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