West Seattle beaches: Starry, starry tide at Cove Park

Under the pilings alongside Cove Park, the pocket beach north of the Fauntleroy ferry dock, we were “seeing stars” at the tide’s lowest point about an hour and a half ago. We went to Cove Park because soon it will be off-limits for two years of pump-station work. Our favorite sight: The tracks made by a small sun star:

If you watched the star itself, you could barely tell it was moving, but the tracks in the wet sand showed its progress added up (a handy thought for those projects that seem to take forever). Tomorrow afternoon’s low tide will be almost as low as today.

Lura Ercolano May 7, 2012 (3:36 pm)

“then we won’t see minus-3-foot tides till much later this year (by which time, they’ll be nighttime low tides instead of daytime).”
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Actually, we’ll have minus 3-foot daytime tides June 3-6 and July 2-4. Full moons around the summer equinox give us the really low daytime tides, and full moons around the winter equinox give us really low night tides.

WSB May 7, 2012 (3:50 pm)

Honestly, I read the entire tide chart. But I have reason to NOT doubt you. No time to go back and re-read but I’ll just remove that line. Thanks – TR

DF May 7, 2012 (4:11 pm)

You’re right to trust Lura. The tide charts are sometimes confusing because the daytime low will jump from column to column depending on whether the lowest low tide of the day is the first or second low tide after midnight. When the 24-hour low is after noon, it typically shows up as the second one of the day (second low-tide column), roughly 12 hours after the first (more modest one) in the middle of the spring/summer night.

Laurie May 7, 2012 (5:34 pm)

All I know is, I should have played hooky from work today. Thank you for the gorgeous photos!

raincity May 7, 2012 (7:45 pm)

Great pictures! The star fish at the piling are really tangled up!

sunset May 8, 2012 (8:03 am)

Nice pictures! The second one looks like a ‘sunflower star,’ the largest kind of sea star.
‘Sun stars’ are different species. They aren’t as fuzzy on top and they don’t grow as many legs as the sunflower star.
http://www.oregontidepooling.com/tidepooling_on_the_southe/sea_stars_1/

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