December 31, 2009: Rachel and Jason came to Seattle for their third annual winter Pac NW trip. Well, third annual winter trip, fourth trip overall for J, fifth trip overall for Rachel if you are counting.
For New Year's Eve, I wanted us to do something different, so found a low tide walk put on through the city at Me Kwa Mooks Beach.
This thing is a Moon Snail. It is rather horrifying. First of all, when that brain-looking part to the right is fully out, it is about 1.5 times the size of the shell. It's like the shell is a TARDIS or something. And it's even more brain-like when fully exposed.
But wait, it gets worse. From wikipedia: "The powerful foot enables this gastropod to plow under the sand in search of other mollusks. Upon finding one, it 'drills' a hole into the shell with its radula, releases digestive enzymes, and sucks out the somewhat predigested contents."
As Rachel likes to quote from Homestar: Jibblies!
We saw about a zillion of these Ochre Sea Stars (Pisaster ochraceus), although most were purple like the one in the next shot, not pale salmon like this one. I really should have put my foot in the photo for some scale, but since I didn't, you'll have to take my word for it: they were big! Like dinner plate or even charger plate big. Big.
Both Rachel and I felt these flash photos in the dark with the glisteny sea bed have a very Terry Richardson feeling. And R thought this one was the most Terry Richardson because this star looks like it's just lost all its self-respect.
As mentioned, most of the sea stars were this color.
I somehow got a bee in my bonnet to be worried that people were going to step on them. I kept nervously hovering near the sea stars, waving my flashlight over them until the group of folks also saw and circumnavigated.
I am not sure I really needed to be concerned, though, since they can regenerate missing bits. J noticed this one had six arms and the naturalist guide noted that he thought one of them had been damaged and so it had already grown back an extra one.
We also saw several of these Mottled Sea Stars (Evasterias troschelli).
Not pictured but also seen were many red rock crabs, piddocks (bivalve mollusks that energetically squirt water out when they retreat into their shells), little green shrimp, a shag-rug nudibranch (pronounced, to my surprise, "nudibrank;" it looks like a slug covered with, as you might have guessed, a bit of shag), an octopus, brittle star (like a very very very skinny sea star), anemones, one GIANT jellyfish (bigger than dinner plate) and probably some other stuff I forgot. A pretty awesome NYE. It even stopped raining for most of the time we were out there.