No flying monkeys . . . just decked out in a witch’s neoprene and bearing abalone floats. These abalone divers on the Mendocino coast were part of a swarm — yes swarm — of divers, foraging in pools laid bare by the low tide.
Encounters With [the Elusive] California Beach Hopper
California Beach Hopper or Megalorchestia californiana As fleas go, they’re giants. Not giants in the sense of Bikini-Atoll-nuclear-mutant-gone-bad giants. But by flea standards, they’re positively huge — about 1 inch long. That’s probably because they’re not parasitic dog or cat fleas, but rather, amphipods — shrimp-like creatures who dine on organic matter at the outer…
Splendor in the Low Tide
An homage to Warren and Natalie — in title alone. There’s photographic magic in the sun rising over a super-low tide. At the point where dawn meets a -2.0, the strange, the stunning, the predictable and the chaotic all converge on that plane of tide pools, mudflats, and beach hopper burrows. One of my favorite…
