6 Nov 2025
I think I’m finally settling into West Coast time- the sun and I woke up at about the same time today. And since the coffee shop I discovered opens nice and early, I ventured out to find breakfast. No birds today, just some plant-based ones:
Fresh OJ and a muffin:
And since low tide keeps getting later and later, I’ve got several hours to kill, so I wandered along the coast:
Waves seem extra splashy today:
There was a clump of seals taking shelter in this protected cove:
I love when they go all banana-shaped:
Derpy face:
This one was scratching himself:
This one was especially bendy:
This poor guy had a chomp taken out of him:
But he moved as well as the others and didn’t seem to be in pain- hopefully he heals up alright
Look at that face!
I like these guys better than the sea lions- maybe it’s because there are fewer of them, but they are far less stinky than their similar-looking counterparts. But I am worried about the guy with the injured neck I spotted earlier, so I went to see if I could find him.
Not the most uncomfortable spot I’ve seen them sleeping on:
At first, I thought he was dead…
but he did move, so as of right now, he’s hanging in there
The cormorants’ blue under-necks were on full display:
I had been hearing helicopters fairly frequently since I arrived and finally spotted this helicopter on my walk:
Found some delicious gelato:
I settled on a 4-berry sorbet and coffee. Not the most conventional of choices, but I was going to go with just coffee until they kept giving me samples and I realized I made my choice too soon. Coffee is always my go-to, but they had fun flavors like a caramel apple and a pistachio, and this berry, which I had to have more of.
I ran out of things to do, so I wandered down to the tidepools:
it was still a bit early- the tide was still going out and those waves would occasionally crash into the outer pools, but I did spot some very tiny nudibranchs!
Opalescent nudi / Hermissenda opalescens:
This guy was about half the size of a grain of rice- so glad I was able to get a replacement close-up lens!
Look at that little face!!!
and he’s gone:
Another incredibly tiny nudi:
There were several of these little yellow guys in the pool I was searching, but I’m having a hard time telling them apart- I don’t have a nudibranch book for this area (yet):
There were several people clustered around a bigger pool so I wandered over and they showed me all the nudis they found, like this California aglaja / Navanax inermis:
He was seriously active and on the hunt (he preys on other nudis…).
Some sort of little mollusk, with a little snorkel:
Ok, the colors on this one aren’t great, because my light was parked behind the plant he was crawling on, but this new-to-me-nudi is a Polycera atra:
Another yellow guy:
This guy I recognize- he’s a Rostenga pulchra:
Someone mentioned that a Hawkin’s rose had been spotted so I checked out the pool and found this beautiful Okenia rosacea:
He was less active than the guy from the first day, so I was able to get a decent picture of him.
One last nudi for the night, the new-to-me Antiopella barbarensis:
For dinner, I went back to the Taco Stand for some fish tacos:
It was slightly busier than the last time I was here- it took almost 20 minutes to get my food.
Ugh. But my fish tacos were just as tasty as the first one I had, and I was still able to call it an early night.