Curtis Cove Report - Sep 6, 2012

Thursday, September 6. 9:40AM. Low tide. Bird-watchers and artists ringed the parking lot, admiring at the mists coming in from the sea, the strong low sun peeking through. It was the kind of morning where you just want to walk the beach.

Fortunately, that's why I was there!

And it was an interesting beach to walk! Even though recent tides hadn't been that high, they had done a number to the foreshore. For starters, by removing much of it.

Sand cliff with "erratic" still precariously lodged

One high tide had slammed the upper lip of the foreshore, scooping away more than a foot of fine sand. Receding, it left tumbled pebbles and once-buried debris sticking out of the cliff face. That or another high tide then ripped July's green algae from the cobbles and smeared it all up and down the long slope of the low foreshore.

A feast of life amid wrack = fat, lazy gulls

With the wrack spread out over such a large area, it was going to be hard to collect everything. Though a few things were pretty hard to miss.

Mylar balloon scrap

Bait bag

Gnarled mass of fishing rope

Coffee cup lid

So, the finds:

23 pcs of rope, about 42 ft total

194 pcs of non-rope debris

217 finds:

• Bldg material/furniture: 2 (wooden stake, plastic tent stake)
• Foam/styrofoam: 0
• Fishing rope/net: 23
• Fishing trap gear: 113 (96 vinyl coating scraps, 11 trap parts, aperture ring, 3 bumpers, 2 bait bags)
• Fishing misc.: 12 (claw bands)
• Food-related plastics: 14 (11 cup scraps, 2 food wrappers, bread tag)
• Food-related glass/metal: 1 (can bottom)
• Nonfood/unknown plastics: 20 (5 mylar balloon scraps, PE "Made in USA" balloon, balloon string, 2 bag scraps, cigarette lighter scrap, toy shovel handle, 3 nonfood packaging, 4 cable ties, tube, old hook/coathook)
• Scrap plastics: 31 ( 11 > 1", 20 < 1" )
• Paper/wood: 0
• Non-plastic misc./unique: 1 (gear shift plate)

217 pieces of manmade garbage off a small section of an unvisited, deserted beach  counts as a light day.

Ours is a strange world.