The cold, clean waters in the oceans surrounding Vancouver Island, provide the greatest diversity of Marine life in North America, “second only to the Red Sea”, according to Jacques Cousteau!
Of course the best way to explore the amazing variety of marine life around us would be to don a wetsuit and hop on in for a dive. However, there is an easier method to view our fantastic sea life, that we at Rainforest Tours happily and frequently engage in – and that’s exploring tidepools. Something that involves very little immersion into the cold ocean – if any at all.
The sheer amount and diversity abundant in this regions tidepools is astounding. Nudibranches, sponges, seastars, sculpins, seaweeds, anemones, urchins – the list of amazing life we see at our fingertips is endless.
From cloning anemone colonies to kelp that can grow over 5 feet in just one day – there is so much hiding in tidepools that it really is easy to spend an entire day just staring into these magical pools. The longer you look, the more you see. A kelp crab so well disguised that although he is sitting just inches blow your nose in a pool, you would never have noticed him if he didn’t suddenly shoot a claw out looking for a tasty morsel, large gumboot chittons that look like 20 inch rubber stones moving slowly along the shore, walls of seaweed throwing off blue and green iridescents, a giant green and lumniscent anemone hogging the entire bottom of a deep round pool…it’s all magical.
You’ll just have to come see for yourself!