The whole crew shows up when the water leaves.
Tidings
Everything happening at the water line, and everyone worth learning it from: guided low-tide walks and harvest classes, art and photography workshops, aquariums and marine science centers, university marine labs and aquaculture programs, plus the farms, kitchens and festivals that grew out of all of it. Dated events are scheduled against a real tide — tap through to the spot on the map to see the window for that day. Below the calendar, filter the directory by state and by what's actually offered.
Sep 20 – Sep 26
- Walks
- Classes
- Art
- Aquarium
- Festival
- Food
Sun
20
Open tide
Mon
21
Open tide
Tue
22
Open tide
Wed
23
Open tide
- Today
Thu
24
Fri
25
Open tide
Sat
26
People we send you to
TideEx tells you when the water leaves. These are the folks worth spending that window with — walk guides, art and photo workshops, aquariums and marine science centers, university labs and aquaculture programs, farms and kitchens, up and down the Washington, Oregon and California coast. Filter by state, by what they offer, or both. No sponsorships here; just people whose work we actually follow.
Guides & gatherings
The people running walks, classes and festivals on this coast. If you want to learn to read a beach with someone who already knows it, start here.
The crew behind TideEx. Scheduled 90-minute walks at Camano Island State Park, Constellation Park at Alki, Fort Ebey and other Salish Sea beaches — tidepool look-and-learn where harvest is closed, and licensed seaweed harvest where it isn't. Every walk is booked against a real tide; upcoming dates are on the calendar above.
- Guided walks
- Classes & workshops
Alanna guides tidepool and seaweed-foraging walks on the Oregon Coast, plus workshops on coastal ecology, responsible harvest and the culinary side of seaweed. Our first recommendation for anyone heading south of the Columbia.
- Guided walks
- Classes & workshops
- Farms & kitchens
A free annual gathering celebrating seaweed's culinary, ecological and cultural life — kelp farmers, phycologists, chefs, artists and restoration crews in one place. Founded 2020; the 7th annual festival is set for October 24, 2026 at Old Custom House Plaza in Monterey.
- Festivals & events
- Classes & workshops
- Art & photo workshops
- Farms & kitchens
The public education arm of Heal the Bay, tucked under the Santa Monica Pier — local tidepool and Santa Monica Bay species, touch tanks, and the clearest introduction to Southern California nearshore life we know of.
- Aquariums & science centers
- Classes & workshops
Artists & documentarians
People making work about kelp, water and the low-tide edge. Their images are half the reason we care about this coastline.
Marine scientist and artist making cyanotypes and alternative-process photographic work from kelp and seaweed she free-dives for herself. Her Blue Forest series is a record of California's kelp forests as much as it is art.
- Art & photo workshops
- Classes & workshops
Wildlife, adventure and portrait photographer, National Geographic certified photo instructor with Lindblad Expeditions. Grew up in Huntington Beach, worked whale-watching boats and dove the Channel Islands as a divemaster.
- Art & photo workshops
- Classes & workshops
Soulful Freediving
Southern California — Catalina, La Jolla, Laguna Beach, Channel Islands
Grace Peterson · freediving courses, underwater film photography & somatic workshops
Grace Peterson's soulful, non-competitive approach to freediving, grounded in ecopsychology, somatic practice and ocean therapy. Day courses pair a 1.5-hour safety and technique session with an hour in the kelp (max 3 people, $350), underwater film photo sessions run $250 per roll, and land-based somatic workshops are $150 per person. Sessions are booked by request around ocean conditions.
- Classes & workshops
- Art & photo workshops
Paintings drawn straight from saltwater and shoreline. Instagram is the current home of the work; a direct site link is on our list to add.
- Art & photo workshops
For everyone who has peeled off a wetsuit in a parking lot in February. Dive and cold-water culture, posted where it lives — on Instagram.
- Art & photo workshops
Farms & kitchens
Where the harvest actually goes. Aquaculture done carefully, and cooks who treat local seafood and seaweed like the ingredient it is.
One of only two red abalone farms supplying most farmed abalone in the U.S., raising abalone for the table while contributing animals and know-how to kelp forest and white abalone restoration work.
