Winter Camp Day- Elephant Seal Tour at Ano Nuevo State Park

 01/05/2026- 

What not a better way to kick off the new year than visiting Ano Nuevo for their annual guided elephant seal tour. We had a great tour with windy conditions that ended in torrential rain, singing silly songs and running back to the visitor center! It's always these experiences of intense weather, especially along the coastline that are so special- getting wet and humbled by weather is not only stimulating sensory wise, but also makes going home at the end of the day all the more rewarding after embracing challenging weather. 

Students enjoyed the many sounds the elephant seal pups make, as well as watching a big male enter the beach from the water. This was awesome to see, imagining these amazing creatures returning to this same beach year after year from their migration all the way to Alaska. 

Another awesome part of the tour is the bone viewing at the end- where we get to see and handle bones from different marine animals and guess what bone is what. 

Animals ID- Elephant Seal, Red wing black bird, Pelican, Western Gull 

Nature Camp day: King Tide at Pleasure Point- Sea cucumber, Seastar's, and Nudebranchs

Going to see the marine life in the tide pools revealed by King Tides is one of the most fun and magical ways to enjoy Santa Cruz's beautiful coastline. Today, for our camp day, we arrived at Pleasure Point to view the mornings extreme high tide. Noticing how high the water level is we went on a walk and play time at Anna J Cummings Park as we waited for the tide to drop enough to go tide pooling. There are some beautiful trails beyond the soccer fields, that give amazing views of Santa Cruz and the ocean. We returned to Pleasure Point in the late afternoon, after playing soccer, making yarn weavings, and lunch. 

We had to make a pit stop to see Winston, Pleasure Point's awesome pig that can be found often outside it's home on 37th avenue. 

To our delight we saw a sea cucumber, Seastar, and nudibranch! 

While seeing Seastars are not exactly rare, we could consider ourselves grateful as there's been a major decline in Seastar populations 

https://lookout.co/starfish-sea-star-die-off-uc-santa-cruz-expert-peter-raimondi-on-breakthrough/story

King Tide is always such a special time to appreciate the rhythms of nature in community-- this is one of the many ways people come together in Santa Cruz to enjoy nature and makes me feel so grateful to be in a place where this is happening all the time. You can't help but feel heart warmed after oggling at fun marine creatures with strangers who are just as excited about this cosmic phenomenon as you are. 

Animals ID- California Sea Cucumber, Pig, Snowy Egret, Nudebranch, Seastar