Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Curtis Cove Report - Sep 27, 2012

Thursday, September 27, 2012, 1:30PM. Hour and a half before low tide. My first autumn visit to the cove.
One final hurrah
This was a day of dragonflies, white butterflies, honeybees. Color. The last bits of life and warmth before the end. Even the rockpools teemed with vibrance & life!
Look closely, you'll see at least a dozen krill in this pic
The past week saw some seriously windy days inland. But the waves here at the beach hadn't crested very high. And a lot of blow-down spoke of winds howling offshore, not on. The same blow-down also revealed at least a couple once-buried goodies.
I see you, bait bag!
The sorting was better this week than last. But there were still jumbles of rock massed here and there -- including an impressive rock wall built up at the back of the southern foreshore.
Chock-a-block with new & old wrack
So, what did all that vibrancy & energy mean for debris? Well, this is one clue:
The wrong colors
It was going to be a bigger day than last week. Here's what I ended up with:
33 pcs of rope, about 30 ft total
93 pcs of nonrope debris
126 finds:
  • Bldg material/furniture: 0
  • Foam/styrofoam: 1
  • Fishing rope/net: 33
  • Fishing misc.: 45 (22 vinyl coating scraps, 3 bait bags, 2 bumpers, 4 trap parts, 3 trap tags, 2 fishing lines, 6 claw bands, shotgun shell, poly/rubber glove scrap, shotgun shell wadding)
  • Food-related plastics: 11 (bottle scrap, 2 bottlecaps, 7 cup scraps, food wrapper scrap)
  • Food-related glass/metal: 1 (beer bottle)
  • Nonfood/unknown plastics: 14 (mylar balloon, 2 trash bag scraps, 5 cords, duct tape, plug, lock cover (?), 2 cable ties, mouse rollerball)
  • Scrap plastics: 19 ( 11 > 1" , 8 < 1" )
  • Paper/wood: 0
  • Non-plastic misc./unique: 2 (metal clip, sock scrap)
2 1/2 times the amount of debris this week compared to the previous. And this week was also interesting both for how large many of the scraps were, and for how lightweight.
The soak tank
Curtis Cove is actually notable for how much debris comes in from the seafloor. So to have this much floatable this week? Something strange in the winds & waves, for sure.

Also this week, my most unexpected find yet:
Hello World!
Yes, an old-school rubber mouse ball. If you can imagine it, you can imagine it in the ocean.

Running YTD counts:
  • Total pcs of litter -- 9404
  • Pcs fishing rope -- 1922
  • Vinyl lobster-trap scraps -- 4370

4 comments:

  1. You found a mouse ball and we had a mouse (a real live one) helping us pick up litter. Must be Mouse Week.

    Bernie
    See mouse helper here http://litterwithastorytotell.blogspot.com/2012/10/winooski-river-salmon-hole-litter-clean.html

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  2. Love the mouse helper! And wow, you guys kicked some serious backside... the bag of sharps is sobering. Thx for everything you're doing Bernie.

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  3. I've been reading your blog for ages, and thought it would be polite to comment and let you know how much I enjoy your work, even though I don't have anything particularly topical to say. Your level of organization and analysis is impressive. Thank you for sharing your findings!

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    1. Hi! Thanks so much for taking the time to drop a line, I'm glad you enjoy the site. Your comment also gave me a chance to check out your blog too. How beautiful! The photos from Common Ground Fair (especially the red corn and the etched pumpkin), plus the great beachcombing series. Very glad to have made your acquaintance.

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