Saturday, October 6. 10:15AM. A bright morning inland, misty with a seabreeze at low-tide. Temps in the low 60s. A little overnight drizzle--most obvious at the high-tide line.
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| Clues in the sand |
There was good sorting of wrack & debris. And enough energy in a couple tides to push up and over the foreshore "barrier" onto the high ground beyond. Overall? Just a beautiful day to be at a breezy, deserted beach. A day of snail shell graveyards...
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| Also well-sorted into this one "nest" |
Beautiful balls of quartz...
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| Once a mountain-root, now beach rubble |
Violet rivulets running through wrack-stained sand...
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| Unfiltered, it really looked like this! |
And one of the few pieces of local litter I've found here in the past 10 months...
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| Hope they enjoyed the view |
Amid the wrack there was definitely an uptick in what washed in. I found...
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| 29 pcs of rope, about 26 ft total |
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| 103 pcs of nonrope debris |
132 finds:
- Bldg material/furniture: 0
- Foam/styrofoam: 1
- Fishing rope/net: 29
- Fishing misc.: 69 (52 lobster trap vinyl scraps, 9 trap parts, 2 bait bags, 5 claw bands, fishing line)
- Food-related plastics: 8 (bottlecap o-ring, 5 cup scraps, food wrapper, straw)
- Food-related glass/metal: 3 (fresh aluminum can, old can top, sea glass)
- Nonfood/unknown plastics: 12 (3 balloon string, latex balloon neck, cigarette, bandaid, bag scrap, 2 cords, silicone strip, flower tag, umbrella base)
- Scrap plastics: 10 (4 > 1" , 6 < 1" )
- Paper/wood: 0
- Non-plastic misc./unique: 0
The numbers were definitely up. And it was all the usual. Including the fact that about 3/4 of it was lobster-fishing debris. No surprise. In the Gulf of Maine as many as one million lost, derelict traps are rotting on the seabed right now. Our legacy to our grandkids.
The mists actually picked up throughout my collection. A lot of moisture pulled in from the sea was gathering into clouds inland, and the drive home was a gray and ominous one. Neat to have been there to see it happen.
Running YTD counts:
- Total pcs of litter -- 9536
- Pcs fishing rope -- 1951
- Vinyl lobster-trap scraps -- 4422
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