Which tidal pool will your children remember?

Ask someone which tidal pool they love most and you’ll often get a story before you get a name. It might be the one their dad took them to before breakfast, or the one where they learnt to swim. Years later, they’re taking their own children there, with far more bags than they remember their parents needing.

You learn where to sit, where to leave your shoes and who takes forever to get in. Eventually, “Shall we go to the pool?” needs no further explanation. I wonder which pool our children will talk about like that one day.

Serai Dowling’s A Guide to Tidal Pools of the Western Cape is a good place to start looking.

Someone who knows the water

In her preface, Serai writes about knowing where sea urchins gather at Dalebrook and where starfish favour Kalk Bay 2. She recalls watching whales from the heart-shaped rock at Miller’s Point and sharing a swim with a gannet at Buffels Bay. You get the sense that she’s spent a great deal of time in these places, looking closely.

She began researching the creatures she encountered and the histories of the pools, then ventured further along the coast. When a list circulated in a swimming WhatsApp group, she decided to swim them all. Later, a friend suggested she write a book. One swim led to another, and the questions kept coming. Children are rather good at that sort of exploring, too.

Let them pick a pool

The guide covers 34 pools, from Silwerstroom on the West Coast to Kleinbaai in the Overberg. There are familiar names, including Camps Bay, St James and Dalebrook, and places your family may not have visited yet.

Open the book together and let the children choose one. Check the practical details and conditions before setting off, then pack lunch, sun protection and something warm for afterwards. Once you’re there, leave room for the detours: a creature tucked against a rock, a question nobody can answer on the spot, an extra half-hour in the water because nobody wants to get out.

You could keep a note of each visit: the date, the pool and something you spotted. Let the children add their verdict. “Too cold” may appear beside a pool they refused to leave. And if everyone wants to go back to the same place next Sunday, go back. This doesn’t have to become a race to finish all 34.

Look a little closer

The book isn’t only about where to swim. Serai also explores how the pools came to be and who was allowed to use them. She acknowledges the segregation and apartheid restrictions that denied people access to parts of our coastline. It’s worth making space for that history when we talk about the family memories these places hold.

There’s plenty to notice in the water as well. Watching a small fish shelter between rocks or finding an urchin can lead to a conversation about how to look after the place you’re enjoying. Leave the creatures where they are and take your picnic rubbish home.

Before every visit, check the conditions and local warnings. A tidal pool is still part of the sea, and children need close supervision in and around the water.

When it’s time to get out

This is the Octohoodie moment: pulling something warm over a damp swimming costume while your child tells you, in exhaustive detail, what they found. There’s time for a sandwich and perhaps a debate about where to go next.

That’s what I like about Serai’s guide. It gives you ideas for a day out, but it also gives you reasons to return and pay attention. Somewhere along the way, one of those pools might become the one your children remember.

Our thanks to Serai Dowling and Tide and Seek for inspiring this article. You can buy A Guide to Tidal Pools of the Western Cape from Mzansi Books.