Dressage in the kelp forest

With most eyes fixed on the supermoon it's easy to neglect what happening at sea level where the extra low tides have  revealed the glorious kelp forests. I made a beeline for this particular bay where the rocky shoreline makes a perfect footing for the holdfasts that anchor these huge seaweeds to the bottom. Normally they are hidden below the surface of the water but at the lowest tides the 'foliage' is exposed as a great heaving, swaying, billowing mass as, on a calm day like today, the sea moves lazily up and down like a great slumbering beast.
The kelp forest, its huge algal straps and fronds and plumes  ranging in colour between brown and green and purple-red, creates a unique and precious environment for marine life of all kinds: worms, brittlestars, crustaceans, molluscs, anemones, seasquirts and small fish, all lurking beneath its protective canopy or feeding on its nutritious substance.  Perhaps a home for kelpies too, those mysterious shape-shifting equine water spirits of Celtic legend (ceffyl dwr, sea horse in Welsh). The two words don't appear to be etymologically related but the connection reminds me that somewhere I have an old photograph of myself and very young son galloping naked into the sea holding kelp tails over our behinds.

The extra is not of that but a detail of smooth, shiny kelp thongs.