Under the dock

Hurrying from the sailboat to the inn for supper, I paused, just a moment, to look down. Everything under that dock is covered with critters.

Plumose anemones, Metridium senile, and a bright red tubeworm.

Hanging on a chain, swaying in the current, a mass of mussels, a starfish eating them, and what looks like legs of at least one crab on the far side.

At the Campbell River docks, in the last few years they have been replacing the old log pilings with metal ones. I used to find many animals down along the logs; anemones, shrimp, crabs, mussels, nudibranchs, sponges, tubeworms, scallops, barnacles, unidentified blobs. And seaweeds, green algae, kelp, red algae, yellow fuzz. On the metal ones, nothing grows. I have peered down the cracks around most of them; they're a bit fatter, and leave less space around them in the dock opening. Nothing moves, nothing attaches itself. They're clean.

On old metal found on the beach, even metal not so old, barnacles and mussels find a home. On the chain above, all metal, only the part that is usually out of the water is clean. I'm wondering: are those new metal pilings coated with some wildlife-deterrent chemical agent?

Bit of old ship, Oyster Bay, in a high current area. Seaweeds, barnacles.

The pilings at the Heriot Bay wharf are logs. And they're home to thriving communities. I hope they don't decide to "improve" them.