Pink Fairies in the May Tide

I did not set out to swim that afternoon. I was following the tide line in sandals and shorts when the incoming water slipped around my ankles—astonishingly warm for early May, almost as warm as Georgia Strait. The invitation was impossible to ignore. Shoes off, clothes abandoned above the tide, I waded in.

The water held a small world I had never seen here before. Several translucent hydrozoans from the genus Euphyssa pulsed and curled through the shallows, their vivid pink centres suspended inside bodies so clear they seemed drawn in light. They moved like tiny fairies, folding and unfurling in the current. Around them drifted thousands of delicate white forms, each no larger than a feather. They looked alive at first. Later, photographs and a little research revealed them to be barnacle moults: cast-off exoskeletons, complete with the feathery cirri barnacles use to gather food from moving water.

For years I have walked, worked, snorkelled and watched this bay, and I still cannot predict what it will offer. A familiar shoreline can change completely with one tide, one season, or one decision to step into the water. On May 6, the estuary was warm enough to swim and full of almost invisible lives. I went in expecting nothing more than cold water and came out having danced with pink fairies.