- Farms & kitchens
A small seafood-forward spot on Main Street built around sustainably sourced fish, crudo, natural wine and tinned fish — proof that a light-touch supply chain can also be the best thing on the block.
- Farms & kitchens
Molly Steele hand-harvests Pacific Coast sea vegetables and sells them through Bunny Mollusk — wild, sustainably gathered seaweed with a real ethic behind how and where it's cut. Shop the harvest and read her notes on the season at bunnymollusk.world.
- Farms & kitchens
- Guided walks
Marine science centers & aquariums
Public aquariums, university marine labs and community science centers on this coast. Most run beach walks, touch tanks, volunteer monitoring or summer courses — the easiest on-ramp from "I like tidepools" to actually knowing what you're looking at.
Port Townsend Marine Science Center
Fort Worden State Park, Port Townsend, WA
Aquarium, natural history exhibit & citizen science
A small, fiercely good science center on the pier at Fort Worden — touch tanks fed straight from Admiralty Inlet, a natural history exhibit with a full orca skeleton, low-tide beach walks, plankton monitoring and forage fish surveys that anyone can join. If you want to see what citizen science looks like when it's done right, go here.
- Aquariums & science centers
- Classes & workshops
- Guided walks
The Salish Sea in cross-section — Puget Sound fish, a habitat beach exhibit, kelp and octopus, plus summer beach naturalist programs that put trained volunteers on Seattle's low-tide beaches.
- Aquariums & science centers
- Classes & workshops
MaST Center Aquarium (Highline College)
Redondo Beach, Des Moines, WA
Marine Science & Technology Center
Highline College's teaching aquarium out on the Redondo pier — 250+ local species pulled from the water below it, free Saturday openings, dive-team collections and student research on south Puget Sound.
- Aquariums & science centers
- Academic programs
- Classes & workshops
Touch tanks and Strait of Juan de Fuca species on the Port Angeles waterfront, with school programs and a growing role in the Olympic Peninsula's shoreline monitoring network.
- Aquariums & science centers
- Classes & workshops
Western Washington University's marine science outpost on Liberty Bay — aquarium, hands-on labs, kids' programs and summer camps focused on Hood Canal and north Sound life.
- Aquariums & science centers
- Classes & workshops
Eelgrass, estuary and mudflat country north of Camano — a free interpretive center, an upland trail and a shore trail across one of the largest eelgrass beds on the West Coast, plus estuary science programs and volunteer monitoring.
- Aquariums & science centers
- Classes & workshops
- Guided walks
University of Washington's marine station — intensive summer field courses in invertebrate zoology, phycology and marine botany that are open to undergrads, grads and, in some cases, motivated adult learners.
- Academic programs
- Classes & workshops
Yaquina Bay's big aquarium — Oregon nearshore habitats, seabird aviary, and tidepool programs that pair well with the reefs at Yaquina Head and Seal Rock.
- Aquariums & science centers
- Classes & workshops
Oregon State's marine research campus with a free public visitor center — wave tanks, octopus, tsunami exhibits and direct contact with the researchers doing the region's fisheries and aquaculture work.
- Aquariums & science centers
- Academic programs
- Classes & workshops
The public face of the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology — aquaria of south-coast species, whale skeletons and a research collection, steps from some of Oregon's best low-tide reef.
- Aquariums & science centers
- Academic programs
Volunteer interpreters on the sand at every good summer low tide at Haystack Rock — puffins overhead, anemones and ochre stars underfoot, and the clearest example of managed public tidepool access in the Northwest.
- Guided walks
- Classes & workshops
One of the oldest aquariums on the West Coast (1937), and the crew that responds to and documents north-coast strandings and unusual beach wrack — worth a follow even if you never walk in the door.
- Aquariums & science centers
Catalina Island Marine Institute (CIMI)
Toyon Bay, Fox Landing & Cherry Cove, Catalina Island, CA
Residential marine science programs
Live-aboard-the-island marine science for school groups and families — snorkel labs in the kelp, night snorkels, plankton tows and marine biology taught in the water rather than the classroom.
- Classes & workshops
- Aquariums & science centers
The marine program on Catalina's Emerald Bay — snorkel and SCUBA certification, marine biology merit-badge-level coursework and kelp forest ecology taught from a protected cove on the island's west end.
