You will need to get up early if you want to explore tide pools and caves in the Summer months on the North Oregon Coast. There are numerous opportunities this year with 20 negative tides in July and 16 in August!
If you look in a tide book the negative tides are usually highlighted in red and it simply means the tides are going to be significantly lower than usual, which exposes beaches and areas you can’t typically get to along with sea life you don’t get to see very often. Memorial Day weekend and the Fourth of July always seem to be when the negative (super low) tides hit, which perfectly coincides with an influx of travelers and explorers.
We met up with some friends in the parking lot in Oceanside at 6:30 this morning then walked North around Maxwell Point hoping to be able to access Lost Boy Beach all the way at the end of the beach. We were ahead of the lowest part of the tide, but the surf action was larger than expected, which made the tide not as forgiving when it came to getting to hidden places. We weren't able to access Lost Boy Beach today (Safety first...too much water rushing around the slippery rocks we needed to climb up on), but there was plenty to see on the side we could reach, so changing plans was just fine.
My husband Kurt (below) did get up on the slippery rocks, but his boots filled with water doing so. He laid his eyes on Lost Boy Beach, but it wasn't safe for all of us to climb up there today.
In my experience a -1.5 tide isn't quite low enough to access Lost Boy for the North (at Short Beach) or South (from Oceanside), rather a -2.0 or greater is needed (-2.2 is ideal, and is also the lowest tide I've ever witnessed.) Today confirmed my theory, though I don't know that I have given up on trying just yet! The beach and sand heights are constantly changing, which does affect where the water goes.
In our hour long adventure this morning, here are a few of the cool things we did see:
There were quite a few sea stars today, which is a good sign. I hope this means they are back in good health and growing in numbers. The sea anemones were plentiful, as well -- big and small, pink and green. 
We found a couple of waste deep tide pools high up on the rocks that were teaming with life. Ryan even found a live crab (a keeper by size if we would have had a bucket) and caught it with his bare hands!
Blog contributed by Wendy Stevens-Mizee, Rob Trost Real Estate
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