Collection Report March 17, 2011

I re-read last week's tome. Realized I needed to keep this one much shorter! So, Bay View, March 17, 2:40PM, low tide.

50 degrees F, snow all gone, has spring arrived?

Gorgeous, and busy. Clam diggers, dog walkers, and metal detectorists all shared the beach. As well as a large cadre of live sand dollars.

A hundred-plus along the low-tide terrace

The week had seen some energy. There were lines of organics cast up on the shore. And that means flotsam. Zone N:

80 finds:

• Building materials: 5 (plastic siding, 2 wooden blocks, aluminum strip, brick)
• Foam/Styrofoam: 3 (coffee cup scrap, styrofoam disk, pipe insulation foam scrap)
• Fishing misc.: 34 (2 ropes, ball of monofilament, bait bag, 6 claw bands/scraps, 24 lobster trap coatings)
• Food-related plastics: 4 (crazy straw, gum, Reese's PB cup bag, top from 2-liter bottle
• Food-related metal/glass: 6 (can, 5 can scraps)
• Non-food/unknown plastics: 22 (inc. black tape, Lego, o-ring, wristband, anchor, pen, tampon applicator, sock hook, bag of dog poo)
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 3
• Paper/wood: 0
• Misc./unique: 3 (2 leather scraps, glove)

A tampon applicator two weeks in a row. Lovely. More interesting was the Lego. In July last year, I found a pristine one. I'd read of the Tokio Express, a container ship that foundered in a storm off of Cornwall, UK, in 1997. It lost 62 containers, one of which carred 4,756,940 brand new Lego pieces. At the time, I thought the one I found might be from the ship. But, knowing what I know now, 14 years of ocean bashing is far more likely to look like this:

From where and when have you come?

No way to tell the full story on this little generic white Lego. But I do know it's been out in the ocean a long time, and is now part of my "favorites" stash.

On to Zone S:

47 finds:

• Building materials: 9 (all chunks of asphalt)
• Foam/Styrofoam: 1 (styrofoam)
• Fishing misc.: 12 (rope, monofilament, lure, bumper, 4 claw bands, 4 coatings)
• Food-related plastics: 1 (polystyrene cup scrap)
• Food-related metal/glass: 2 (can scrap, glass)
• Non-food/unknown plastics: 18 (bubblewrap, shopping bag, umbrella base, 2 vinyl upholstery scraps, bottle cap, plug?, clasp)
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 1
• Paper/wood: 1 (tissue)
• Misc./unique: 2 (leather shoe heel, stamped leather scrap)

The only thing of real interest was this old, battered, and thankfully hookless lure:

The one that got away

So, another week down. A quite typical ratio of Zone N to Zone S this week. And proof, after slow weeks, that there's still very much in the sea.

A Toy Story

Behold, the mighty Lego:

On July 20, during my weekly collection at Bay View, I picked up this little guy and plopped him into the bag. No biggie, just a toy at the beach.

It was only a few days later, when sorting through the bag, that it struck me: Who brings Legos to the beach? They're way too easy to lose. They don't lock together right when sand gets in them. They're just not a beach toy.

It so happened that I was reading a neat little book on marine debris at the same time:

(Burns, Loree Griffin. Tracking Trash. New York, Houghton Mifflin, 2007.)

It tells the story of oceanographer & beachcomber Curtis Ebbesmeyer. In 1990, he heard of Nike sneakers washing up in Washington state. Turns out a cargo ship had hit a storm in the Pacific. Five shipping containers of the sneakers went overboard. Dr. Ebbesmeyer contacted beachcombers up and down the West Coast to find out when and where the shoes were washing up. Then he and his friend, oceanographer Jim Ingraham, started plugging the data into computer models to learn how currents move.

Their work has brought the science of ocean and wind currents leaps beyond where it once was. And 20 years later, they're still at it. Ebbesmeyer and Ingraham are tracking the flotsam of a dozen major container spills. One happened on February 13, 1997, 20 miles west of Land's End, Cornwall, England. The Tokio Express, en route from Rotterdam to New York, was struck by a rogue wave and lost 62 containers.

One of those containers held 4,756,940 brand new Legos.

Fast-forward to Bay View, July 20, 2010. The Lego I picked up came from high-tide line, as though washed in. It's an unlikely thing to bring to the beach. Did this little toy travel the North Atlantic for 13 years and several thousand miles? I don't know. In a bucket of still water it sinks; I have no idea what it would do in dynamic ocean water.

What I do know is that it was never used.

Under a 30x - 21mm jeweler's loupe it is pristine. Not one scratch, no wear, no sign that it was ever connected to another Lego, top or bottom, ever dragged through the sand. This Lego was lost before it ever touched a child's hand, and was found before it was ever worn down by beach & wave.

I've sent an e-mail in to Dr. Ebbesmeyer. He has the full cargo manifest, and will know if the style of piece I found was onboard. Being so generic, I'll probably never know exactly where it came from. But if it dropped locally, I'll eat my hat.

It's a big world, and a big ocean... until it isn't.