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Monterey tidepooling tips
Get outside and explore delightful tide pools along the coast. Here are our best tips to make your excursion a success.
Winter is an exciting time to explore Monterey Bay’s beaches. Storms passing over the Pacific Ocean combined with seasonally extreme tides can create the ideal conditions for beachcombing. But before you go out adventuring, always remember to be prepared!
During winter months, powerful storms sweep across the Pacific Ocean often bringing several days of rain and strong winds to California’s central coast. This driving wind energy also creates ocean swell, generating large waves that crash along the coastline. The pounding surf scours and rips off most anything attached to the rocks, including algae (or seaweed), mussels, and limpets, both above and below the surface of the water.
The shoreline is also affected by water running off the land, as each successive storm sends torrents of rainwater down streams, rivers, and storm drains. Eventually, this muddy rainwater makes its way into the ocean, carrying its accumulated contents along with it, like wood debris and trash.
Winter storms often bring large waves that crash along the Monterey Bay coastline. The pounding surf can rip off animals and algae that were attached to the rocks and wash them ashore.
Wintertime is also when we experience the most extreme fluctuation in the tides along the Central Coast. Earth’s tides are influenced by the gravitational pull of the sun and moon, and is generally strongest during new and full moons, when the Earth, moon, and sun are all in alignment.
Because the moon's also generally closest to the Earth in its rotation in winter, we typically see our highest (and in turn, our lowest) tide heights of the year. The changes are most dramatic during king tides, when we experience the greatest difference between the highest high tide and lowest low tide of the day. Sometimes, the tidal exchange can be more than eight feet!
During high tide, much of what’s been churned up by waves and turbulent waters from the storms gets deposited high up on the shoreline. As the water recedes, some of this material remains behind, while the rest gets carried back toward the ocean. Over time, this creates “bathtub rings,” or lines of marine debris and materials on the shore.
High tides bring what’s been churned up underwater and ripped off rocks and deposits them high up on the beach. As the tide recedes, lines of marine debris containing snail and mussel shells are left behind.
These tide lines often contain the treasures we seek while beachcombing. What washes up depends on the combination of weather and tides, but also the nearby underwater environment.
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You may not be the only one enjoying the bounty on the beaches. Many species of migratory shorebirds stop on Central Coast beaches to take advantage of low tides to snag a sand crab or small clam, or use their long bills to investigate kelp wrack in search of insects.
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Sometimes, all of the increased ocean energy can wash up some unexpected items, like this whale skull.
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On stretches of the bay where the beach and adjoining undersea habitats are sandy, you may find sand dollar tests, clam shells, sand crabs, or remnants of other animals that bury themselves in the sand
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Near the mouths of rivers, you may find more wood debris that’s washed down from inland forests.
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If you’re exploring adjacent to rocky shores, you’ll generally find molluc shells from mussels, snails, and scallops. The strong surges rip them off rocks, and huge amounts can accumulate on the beach.
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You might also find different types of kelp, including giant kelp, bull kelp, and sea palms. Often, the weakened stalks are broken or ripped off, but sometimes you can also find the holdfast that these algae use to anchor themselves to the rocks. Look closely and you’ll find an entire ecosystem contained within!
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You can also come across the white, shell-like skeletons of coralline algae – red algaes that build calcium skeletons. All of the dead and dying material becomes essential food for scavengers like beach hoppers – small crustaceans that burrow into the sand and feast on kelp and other organic material at night. The piles of decaying kelp also support beetles, flies, and other insects.
And that’s part of the joy of a beachcombing adventure. You never know what you’ll find!
Our team visited Sunset State Beach in January 2024 to see what had washed up after a winter storm — look what we found!
If you’re interested in checking out what Monterey Bay’s beaches have to offer in the winter, remember to be prepared!
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Get outside and explore delightful tide pools along the coast. Here are our best tips to make your excursion a success.
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King tides are the most extreme tides of the year. They make the California coastline even more dramatic with especially high and low water levels.
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Take a tidepooling adventure with us — without getting your toes wet.
Wallpaper
Download a beautiful, high-resolution Monterey Bay king tides wallpaper for your desktop or mobile device.