Thank Your Lucky (Sea) Stars

Westport, California
July 2025

Every day—almost all day—throughout July, we camped along the Pacific Coast of California under fog and clouds. Thick, heavy skies and morning mist brought cool temperatures. Overnight, everything developed a dripping coat of water condensed from the moist air.

An exceptional low tide was predicted for the early morning of our last day at Westport-Union State Park Campground. Arriving shortly before sunrise, I found the beach strewn with boulders and tide pools. The scene was dim with mist, the light struggling to push through the dense clouds. It was beautiful, magical, and quiet. I was mostly alone.

Whole alien worlds were exposed on the sides of rocks usually immersed in rhythmically moving water. I wandered from rock to rock, pool to pool, in awe and utter amazement. Large, colorful, succulent sea stars clung to rocks—and to each other. Sea anemones withdrew their tentacles and often hung limp and still. Mussels, barnacles, and a multitude of shallow-water plants sprouted from solid stone.

By the way, I call them “sea stars,” not “starfish,” because that’s the scientific community’s preferred name. After all, they’re not fish—nowhere close. But they are definitely stars.

I was happy to see such abundance, since not long ago—around 2013—their population along the California coast was decimated by a wasting disease. They would simply melt away into goo. Twenty different species of sea stars were affected. As one marine biologist said, “It felt like a sea star apocalypse.”
For years I saw none at all. But gradually they have returned—large, robust, and strong. The culprit in the disease was eventually identified as a bacterium called Vibrio pectenicida. No one is certain where it came from—whether it was always part of the ecosystem or introduced from somewhere else.

Find the opportunity to go tide-pooling, if you can. You might discover a new amazing world.