The tide laps against the floating dock as a small group of people, bundled up in winter clothes, strolls to the end of the pier.  Equipped with marine creature ID books, flashlights, some custom-made creature “scoops,” a couple of buckets and a submersible light, they are ready to meet the night time inhabitants of Puget Sound .

The submersible light is lowered into the dark water and everyone gathers around.  Immediately visible is the ubiquitous goo of the sea:  flotsam, plankton, detritus and other, more mysterious things dart by. 

Some hydrozoan jelly fish appear, then a comb jelly rises up, the light refracting off its beating ctenes making rainbows along its surface.  The water quickly grows crowded with copopods, a siphonophore and then sometimes, a cheateagnath.  Someone spots a nudibranch on under the edge of the dock.  An arthropod reaches into the light from its hold on the dock to grab something floating by. 

Here is education and exploration at its most exciting.  After everything is returned to its watery home, the humans retire to warm up, drink some cocoa and talk about what they’ve seen.