Botanical Beach

Many things live in the potholes, which is where the beach got its name.

We've been here before when they boys were younger and Baby was a baby.

The weather was much nicer this time; they don't call the area Port Rainfrew for nothing.

We saw small crabs...

... sea urchins, fish, and the shells of many dead creatures.

If you touched the sea anemones, they'd close over and attempt to digest your finger like in a '50s horror movie.

Attack of the 3-inch Sea Anemone!

I don't think it did that well at the box office.

This really brought back memories of the endless games my friends and I played on the shores of the Columbia River.

We watched the hermit crabs attacking each other, trying to take over each other's shells.

They'd get into a scrap and tumble to the bottom of the potholes. Over and over and over again.

Reminds me of my brothers when they were teenagers. Always getting into scraps. Living in shells. Eating algae. Revelstoke is a cool place now, but in the '80s there was about as much to do there as there is in a pothole on an island. At least the hermit crabs don't have mullets.

Calvin brought the boomerang toy he got for his birthday in case he got bored. There was no danger of that, though.

A hermit crab walks into a French bar with a snail on its shell. The bartender tells the crab to leave as they don't serve his kind. "Do you serve snails?" asks the crab, but as the bartender doesn't speak English a fine opportunity for a punchline is lost. The crab leaves with the snail still on its shell, walking into the cruel night to ponder its existence. Fin.

The boys found the remains of a couple of sea urchins, which made for a smelly trip back to Calgary.

Info about the critters we'd seen.

Time to head back.

Unfortunately, we didn't realize until much later that Calvin had left his boomerang at a pothole. But at least now the hermit crabs have something else to do.