Curtis Cove Report - Nov 25, 2012

After a byweek and a big Thanksgiving feast, it was time to return to Curtis Cove....Sunday, 1:15PM. An hr before low-tide. 37 degrees, mostly cloudy & blustery. A cold day!

The beachface was returning to its "usual" shape after Sandy. Sand up high, exposed cobbles down at the low foreshore. And sheets of Sandy-dumped wrack. With its usual cargo.

Rope playing hide-and-seek

"Let's... Tie It!" And release it :(

Curtis Cove Protection Battalion

c.1975 Schlitz beer can top

It was an interesting week for washout patterns. Sand rivulets ran from NW to SE in bands down to the water's edge. My foot often went through what looked like solid sand, which was actually just resting on top of loose wrack. Also, with Sandy gone, the normally gentle sea returned. And gentle seas drop out smaller, finer plastics. Here's what I found:

174 pcs of rope, about 150 ft total

178 pcs of nonrope debris

352 finds:

• Bldg material/furniture: 0
• Foam/styrofoam: 0
• Fishing rope/net: 174 (150 ft)
• Fishing misc.: 74 (3 trap vents, 44 vinyl coating scraps, 4 bumpers, 3 trap nettings, trap tag, 3 bait bags, ring scrap, top of hard plastic buoy, 14 claw bands)
• Food-related plastics: 30 (3 old bottles, 1 bottlecap o-ring, 18 cup scraps, 3 food wrappers, old fork scrap, 2 straws, 2 bread tags)
• Food-related glass/metal: 6 (5 can scraps, bottle cap)
• Nonfood/unknown plastics: 24 (10 bag scraps, 2 balloons, eaten glove, jug top/cap, old truck scrap, soldier, shovel scoop, 3 cable ties, plant pot tag, long handle, POLICE tape, caulk scrap)
• Scrap plastics: 36 ( 16 > 1" , 20 < 1" )
• Paper/wood: 1 (air filter scrap)
• Non-plastic misc./unique: 7 (fabric scraps)

A varied mess this was! Much of the big debris & rope was clearly Sandy-related, and had been buried in the wrack back on November 10. But as predicted, the calmer seas brought back much of the more typical small debris to go along with it. All in all, some very interesting -- and sobering -- finds.

Bitten/mauled plastic glove

Lobster trap tag from 1996

Heavily encrusted trap vent

Sea-bottom-dragged Gatorade bottle

When this year started, there was a big question: All the trash that I first found at the beach, was it still coming in from week to week? Or had it built up over long years and was not actually a big issue?

Which does it seem?

Running YTD counts:

• Total pcs of litter -- 11019
• Pcs fishing rope -- 2661
• Vinyl lobster-trap scraps -- 4608

Aftermath

Superstorm Sandy.

I've been struggling to create a coherent set of thoughts about this monster. The wreckage and sadness on my computer screen speak so loudly to the heart of The Flotsam Diaries. Of overbuilt coastlines, rising tides, plastic lives. Polluted lives.

Yet writing about what Sandy has wrought from the lens of the Diaries has seemed gauche.

Maine was spared her worst. Our condo was spared entirely. We even got the recycling bins stored away safely so not one bottle blew out and besmirched our lawn. Our family is all OK. Even those family members in the direct path of the storm -- inland southern New Jersey -- suffered no worse than power outages or nearby tree limbs down.

Meanwhile New Jersey's coast bore so much. So much loss. Not to mention New York City herself, Long Island, Connecticut. Beyond. And of course before all that, death and destruction in the Caribbean too.

I work on human-scale events. Ripped beach balls, a broken umbrella base, flowerpot scraps. A menu blown from a beachside restaurant. Occasionally household rubbish that blows out of a trash bin and goes down a storm drain.

I have collected & cataloged more than 25,000 pieces of manmade debris. Some of it thoughtlessly left behind, some accidentally lost. Surely, some of it the poignant remains of some greater disaster.

25,000 pieces. When Sandy struck, each single solitary wave that hammered each town pulled that much debris into the ocean. Up and down a coastline stretching hundreds of miles. For hours and hours.

The scale of what one storm has done to people's lives is shocking. The scale of what it did to the ocean is shattering.

But on Tuesday morning, I went to my part of the ocean. I had to see it. It was almost a compulsion. I thought I was going in order to look for erosion and debris. It turns out, I was going in order to see this:

That hole in the heavens opened up as I was wrapping up my check-in. It lasted in its glory for about 30 seconds.

On the way to the cove, I had stopped at a convenience store for some coffee. I even chatted with the owner for about 5 minutes. I have never had the urge to pull over and get coffee on any trip to the beach. If I hadn't this time, I would have been gone from the cove before seeing -- and capturing -- this.

It brought to mind a line from my hero Tolkien:

"In the end, the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach."

Tomorrow I'll be back at the cove, picking up debris like I always do. While folks 400 miles away do the same thing. On a different scale.

To them, my heart goes out and my hat is off.