it was raining again. But I'd found the remains of a driftwood fire, still glowing under the logs, and stayed to feed it until the wood was too wet.

Let it rain!

A Skywatch post.

(This was a difficult post: Chia doesn't understand why she shouldn't be helping with the typing.)