- Classes & workshops
USC Wrigley Marine Science Center
Big Fisherman Cove, Two Harbors, Catalina Island, CA
Research station & kelp restoration
USC's island research station — kelp forest ecology, aquaculture and ocean acidification research, hyperbaric chamber, and the base for much of the science behind Southern California kelp restoration.
- Academic programs
A Frank Gehry-designed aquarium devoted entirely to Southern California marine life, with guided tidepool walks at Point Fermin, grunion run nights and one of the best public invertebrate collections in the state.
- Aquariums & science centers
- Guided walks
- Classes & workshops
Big-format Pacific aquarium with strong programming on kelp forests, seaweed aquaculture and climate resilience, plus lectures and film nights that regularly feature working scientists.
- Aquariums & science centers
- Classes & workshops
Scripps' public aquarium above La Jolla Cove — a two-story kelp forest tank, seadragon breeding program and direct pipeline to the oceanography being done down the hill.
- Aquariums & science centers
- Academic programs
- Classes & workshops
The kelp forest exhibit that taught most of us what a kelp forest is, plus sea otter research, Seafood Watch and a research program that shapes how the whole coast thinks about nearshore health.
- Aquariums & science centers
- Classes & workshops
UCSC's Long Marine Laboratory public center on the bluff at Natural Bridges — blue whale skeleton, live exhibits and tours that walk you through active Monterey Bay research.
- Aquariums & science centers
- Academic programs
- Classes & workshops
Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History's small, hands-on center out on the wharf — wet labs, tidepool tanks and Channel Islands species you can actually handle.
- Aquariums & science centers
- Classes & workshops
UC Davis' coastal lab and reserve on Bodega Head — abalone restoration, ocean acidification and kelp research, with public tours and a reserve that protects a stretch of very good rocky intertidal.
- Academic programs
- Classes & workshops
Aquaculture & marine programs
Community colleges, technical colleges and universities in Washington, Oregon and California teaching shellfish, seaweed and finfish culture, aquarium science and marine technology — the fastest route from curiosity to actually working on the water.
Washington
- Bellingham Technical College
Bellingham
Fisheries & Aquaculture Sciences
AAS-T plus certificates in aquaculture theory, salmon & trout culture, and seaweed & mollusk culture
- University of Washington
Seattle
School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences (SAFS)
BS, MS and PhD with aquaculture and shellfish research faculty
- Grays Harbor College
Aberdeen
Fisheries technology & hatchery science
Certificate and AAS pathways in fisheries and hatchery work
- Peninsula College
Port Angeles
Natural Resources (fisheries & habitat emphasis)
AAS-T
- Skagit Valley College
Mount Vernon
Environmental Conservation — marine emphasis
AAS-T
- Northwest Indian College
Lummi Nation, Bellingham
Native Environmental Science
BS — grew out of the Lummi Indian School of Aquaculture (1973)
Oregon
Aquarium Science
Two-year AAS plus a one-year post-baccalaureate certificate in aquatic animal husbandry
- Oregon State University
Corvallis & Newport
Fisheries, Wildlife & Conservation Sciences · Hatfield Marine Science Center
BS, MS, PhD with aquaculture research at Hatfield
- Tillamook Bay Community College
Tillamook
Natural Resources
AS — coastal natural resources, near the Garibaldi dulse farming work
California
- College of the Redwoods
Eureka
Aquaculture Technology
AS — finfish and shellfish culture
- Moss Landing Marine Laboratories (CSU)
Moss Landing
Marine Science
MS — invertebrate, algal and aquaculture-adjacent research
- Orange Coast College
Costa Mesa
Applied Ocean Science & Technology · Aquarium Science
AS plus an aquarium science certificate
- Santa Barbara City College
Santa Barbara
Marine Diving Technology
AS — commercial diving, including aquaculture support work
- Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
San Luis Obispo
Marine Sciences
BS with an aquaculturist career pathway
- UC Davis
Davis
Aquaculture minor (Animal Science)
Undergraduate minor
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Know the rules before you go
Licences, daily limits, closures and tidepool etiquette for Washington, Oregon and California.
Open the Coast Guide