First king tide in California

First time experiencing a King tide here in California. Any recommendations on beaches or locations to check out for tide pools or fun things to see with the tide low? Especially if anyone has tips for places to take kids.

South end of the beach(where you start to see rocks in the surf) at Pinnacle Gulch in Bodega Bay can be really fun during extreme lows. Long, but pretty hike from the parking area though.

First time experiencing a King tide here in California. Any recommendations on beaches or locations to check out for tide pools or fun things to see with the tide low? Especially if anyone has tips for places to take kids.

Similar question, but wondering about places close to Santa Cruz. I'm thinking the Pleasure Point area might be kind of a cool place to wander around during the lowest of the low tide...

The lows are in the evening, which can be fun still exploring at dusk.  I have a flashlight with UV LED's and it's pretty cool to see many things that fluoresce the light like shells and anemones, crabs, and other things. My favorite place for tide pooling has always been the Bean.  But Monterey sounds fun too, as I've been watching YouTube videos on Native American sites in Monterey, and want to do some low tide exploring of them.  But, it's also opening for Steelhead, so might be doing that as well. 

Pacific Grove has better tidepoolin; lots of crabs, big flowery sea anemones, mussels, even seen a legal ling cod in one of the pools…..sea gulls we’re trying to get at it.  If you’re taking youngsters the granite structure is fun to climb over and there’s alot of pretty cool water chutes that have water flushing in with the waves.  Pleasure point is all sandstone, flat and pretty featureless.  The kelp usually hold some snails and there’s colonies of small anemone’s.  It’ll give you a good feel for what the reefs surrounding Santa Cruz look like under water but not the coolest place for finding stuff. 

The Fitzgerald Marine Reserve is a pretty awesome and very accessible tide pool area in Moss Beach.  As a bonus you can hit up the Moss Beach Distillery afterward!

It’s a ton of fun in your wetsuit
My Girlfriend and I call it “immersive tide-pooling”
We like to search for treasures on the Monterey peninsula

A King Tide refers to an exceptionally high tide…I think you want an exceptionally low tide, referred to as a minus tide.

I believe the “King Tides” term relates to the entire swing from the highest highs to the lowest lows
Realistically can’t have one without the other

It’s a ton of fun in your wetsuit
My Girlfriend and I call it “immersive tide-pooling”
We like to search for treasures on the Monterey peninsula

awesomeness 

A King Tide refers to an exceptionally high tide…I think you want an exceptionally low tide, referred to as a minus tide.

True, King Tides technically refer to the highest high tides of the year. But they also occur concurrently with the lowest low tides of the year as well. Significant low tides in the afternoon this weekend should make for some fun sunset tidepooling.

Kirby Park yesterday 

Moss Landing today

Pacific Grove has better tidepoolin; lots of crabs, big flowery sea anemones, mussels, even seen a legal ling cod in one of the pools…..sea gulls we’re trying to get at it.  If you’re taking youngsters the granite structure is fun to climb over and there’s alot of pretty cool water chutes that have water flushing in with the waves.  Pleasure point is all sandstone, flat and pretty featureless.  The kelp usually hold some snails and there’s colonies of small anemone’s.  It’ll give you a good feel for what the reefs surrounding Santa Cruz look like under water but not the coolest place for finding stuff.

This sounds pretty awesome, would love to take my kids sometime. Any way you could describe where this granite structure thing is? Any nearby landmarks or pointers on what street/intersection to park at to get to it? I've been to Pacific Grove (the general area) but it's quite a lot of potential coastline to explore.

Only made it to Pleasure Point, but will go to PG for the repeat performance in January.