April 27 – Witty’s Lagoon Regional Park

A cloudy in the morning and sunny in the afternoon day and another short, easy hike.

Witty’s Lagoon is only about 10 minutes west of the campground. It’s mouth to the ocean is very wide and very flat.

We did about 5 1/2 km today. Normally the trail is not a loop but two separate out and back trails on each side of the lagoon. Today however low tide was at 1:20 pm which was right about the time we wanted to get across to the other side.

We did the loop in the clockwise direction. Just after the split in the trail is Sitting Lady Falls.

The trail skirted right along the edge of the lagoon.

We had to watch that we didn’t step on the giant slugs.

We tried to get closer to this one.

But I guess we were too noisy.

Looking back up at Jennie on the bridge.

Our first trillium of the year.

We finally got to a spot where we could carefully climb down to the tidal plain.

We headed out to the rocks to check out any tide pools for critters.

There was a science class doing some research.

One really interesting things we found, that we had never seen before, is this.

It is about a 2 inch circle with a semi transparent sail sticking up. I asked the teacher what it was and she said its scientific name is Vellelum Vellelum. It is the only known species in its genus. It has a great common name, “By The Wind Sailor”.

It floats along the surface being propelled by its sail, eating plankton.

There were lots of anemone. I was hoping to see some sea stars but no.

We sat on the top of the rocks to have lunch.

We worked our way across the flats. We managed to find a spot in the main flow that was shallow enough that it didn’t go over our waterproof hiking shoes.

Looking out across the Strait.

Made it.

We watched these guys surfing in the shallows for a while.

Going, going, almost down.

Then we headed back to the car along the lower section of the trail.

Another great day.