Collection Report - November 15, 2013

Wow. So much for staying on top of these reports. Holiday Season '13 was chaos. Hoping now to catch back up.

So... All the way back now to Friday, November 15. Just before 1:30PM, a couple hrs before low tide. Sun peeking through wispy clouds. 50 degrees. Light breeze. Silver skies, silver sands.

First impressions... low energy again, as with all of summer and into the fall. Spritzes of rain in the week since November 8. But no energy. The ridges & cliffs at the back of foreshore were still there, wearing down & wearing away. Winds had been blowing very fine, white, dry sand from south to north. A quiet & peaceful day. And the deer had been back.

Low on foreshore, I found the usual spread of small pebbles up top with bigger cobbles & boulders strewn about. The back of the foreshore had an interesting feel. The tideline felt more typical of a wider beach, like the beaches of Saco Bay a few miles to the north. The slope, the softness & smoothness of the sand. The distinct high-tide line with squishy sand behind it and "nail holes" poking up.

The type of scene that's pretty rare here at Curtis Cove. (Of course the washed-in lobster claw band isn't quite so rare.)

The low foreshore had its usual smear ofbeat-up wrack and the plastic that comes with it. All told, found this:

2 pcs of rope, about 4 ft total

316 pcs of nonrope debris

318 finds:

• Bldg material/furniture: 0
• Foam/styrofoam: 0
• Fishing rope/net: 2
• Fishing misc.: 280 (265 vinyl lobster trap coating scraps, 4 trap parts, 2 small fishing line scraps, 9 claw bands)
• Food-related plastics: 15 (bottlecap o-ring, 13 cup scraps, straw)
• Food-related glass/metal: 2 (sea glass)
• Nonfood/unknown plastics: 4 (end cap/plate (heavily poked), big label scrap, cable tie, cigar filter)
• Scrap plastics: 14 ( 6 > 1" , 8 < 1" )
• Paper/wood: 0
• Non-plastic misc./unique: 1 (ceramic scrap)

More of the same.

Running YTD counts:

• Total pcs of litter -- 10935
• Total from fishing -- 9591 (87.7%)
• Pcs fishing rope -- 1930
• Vinyl lobster-trap scraps -- 6912