My favorite time on the beach, easily, is during a very low tide, preferably near sunrise. During the summer, twice monthly, the low tide aligns with sunrise, and when it occurs near a full moon, the result is usually a deep minus tide, sometimes as much as -2.5 feet below the mean low tide. When that happens, it's as if the ocean has rolled back, revealing a secret hidden landscape - rocks and low undulations in the sand, all in a broad expanse.
To my eye, the big feature is tide pools, where the receding tide is trapped by the sand, and sits quietly. There are always wonderful patterns in the sand around tide pools.
| At low tide, you can walk all the way out to what is an island the rest of the time. The sand is so flat that if you start walking back when the tide reaches the base of the island, you're walking in water a few inches deep before you reach dry sand. |
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| In some places, the tide pools and sand bars form a maze. |
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| Sometimes the water and sand will polish a rock perfectly smooth. |
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| It's rare that I can make a photo that shows tide pools in process. The circular pool was carved out when the water from the surf (coming from the left) met water flowing from the right (a stream). The incoming wave would always break in the same spot, taking a bit of sand as it got swept away. |
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| On the beach, nothing ever happens in a straight line. Here, as above, the water was channeled along at the place where the gravel meets the sand. |
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