Thursday, July 11. 8:15AM. Lowtide, a weak one. Pea-soup fog. 70 degrees, very slight seabreeze.
Despite the gloomy day, a little color burst through.
It had been two weeks since my June 27 visit. Since then the beach had shown some movement of rocks, some energy. We were now a week past an
outrageous heatwave, followed by a week of cool rain & drizzle. Nothing particularly stormy, though a few gusts. Yet there were lots of bigger cobbles -- even boulders -- down low that seemed to have been tossed around.
Better, there was now a great arrangment of pebbles & cusps at the back of the foreshore.
All arranged by nature's hand. Behind this "wall" lay a large amount of older wrack, periwinkle shells, and some of larger bits of debris.
The ocean had built a perfect breakwater/energy damper.
So, what did it deposit?
 |
| 29 pcs of rope, about 40 ft total |
 |
| 294 pcs of nonrope debris |
323 finds:
- Bldg material/furniture: 0
- Foam/styrofoam: 1
- Fishing rope/net: 29 (40 ft)
- Fishing misc.: 231 (193 lobster trap vinyl scraps, 22 trap pieces, 15 claw bands, ball of fishing line)
- Food-related plastics: 23 (16 cup scraps, 2 bottlecap o-rings, 2 bread wrapper tags, saucepack, food wrapper, straw)
- Food-related glass/metal: 0
- Nonfood/unknown plastics: 12 (Clorox bottlecap, bandaid, hairband, cable tie, camera lens cap(?), chunk of plastic rod(?), 2 wall anchors, 2 cords, 2 plant stakes)
- Scrap plastics: 24 ( 6 > 1" , 18 < 1" )
- Paper/wood: 0
- Non-plastic misc./unique: 3 (sea glass)
The lack of storms means a lack of rope. But the calmer seas means these can settle out:
I'm on pace this year to beat last year's 5245 scraps of dead lobster trap. Gentle summer waves bring them in and deposit them behind.
Rope, or vinyl? Take your pick.
They never, ever go away.
Running YTD counts:
- Total pcs of litter -- 4934
- Pcs fishing rope -- 1751
- Vinyl lobster-trap scraps -- 2073
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