I’ve added something to my Must-See list for visitors to San Diego in the winter: one of our super-low tides.
Although the local shoreline has low tides (usually two) every day, the lows only get remarkably low when the moon lines up with the sun and Earth. This occurs twice every month, during the moon’s full and new phases. During the winter and summer months, the Earth’s angle of inclination further influences how close we are to the adjoining heavenly bodies, and the lowest tides experience their greatest extremes.
The influence of the Earth’s tilt also explains why our winter extreme lows always occur in the afternoon, while the summer ones almost invariably come at or before dawn. This means winter is when it’s most practical to take advantage of the pleasures the extreme low tides make possible.
One is tidepooling, exploring the shallow rocky pools that serve as home to a host of marine creatures: hermit and other crabs, starfish, octopi, anemones, sea urchins, jellyfish, and a host of mollusks. For a list of good tidepooling locations, see http://www.sdnhm.org/fieldguide/places/tidepooling.html.
Extreme low tides also provide access to some normally inaccessible places. Chief among them are the half-dozen grottoes the waves have sculpted out of the sandstone base of Soledad Mountain, just west of La Jolla Shores Beach. On more than a dozen afternoons between now and the end of February, it will be possible to walk into them and enjoy the earthy smells, eerie noises, and riveting interplay of shadows and seawater on foot instead of from a sea kayak. To explore these caves, start from the Shores parking lot about 40 minutes before the predicted low point and head southwest. (Beware that winds and other meteorological conditions can alter the predicted lows and highs.)
For the lowest lows (also a great time for hiking or bicycling along local beaches), mark these dates on your calendar: Tuesday, December 21 (about 3:33 p.m.) and Wednesday, December 22 (4:13 p.m.); Sunday and Monday, January 2 and 3 (starting at 2:21 p.m and 2:58 p.m. respectively); Wednesday and Thursday, January 19 and 20 (starting about 3:08 and 3:33 p.m.) To find the where and when of any tide on any particular day in the coastal US and beyond, there’s a nice ap available called USA Tides.
