01 / CNIDARIAKELP FRINGE
Beadlet anemone
Actinia equina
Soft as a flower, armed like weather. Its 192 tentacles tuck inward within a breath when shadow or touch signals danger.
- Grip
- Basal disc
- Seen
- Pool A–17
Kelp Point / 44°38′12″ N / Daily field record 218
Life waits
between
the tides.
Welcome to the narrow, astonishing world that is underwater twice a day. Our naturalists have watched this ledge since 1936.
Enter the living pools↓
Living specimen / pool A–17
Live
Try your finger.
The anemones feel you coming.
Living pool ready. No contact recorded.
018cm
LOW WATER 14:42WIND WSW 9 KTPOOL A–17 12.8°CVISIBILITY 8 MLOW WATER 14:42WIND WSW 9 KTPOOL A–17 12.8°CVISIBILITY 8 M
01
Tide laboratory
A coast that breathes
Turn the tide.
Six hours pass in one sweep. Drain the shore to reveal the high ledge, mussel belt, and kelp fringe—or let station time advance on its own.
LOW+ 3 HOURSHIGH
Active shore band
Spray ledge
2 species exposed
Scrub the six-hour cycle. Leave it and the tide resumes after a moment.
SPRAY LEDGELichens · periwinkles
BARNACLE LINEAcorn barnacles · limpets
MUSSEL BELTMussels · dogwhelks
KELP FRINGEAnemones · crabs · kelp
WATERLINE · +3:00
Move field loupe · click to pin
Field loupe ready at the barnacle line.
02
Field identification
Residents, not visitors
Meet the
holdfasts.
Every shape here is an answer to impact: grip, seal, bend, hide. Six neighbours from Kelp Point’s 418 recorded species.
02 / MOLLUSCABARNACLE
Blue-rayed limpet
Patella pellucida
A thumbnail of blue electricity. It grazes a private track into the rock, returning to the same home scar before exposure.
- Clamp
- 75 newtons
- Length
- 14 mm
03 / CRUSTACEAKELP FRINGE
Long-clawed hermit
Pagurus longicarpus
Tenant, scavenger, shell critic. Juniper—the station’s marked crab—has moved house eleven times since April.
- Shell
- Dogwhelk
- Tag
- J–14
04 / MOLLUSCAMUSSEL
Blue mussel
Mytilus edulis
One thread is delicate; a hundred become architecture. Byssus cables make living reefs from an otherwise bare wall.
- Age
- 18–24 years
- Filter
- 3 L / hour
05 / ECHINODERMATAKELP FRINGE
Common sunstar
Crossaster papposus
Thirteen arms, 1,400 tube feet, and no hurry. A top predator dressed in the station’s brightest orange.
- Span
- 31 cm
- Observed
- 06:18
06 / OCHROPHYTAFRINGE
Serrated wrack
Fucus serratus
A flexible forest anchored by one fierce button. Its fronds soften waves for the smaller lives beneath.
- Reach
- 1.8 m
- Holdfast
- Perennial
Drag across the specimen tray →
03
From the ledge
Pages salt-stiffened
Today’s
field notes.
Every survey leaves a trace: pencil, measurement, a small surprise. These are fresh from the station’s yellow logbook.
10 July · transect 4
The patient return of Juniper
At 06:31, crab J–14 abandoned the chipped topshell we marked in May. She inspected three vacancies, backed into a banded dogwhelk, then carried both old and new homes for six minutes—as if unwilling to commit.
The exchange happened just below the mussel line while the pool was still. We marked the new shell with a single coral dot.
Fog lifted cleanly
Visibility opened from 400 m to eight kilometres in fourteen minutes. Spray ledge already warm.
Thirty-seven stars
Juvenile sunstars clustered under the north shelf—our highest July count since 2019.
“The best instrument on the shore is a still hand.”
— Training card, 195404
Stewardship ledger
A little patch of ocean
Adopt
a pool.
Support one square metre through a full season. Your tidepool gets mapped monthly; your field card carries every new arrival.
KELP POINT / NORTH PLATFORM
AvailableUnder watch
CURRENT SEASON · JUL—OCT
Choose your pool
Your field seasonPool A–17
Monthly support€18
Includes four hand-written survey cards, hydrophone clips, and a spring equinox station visit. 84% funds field hours.