Saturday, March 9. 2:40PM. Half-hour before low-tide. A day of bright sunshine, and watching huge waves out in the distance crashing into the headland outcrops. The massive nor'easter that blew through New Engand on March 6 was still roiling the ocean. It had left its mark around the cove.
The same storm pulled at least two houses
into the ocean at Plum Island, MA and ravaged the
shoreline of Nantucket. Southern Maine was comparatively lucky. At Curtis Cove, the high foreshore sand was largely eaten & gouged away. The waves & winds left a very steep profile of tumbled cobbles at the back of the cove. In front of it now lay a nearly flat plain all the way down to the water, strewn with wrack.
The waterlogged high ground was trying hard to squeeze itself dry. Streams of outwash flowed perpendicularly at the base of the backshore stones. They found a weak spot in the sand lip, and burst through, making a temporary river running down the mounds of wrack out into the sea.
Mother Nature sets things right if given a chance.
As expected a big day at the beach.
 |
| 170 pcs of rope, about 330 ft total |
 |
| 58 pcs of nonrope debris |
228 finds:
- Bldg material/furniture: 0
- Foam/styrofoam: 0
- Fishing rope/net: 170
- Fishing misc.: 20 (13 bait bags, bumper, 2 vents, Canada tag, cleat, claw band, fishing glove)
- Food-related plastics: 10 (2 bottles, ragged bottlecap seal, cup, 6 cup scraps)
- Food-related glass/metal: 1 (fresh/locally dropped can)
- Nonfood/unknown plastics: 14 (11 latex balloons, 2 cable ties, plant tag)
- Scrap plastics: 12 ( 8 > 1" , 4 < 1" )
- Paper/wood: 0
- Non-plastic misc./unique: 1 (beach chair seat fabric)
As expected, the huge power of this storm blew in larger items, and sucked out much of the smaller stuff. Notable was this big clump of 10 latex balloons, all goo'ed togeter and tied round with strings and cords. The remnants of someone's party months or years ago.
As usual, scraps of coffee & drink cups washed in with bite & poke marks all over them.
No trip to the cove would be complete without the tag from a plant pot. I've picked dozens of these from the cove by now/
This ravaged bottle shows how modern bottling works. Bottles are created in layers. The middle layer may contain a token amount of recycled plastic. But the recycled material generally has to be sandwiched inside virgin PET plastic, because recycled PET often isn't as strong as fresh stuff. Another reason the
recycling triangle is a lie.
And last but not least, a far traveled lobster trap tag from Canadian waters.
The stuff keeps coming.
This collection marks the first of my official Year 2 at the cove! Will be interesting to see how this year's finds stack up against 2012-13.
Running YTD 2 counts:
- Total pcs of litter -- 228
- Pcs fishing rope -- 170
- Vinyl lobster-trap scraps -- 0
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