Olympic

itself - a scramble up a scrubby ridge, higher and higher into the view. At the peak, the wind is screaming; lean into it and it takes your weight. The force is a pleasure, but not one to linger over. Having made it up one side of the point, it's time to head down the other to the rocky shore below.

A lighthouse access road twists up the west side of the point. Follow it down a few yards to a set of mounted binoculars placed there for whale watching. Behind a sign that describes the activities of humpbacks, a faint thread of trail leads to the ridge and plunges, seemingly, over the edge. But the trail is sound - if taxing - all the way down. At times, you may have to hang onto the black jagged rocks with one hand as you lower yourself down a short drop or a tight switchback. The wind is mostly blocked here and the soundscape is dominated by the rhythmic booming of the big surf. The air is full of salt mist, and every few minutes a blowhole spouts in a 20-foot geyser from a fissure in the rock.

As you descend, a broad shelf of rock comes into view at the base of the cliff. The far edge is under assault from the waves, but closer in, a broad plain of sheltered rock is pocked with deep pools. The various organic shapes range from birdbaths to Olympic swimming pools, some of them linked by channels in the rock. These are the intertidal pools that appear twice a day when the surf rolls out. At high tide, the entire shelf is flooded, and at the ebb you can walk around and peer - or jump - into the clear, cool ponds that sparkle in the tropical sun. At the center of these contained, fluctuating pools, you can swim comfortably, even as occasional outsize waves flush a few thousand gallons of water through the pool. Along the edges, you can walk among rocks crowded with sea urchins, multicolored shells, bizarre aquatic plants, and various fish waiting for the liberation of the next flood tide.