Like moths to a flame, the plankton rose from the depths of the Foss Waterway and gathered around a pair of bright, submerged lights.
Children in life jackets, there on the pier, peered down.
Hence the name, Pier Peer, the third in a series of Saturday night adventures hosted by People for Puget Sound and Foss Waterway Seaport.
Several examples of starfish and crabs, collected earlier in the evening by divers, moved about inside several water-filled plastic tubs.
“They’ll eat anything.”
“They’ll eat me?”
“That one’s got a lot of legs.”
“I don’t like green starfish.”
“It has two stomachs.”
“I only have one.”
About 30 people gathered for the two-hour nighttime look at the sea life living within what was once a Superfund site and now supports a habitat and food web nourishing all manner of mollusks, crustaceans and other creatures.
A curious harbor seal patrolled the dock just as the sun was setting Saturday evening and as that full “supermoon” rose.
A school of fishes ruffled the top of the water nearby.
After a brief briefing and the donning of flotation devices, the parents, children – and a few young couples, and a few older couples – walked the plank down to where the plankton live.
Nalani Linder of Tacoma came with her husband and two children. Daughter Abby gingerly touched a sunflower star, one of the ones with a lot of legs.
“It’s soft and spiky at the same time,” she proclaimed.
“We do this because we think it’s important for people to be emotionally connected to Puget Sound,” said Gabby Byrne, community educator for the nonprofit PPS.
The group holds Pier Peer evenings in locations throughout the area, from Everett and Seattle down to Olympia and over to Hood Canal.
“It’s a part of our neighborhood,” said Byrne. “It’s important for people to know it better and fall in love with it again.”
She looked back from the dock up to the city lights behind.
“It’s a great juxtaposition to be in an industrial area in downtown Tacoma and then look in the water and see living creatures.”
Twenty varieties of jellyfish live in the waterway, she said. Add many worms, “some of them quite strange, with lots and lots of legs. They breathe with their legs,” she said.
Then come shrimp, crabs, mussels, urchins, squid and fish.
“Some live here, some come in with the tide,” she said.
“We had not seen anything like this in Tacoma,” said Jan Adams, education program director for Foss Waterway Seaport.
Hence the partnership and Pier Peer.
“I just thought it would be real cool,” she said.
“There’s not a lot to do in the water at the waterfront at night. This is perfect for the cold and dark.”
C.R. Roberts: 253-597-8535
c.r.roberts@thenewstribune com
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