Collection Report July 15, 2011

Another perfect morning, and a message from the dawn...

No, you're not wigging out, it's upside-down

If you want to be first to the beach in Maine in July, you've got to get there before 7:30AM.

This was going to be an interesting pickup. For one thing, energy in the waves had brought in various sea-going bits and bobs. From organics all alone...

"Mush" bits pock-marking outflow

...to organics tagging along on plastics:

Tagging along on a piece of plastic

Algae/bryozoa on this plastic sleeve

And then, to top of the day, another one of these.

Awesome. Another one.

Again? Really? Anyway, the totals. Zone N:

323 finds:

• Building materials: 0
• Foam/Styrofoam: 35
• Fishing misc.: 13 (rope, 4 twine, 5 claw bands, trap tag, shotgun shell, bag of bait)
• Food-related plastics: 38 (including 24 food/straw wrappers/packaging!)
• Food-related metal/glass: 13 (5 caps, 3 glass scraps, 4 foil wrappers)
• Nonfood/unknown plastics: 52 (14 plastic bags/scraps, 8 personal care (lids/medicines), 4 toys/scraps, 4 ribbon, wristband, 2 firecrackers, pen cap, umbrella top, bracelet, 5 scraps >1", 11 scraps <1")
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 70 (67 filters, 3 packaging)
• Paper/wood: 94 (57 firecracker sticks, 5 wood scraps, 32 napkins/random paper)
• Misc./unique: 8 (thong underwear, 2 socks, pair of shoes, flipflop, string, piece of fabric)

Wow. Now that's a lot of junk for one week. Largely explained by firecrackers & smokers. But still, an amazing amount of garbage. And a very colorful day, with a mix of yesterday and yesteryear. A couple of the highlights below. First, more of those Canadian lobster claw bands, all pristine.

Found a dozen, or more, since June 2

Too many of these have come in now to be coincidence. Some kind of incident happened in Canadian waters in early May (can't say whether big or small), and we're still seeing the repercussions of it down here. The ocean's all connected after all.

The other highlight: a gray pen cap that looked a -lot- like the weird little firecrackers that have also been washing up throughout the same time period. (Related??)

Spot the pen cap (OK, it's easy)

Hopefully you see now my confusion when the first of these little busted-up pieces of gray hollow plastic came in!

On to Zone S:

19 finds:

• Building materials: 0
• Foam/Styrofoam: 6
• Fishing misc.: 1 (fishing rope twine)
• Food-related plastics: 0
• Food-related metal/glass: 0
• Nonfood/unknown plastics: 7 (3 bags/scraps, tampon applicator, and tampon (unused), firecracker, 1 scrap <1")
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 5
• Paper/wood: 0
• Misc./unique: 0

19 finds, against 323 just 150 feet away?? That's not natural. Maybe the condos bordering Zone S have hired cleaning help, or are voluntarily picking up. Dunno. I doubt this stretch is suddenly so clean simply because of encroaching dunes. Anyway, other than that, and yet another tampon applicator (which does seem completely unrelated to the unused tampon and tampon bag also found), Zone S is dull.

So there you go. A wild day, a good day to be a Flotsam Diarist. And more proof that every week may have its share of surprises.

Collection Report March 31, 2011

Back to Bay View!

1:45PM, 45 deg, gathering clouds

With the snow gone, the scene isn't changing much from week to week. Except for this.

A rare straight shot

Can't remember seeing a straighter tide line. Or a lower one. This weakling barely made it up the slope, stopping just below the curious ridges/cusps Bay View is known for. Significant that a weak tide meets the starting edge of the cusps? Another question for the books.

As the picture shows, a bit of energy reached the shore this week. A line of grotty, rotted organics, with a batch of grotty, rotted litter tangled up among them. Here's Zone N:

50 finds:

• Building materials: 3 (brick)
• Foam/Styrofoam: 1
• Fishing misc.: 22 (5 claw bands, 3 trap coatings, 12 rope fragments -- all badly frayed and worn, bait bag, monofilament twisted around rusted wire)
• Food-related plastics: 1 (chewing gum)
• Food-related metal/glass: 2 (can scraps)
• Non-food/unknown plastics: 8 (bladder/hot water bottle scrap?, rubber band, plastic bag scrap, cord, hard blue scrap like the edge of a recycling tub, 3 small hard scraps)
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 10
• Paper/wood: 0
• Misc./unique: 3 (pair of Abercrombie & Fitch flipflops, bit of rope)

A close-up of the fishing gear:

Not recent

I've seen plenty of old rope wash in. But nothing quite this worn out. Some bits had turned shaggy, more like dreadlocks than rope. Probably a good story in there, if only I could decipher it.

On to Zone S:

23 finds:

• Building materials: 6 (3 asphalt chunks, 2 brick, 1 tile)
• Foam/Styrofoam: 0
• Fishing misc.: 6 (claw band, 4 rope bits, bait bag scrap)
• Food-related plastics: 1 (freshly dropped spoon)
• Food-related metal/glass: 2 (scrap)
• Non-food/unknown plastics: 6 (bottle stopper/lid, kite, tieback, 3 scraps)
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 2
• Paper/wood: 0
• Misc./unique: 0

More shaggy rope, just like Zone N. (Though, as usual, less stuff than in Zone N.)

I won't pretend that 73 finds is news-worthy. Even the kite & flip-flops don't do much to make this week particularly interesting. But it is odd that so little floatable material is coming in, week after week after week. And curious that what washed in this time was so grotty and old. It just feels like, for whatever reason, since the Christmas storm nothing has floated into Saco Bay. What does that mean? Wish I knew. As always, a trip to Bay View brings more questions than answers.

But this time, it did bring closure to a lingering, doomed relic.

Bay View Convent. 1872 - 2011

The more things stay the same, the more they change.