Carpinteria State Beach

We often have visitors who have never visited a tide pool before. Here are a few tips on getting ready to visit a tide pool.

Purple Sea Urchins can occasionally be spotted in the tide pools at Carpinteria State Beach. These animals have an average lifespan of 20 years and feast primarily on algae. Their regenerative capabilities are being used to research Alzheimer's treatments.

A high and low tide are separated by a little more than 6 hours. The height of a high and low tide can vary considerably. This video captures a "King Tide", king tides are marked by extremely dramatic heights. In this case it is a 7ft high tide and a -1.6ft low tide.

A sighting of a masked bandit at Carpinteria Creek. Raccoons are typically thought of as forest animals but their extreme intelligence and high adaptability allow them to live quite comfortably near our campgrounds.

In winter strong storms remove much of the sand along the beach exposing more rocks and in our case, tar. Much of this sand is later pushed back up on the beach during the more peaceful waves of summer. However, dams on land stop new soil from being eroded onto the beach and submarine canyons underwater along with peaceful harbors become sink holes for sand. Pulling sand up from underwater, called dredging, is costly but it does ensure that we continue to have sandy beaches.

I guess we are lucky! Yesterday we posted about the Chumash Walnut Shell Dice game. The Oakbrook Chumash Indian Museum posted a video on how to play the game just yesterday. Check it out to learn how to play.

Feeling lucky? The Chumash walnut dice game, known as "pi", was played with six half walnut shells. Tar was used to fill in the empty shell and crushed seashells were added as decoration. Players would either choose odds or evens and the walnut dice would be cast several times. The walnut dice could either land with the decorated side up or with the rounded side up. If the rounded side up number was even, the even player won.

Last New Year's Day we enjoyed our traditional First Day Hike. While not able to offer an organized hike this year we hope you are still able to find ways to connect with your local trails safely.

The rain yesterday was a welcome sight! However, these first storms often bring a lot of pollution to the shoreline. The Santa Barbara Channel Keepers help keep our beaches healthy. We are so lucky to have such amazing organizations in our area.