2008-06-08 McClure To Keyhoe

From FlutterbyNet

On Sunday, June 8th, the low tide was -.7 feet at 9:34. The preceding day it had been something like -1.4 at 8:30, but Bill had a conflict, so we decided to try the hike from McClure's beach to Kehoe Beach, by way of Elephant Cave and the two keyholes. Route directions taken from one of Phil Arnot's books, "Point Reyes - Secret Places and Magic Moments. Tide was -.7 feet at 9:34, we started an hour before (EXIF timestamps are on Pacific Standard Time, not PDT).

Dave holding a starfish that's firmly attached to a mussel

Traversing the first point, this is where it started to feel like we were off the trail and getting a little hairy

Hitting the first tidepool

Elephant Cave, the first section of point that we had to go through by going through the rocks

Elephant Rock, Bill remarked that it was like something Disney would do, except not quite so blatant

At this point I think the tide had just turned. Lisa had just gotten drenched by a big wave, and Charley was back taking pictures and Bill and I were starting to get a little nervous

I went back to find Charley and got distracted by the really cool rock crusted with starfish and anemone that Lisa had been taking pictures of when she got drenched

The rock seam that caused all of those cool rocks earlier, which was what Charley was back looking at

Too late in the season for water

We got to the first keyhole

Really cool tidepool in the first keyhole

Making our way through the keyhole

Most of the starfish were clumped together in the water, this one was lying up dry on a rock, Geoffrey helped it back into the water

The traversal to the second keyhole was kind of hairy, and I was glad to get to it, but when I did it looked small enough that I had a moment of thinking "oh, crap, we're going to have to go out and traverse the point in the water