-5.6 Tidepooling at Dimond Creek with the Wise Family

We tried something new today. We hiked to the beach at Dimond Creek to do our tide pooling. We picked up Priscilla and took the hike down (10 minutes) and arrived just as the tide was really starting to move out. The tide pooling is good down below Hidden Lane when you take the path down to the beach from Ocean Shores Motel. But there are other people there. When you go to Dimond Creek there is no one. It was fantastic solitude for me. I loved it because of the quiet, the hundreds of squirting clams, the enormous hermit crab I spotted, and the fantastic anemones and sea stars that were everywhere. Marina liked it because she was able to rescue many tiny starfish that got left behind in the rush of our moving inlet tide. Falcom was not crazy about it because there was not a gunnel fish under every rock. However, he loved going down there because of this high risk recreation activity that he could participate in. If you look closely you will see Falcom, mid way down the hill. How did our mothers ever let us climb around in Yosemite? Reba McIntyre will not be singing a song about learning to fear all things from her mother about me!

Next time I'll bring Xanex.

And then there was the delightful Maya Wise, who is really quick to catch on to things. For instance, she watched the boys make one marshmallow and was right onto that. You could almost read and translate her thoughts, "Fire, stick, poke, good..."She tromped around the place endlessly, followed by mom, grandma, and yours truly.

This is my favorite picture from the day...

Right for the water. She was destined for our clan! I had to hold her over the water so she could touch it. Irene and I had a long moment where we both looked into each others eyes, holding the same memory dearly. It was the first time she and I met. It was late March, early April 2001. We had each gone to the beach with our then nearly two year old boys Riley and Falcom. Both boys were donned in snow suits and headed for each other as boys and puppies do. Both boys were also running straight for the tinkling waves. The conversation was broken and quick and went something like this:

I: "Your son looks like some of my cousins."

A: "Really? He is Pohnpeian heritage."

I: "My dad is Guamanian."

A: "You mean Chamorro?"

I: "You know who the Chamorro's are?"

A: "We took a two year hiatus and went to Saipan and now we are back."

I: "My husband grew up here, and we just moved back."

A: "My husband works at the hospital."
I: "So does mine!"

It was at this point that Falcom went face first into the ocean. I stripped him naked, wrapped my jacket around him, threw him over my shoulder and started hiking back up to the car shouting... "Hope to see you again soon!"

And now look at us. Four kids climbing and sliding down a hillside, and a new baby headed straight for the water...