The Kelp Forest

From the shore,

from the cliffs of the Bay, the purplish-dark marbled swaths

of their surface canopy rise & fall with the rolling advance

of wave—

Scarcely would we know of its thousands of treasures of life below,

merely from the shore,

for the water wonder world of the kelp forest is below—

Below the surface where sea otter & harbor seal dive & swim

through an ever-changing, surprising color kaleidoscopic realm,

where the slow, late summer swaying of the tall stipes

of giant kelp

break

the bright shafts of sunlight streaming down,

a cathedral dance of sunlight

just beneath the translucent blue-green & ever-shimmering,

rippling & rolling surface world above.

All the varied dappled colors, lights & shades, as we find

in any forest of the world above

are found here,

in the below surface kelp forest world.

Giant kelp,

towering upwards to a hundred feet & more from holdfasts to rock,

are like a high-rise of habitats for untold myriads of creatures;

and as their bladed fronds of greens & yellow-greens,

splashed golden by the Sun,

sway for each swell,

all the creatures that inhabit their realm slowly sway with them.

And sway the single-stipe bull kelp with its radiant splay of blades;

a single, gas-filled bulb—a pneumatocyst, it’s called—the blades

radiate from

that keeps it afloat

on the constant rolling of the watery surface—

up & down & up & down,

they bob.

And sway

the many-bulbed feather boa kelp

growing closer

to shore;

& smaller blade kelp, winged kelp, the broad-bladed oarweed,

the bead kelp, sea lettuce & Turkish towel & agar weed;

& you find all kinds of lesser red, green & brown understory algae.

Look closely—the kelp blades are also pale filmy coated

with colonies of microscopic isopods & bryozoans.

Giant kelp, the supreme Macrocystis,

its surface-seeking & current-fluttering blades

lined with little pneumatocysts of their own,

uplifting the Sun-hungry spread of its matted canopy,

is the world’s largest seaweed, & found here, on our very coast—

A very fast grower, given favorable conditions, up to two feet can it grow

in a single day,

its canopy slowing & breaking the impact of wave & heavier surf,

protecting other life below,

& so often in winter storm its long, sinewy stipes are chewed up

by the tremendous power of surge

—entire plants can be ripped out—,

& the annual bull kelp Nereocystis too,

their long, whip-like stipes

you find balled up or unraveled across the sands of beaches

after storms—

The beaches of winter so often get littered with mounds

of kelp wrack,

for the kelp forest too has its seasons.

The kelps need

the constancy of wave & current moving

of cold, nutrient-filled water,

their fronds drawing on it directly for nourishment,

with sunlight showering upon them from above,

a necessity

for their photosynthetic activity;

from surface fronds

& up & down their length,

they convert the light of the Sun into thriving habitats

for all.

So incredibly abundant we find that interwoven life of all—

The kelp waters are rich with plankton, shrimp & krill,

jellies & squid & myriad larvae of untold numbers

of marine creatures

that smaller fish feed upon—

Here you find the blue rockfish

—& so many various other rockfishes besides—

held suspended in mid-water

nose up in the sway;

here you find the señorita darting about;

& there’s kelp surfperch & the giant kelpfish camouflaged

among the blades;

you find the opaleye, halfmoon, blackeye goby, the bullish sheephead,

the small leopard shark swishing its long, slender body as it goes,

schools of Pacific sardine or mackerel

constantly shifting silvery clouds coming & going;

there’re sculpins, one called cabezon, meaning “large head”;

there’s kelp bass, the bright orange territorial garibaldi,

which happens to be

California’s state marine fish;

there’s treefish, blacksmith, kelp greenling & kelp gunnel, jacksmelt,

tubesnout & yellowtail;

along the bottom, the long, blue-gray, slithery, old man mug wolf-eel,

the swell shark that puffs up when disturbed;

& bottom-dwelling horn shark & California halibut hiding flat

on the forest floor;

you will find lingcod here, but another species of the rockfishes;

& all the rocks, ledges, every crevice & cranny of this world

you find covered by colonies of anemones, sponges & corals,

home to all manner of sea stars, brittle stars, crabs, sea urchins,

sea snails & sea slugs—which are also called nudibranchs,

the world’s largest the California sea hare—,

& sea cucumbers, seahorses, sea worms, & there’re mussels & clams,

tunicates, limpets, barnacles, abalones, scallops, chitons,

lobsters & still other various crustaceans,

the dense, root-like haptera of the kelp holdfasts just packed

with thousands of living things—

And all the kelp stipes & blades

are covered with snails, urchins & limpets scraping off

& feeding on diatoms, hydroids, isopods, & bryozoans

as they go along;

they will feed on the blades too.

At night,

the octopuses come out of hiding from their nooks

& rise through the sway

to hunt for prey,

and through the forest pass with winged gliding ease

the skate & the ray.

Sea lions & harbor seals,

lumbering lumps of massive flesh on land,

never far though from the close touch of tide,

are agile, effortless swimmers in the underwater realm

of the kelps;

they are among the largest of the predators of this realm—

And the most lovable sea otter is utterly at home here,

always sporting about in the thickets of the kelp canopy,

diving under,

adeptly searching the subsurface & bottom terrain,

coming up with an abalone or crab or some spiky urchin;

and as the sea otter floats on its back under the wide open sky,

it will often amazingly wield a stone or hard shell,

to help it to crack open its take,

as it feeds,

afloat on its back.

And even an occasional gray whale is known to visit

the kelp forest world.

Constantly in motion, ever-shifting, in perpetual rhythm

with the vast pulse of Ocean,

the kelp forest is a complexity of an interwoven world all its own,

an heirloom of life absolutely to be cherished & protected—

All along California’s coast, the entire West Coast, in fact,

the kelp forest world is there,

just offshore,

just offshore.

April/December 2003