Sacred Waters

A new marine sanctuary protects part of California's Central Coast—and honors the land's original stewards.

- Carrie Honaker

DAMP COLD SEEPED into my bones as the sun disappeared over Estero Bluffs State Park, near the town of Cayucos, California. I picked my way across tide pools, keeping an eye out for octopuses hiding between rocks. I was on a foraging tour with the organization Kelpful, learning to collect and prepare seaweed, just as the Chumash and Salinean People who first inhabited these lands did for thousands of years.