45 articles
Some kelps live one season, others many years. What annual vs perennial life strategies mean for forest dynamics, storm recovery — and choosing restoration species.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
South of New Zealand lie wind-torn islands wrapped in some of Earth's densest kelp forests. A guide to the Auckland and Campbell islands' wild underwater world.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Bull kelp pickles turn the hollow stipes and bulbs of Nereocystis into crunchy, garlicky rings. Full recipe, brine ratios, troubleshooting and sourcing advice.
Sofia Andersson ·
Cape Arago's sandstone reefs hold Oregon's best tidepools, a sea lion haulout, and bull kelp gardens shaped by wild storms. A coastal atlas guide.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
800 km east of New Zealand, the Chatham Islands sit in the Roaring Forties: southern bull kelp, rock lobster, Moriori heritage and the Chatham Rise.
Tom Okafor ·
Deception Pass is Washington's most current-swept dive. How to time the slack, where to enter, and what lives on this bull kelp corridor between islands.
Tom Okafor ·
Whytecliff Park is Vancouver's classic shore dive: a protected bay, a plumose-covered wall and bull kelp in Howe Sound. Full access, routes and wildlife guide.
Tom Okafor ·
A week flying multispectral drone surveys over Mendocino's recovering bull kelp: fog windows, canopy maths, and where the map still needs divers.
Jack Callum ·
A coastal atlas guide to the kelp coast of the Great Bear Rainforest — BC's wild archipelago of bull kelp, giant kelp, sea otters, spirit bears and deep human tenure.
Tom Okafor ·
A coastal atlas guide to BC's Central Coast and Hakai Passage — double-canopy kelp, returning sea otters, herring spawn and deep human history in cold green water.
Tom Okafor ·
Kaikōura packs a submarine canyon, sperm whales and bull kelp into one coastline — and the 2016 earthquake that lifted its reefs rewrote them in a night.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Oregon's bull kelp rides one of the wildest upwelling coasts on Earth — and its southern forests are on the edge. A guide to the reefs and the fight back.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Brown bears above, sea otters in the kelp below — a guide to the reefs, salmon rivers and cold-water richness of Alaska's Kodiak Archipelago.
Tom Okafor ·
Where Highway 1 quits and the King Range rises from the surf, California's Lost Coast keeps its secrets — black sand, bull kelp and a hard-won wilderness.
Tom Okafor ·
The Otago Peninsula stacks a mainland albatross colony, sea lions and penguins above forests of giant kelp and rimurapa. A guide to New Zealand's wildlife headland.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Between Vancouver Island and mainland Washington, the San Juans thread bull kelp beds through tidal rapids. A Coastal Atlas guide to the archipelago.
Tom Okafor ·
Herring spawn on kelp, whales hunt the shoals, and Tlingit stewardship runs millennia deep — a guide to the kelp ecosystems of Sitka Sound, Alaska.
Tom Okafor ·
Granite islands wrapped in storm-built bull kelp, penguins found nowhere else and no landings allowed: inside the Snares Islands' kelp coast, 200 km south of Bluff.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
A routine Drifter survey off Mendocino returned a signature that matched no chart: hard reef where the map said sand. Field notes on what we found below.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Sonoma's coast lost most of its bull kelp a decade ago. A guide to the collapse, the abalone closure, and where the forest is quietly returning.
Jack Callum ·
Between Vancouver Island and the BC mainland, the Fraser River's plume shapes bull kelp beds, herring spawns and whale water. A coastal atlas guide.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
At the Salish Sea's front door, Pacific upwelling meets inland outflow over bull kelp forests and tidal races. A coastal atlas guide to the strait.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
Beyond the famous sounds lie full-swell reefs, shelf-edge upwelling and wilderness kelp. A guide to Vancouver Island's outer coast — and how to reach it.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
A February storm took eleven of sixty seeded lines off the Mendocino coast. This is the honest write-up: what failed, what it cost, and what changes.
Jack Callum ·
Fresh bull kelp is one of the great undervalued ingredients of cold-water coasts. How to prep stipe and blade, and the techniques that make them shine.
Sofia Andersson ·
Gerstle Cove in Salt Point State Park is Sonoma's signature shore dive — bull kelp, red abalone and sculpted sandstone reefs in one of California's first marine reserves.
Tom Okafor ·
No towns, no coast highway, 135 wild miles of rock and bull kelp under the Olympic mountains — the most intact temperate marine wilderness left in the lower 48.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
Bladder kelp beds, a storied pāua fishery, tea-coloured inlets and daylight kiwi: a guide to Stewart Island/Rakiura, New Zealand's southern kelp coast.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Barkley Sound, Clayoquot Sound and the full weight of the open Pacific: how Vancouver Island's west coast became Canada's kelp laboratory and its best cold-water wild coast.
Tom Okafor ·
Eroded volcano harbours, Hector's dolphins, bull kelp and pāua reefs: a field guide to Banks Peninsula and Akaroa, Canterbury's wild maritime backyard.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Two growing seasons after the barren survey: the first bull kelp fronds are up, the urchins are walking back in, and the blocks are holding. A field note.
Jack Callum ·
A Coastal Atlas field guide to Point Reyes' headland kelp beds — cape oceanography, the annual bull kelp cycle, and the best ways to see it.
Tom Okafor ·
A field note from the Mendocino coast: the morning sonar and diver eyes confirmed bull kelp canopy over our first seeded corridor, and what that number means.
Jack Callum ·
Foveaux Strait runs shallow and fast between the South Island and Rakiura — a coastal atlas guide to its bull kelp reefs, Bluff oysters, great whites and shipwreck coast.
Tom Okafor ·
Dunedin's doorstep grows forests of giant kelp and southern bull kelp, patrolled by sea lions and hoiho penguins. A guide to Otago's cold southern reefs.
Tom Okafor ·
A field note from three fog-bound months on California's north coast: working around the marine layer, and why the fog and the kelp are the same story.
Jack Callum ·
After the February storm that took eleven seeded lines at Mendocino, the first formal belt transect told a calmer, stranger story. Notes from the dive.
Jack Callum ·
Between Tasmania and mainland Australia, Bass Strait mixes two seas into some of the roughest, richest kelp country on Earth. An island-by-island guide.
Tom Okafor ·
An island-wide guide to Vancouver Island's kelp forests: bull kelp surf coasts, sea otter recovery, and the First Nations stewardship shaping their future.
Tom Okafor ·
Bull kelp (Nereocystis) is the Pacific Northwest's iconic annual kelp — and a famously fussy farm crop. Here's the biology, the progress, and what trial growers should expect.
Naomi Reyes ·
A field guide to Northern California's bull kelp collapse — the heatwave, the urchin explosion, the closed fisheries, and the difficult road back.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
A field guide to Bodega Head — the granite headland on California's Sonoma Coast where upwelling, bull kelp and world-class marine science meet.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Washington's inland sea shelters floating bull kelp beds that shelter salmon in return. A Coastal Atlas guide to its patchwork beds and citizen science.
Tom Okafor ·
The Catlins is New Zealand's most overlooked kelp coast — bull kelp surf fringes, rare sea lions, yellow-eyed penguins and a Jurassic forest under the tide.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Meet bull kelp, the fast-growing annual giant of North America's Pacific coast — its biology, Indigenous heritage, dramatic decline and the race to restore it.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·