Seaweed in San Diego

What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when I say California Beaches? Maybe you’d say…surfers, sharks, sun tan lotion, sea lions…probably not seaweed.

There’s a place on Ocean Beach in San Diego, CA where the ocean pounds against weathered flat slippery rock. A friend and I walked along the rocks at night where the ocean’s crashing waves stood out starkly against the dark water, and dark rock. This eerie setting was it…this is where we found the largest seaweed/alien being I’ve seen.

On first glance this giant serpentine weed looked like a long discarded rubber garden hose. I was, convinced by my friend, an east coast ex-pat turned west coast beach bum, that it was in fact seaweed. I had to see more.

I’ve never seen stylish seaweed like this off the Jersey Shore, the Delaware beaches or even the Florida coast. It was more than 20 feet long, all stretched out. I picked up the seaweed and dragged it over the beach and rock to a walkway with a light. As I dragged the weed with me, bored skaters stepped on the end of the plant dragging behind me- catcalling- Nice Seaweed! My friend laughed the whole way, teasing me that this just might be an alien and when I got to the light I’d see its creepy eyes. Ick!

Coming into the light we could examine this weed. What a beautiful plant! Turns out that the alien-like seaweed we found is actually Elk Kelp. A kind of kelp native to the peninsula off of the southern coast of CA. The Elk kelp has a big air bladder at the top of the stem to hold the plant off of the bottom of the ocean. In case you’re wondering, yes, I stomped on the bladder, opening it up to find a hollow space filled with dripping with plant goo (a technical term.) Splitting off from the bladder are two long “antlers” which capture sunlight in the deep ocean waters. Elk kelp is found in large underwater forests indigenous to the coast of Southern California. The plants can be up to 100 feet long with their antlers stretching out 20-60 feet.

After our alien encounter with the giant seaweed I spent the rest of the evening walking, talking and re-connecting with my old friend. He showed me as many beach towns as we could cover in a few hours. We saw a seaside amusement park with a rickety looking wooden roller coaster, a concrete boardwalk and a serve yourself frozen yogurt shop but the most unique discovery for me- what set the west apart from the east- was the elk kelp washed up on the rocks and the locals who thought that was what everybody’s seaweed looked like.