Collection Report - November 8, 2013

A fresh collection report -- first in a long time!

Friday, November 8. 8:30AM. Just after low tide, a fairly weak one. Chill in the air, upper 30s, but warm sun and little breeze made the morning pleasant.

Two weeks since I had been here last. And the beach was looking very different. More of a steady, significant slope from the back of the foreshore all the way down to the water's edge. Sand likely slushed and washed up from down low by energy in late October & the first days of November.

Down on the low foreshore, summer's algae was by now almost all dead/dying. All passing away with the warmth & sun of summer. Green turning back to brown & gray.

From top to bottom, the beach on Friday left no flat spots, no taper points. Just a clean unobstructed angle. Meaning likely fewer places for water & flotsam to settle out quietly. Would that mean a light collection day? This lobster-trap bait bag, blown high onto the backshore, suggested that winds may have blown in more than guessed.

Elsewhere on the beach the view was more amazing. I spotted a seam of really cool features along back of foreshore:

"Sand volcanoes" -- air pushed up from inside the sand by the overnight incoming tide, but unable to escape easily thanks to a tiny film of frost on the surface. Amazing world we live in.

So, what were the finds?

7 pcs of rope, about 15 ft total

120 pcs of nonrope debris

127 finds:

• Bldg material/furniture: 0
• Foam/styrofoam: 0
• Fishing rope/net: 7
• Fishing misc.: 96 (85 vinyl scraps, 2 trap parts, ring, bumper, bait bag, 6 claw bands)
• Food-related plastics: 1 (cup bottom scrap)
• Food-related glass/metal: 0
• Nonfood/unknown plastics: 2 (upholstery seam, huge bandaid)
• Scrap plastics: 21 ( 7 > 1" , 14 < 1" )
• Paper/wood: 0
• Non-plastic misc./unique: 0

It was, by recent standards, a quiet week (blown-in bait bag aside).

Given the slope of the beach and mediocre energy (not storm-strong, not summer-gentle), not surprising to have a lighter-than-normal take. Actually fairly surprising still to be finding as much of the little vinyl bits as I did. Even though it was smeared in a very wide band from back of foreshore down well into the low rocks & cobbles.

The sea keeps giving, week after week.

Running YTD counts:

• Total pcs of litter -- 10617
• Total from fishing -- 9309 (87.7%)
• Pcs fishing rope -- 1928
• Vinyl lobster-trap scraps -- 6647

Collection Report - October 16, 2013

Wednesday, October 16. 1:30PM. A cpl hrs before low tide. Gray & overcast. No rain. 60 degrees. Slight breeze coming from the north. The back of the backshore was ringed by a mix of summery greens and autumnal oranges/reds. No freeze yet on the coast. Blackening wrack from last week's wash-ins lined the backshore of the beach.

Amid the blackening seaweed was the rotting "cliffs" of white sand at the back of the foreshore, also cut back by the previous weeks. Now aging and showing no new pulverizing.

Yet amid the cobbles on low foreshore, summer's algae blooms were dying back quickly on their exposed rocks. Strong (if low) waves had clearly been carving at them this week, ripping them from all except the largest of cobbles and boulders.

And this day brought me a new find at Curtis Cove:

My first ever sea urchin shell ("test") from Curtis Cove. A nice find.

So, low waves but high energy. What washed in?

25 pcs of rope, about 25 ft total

182 pcs of nonrope debris

207 finds:

• Bldg material/furniture: 0
• Foam/styrofoam: 0
• Fishing rope/net: 25
• Fishing misc.: 154 (127 lobster trap vinyl scraps, 15 trap parts, trap tag, bait bag, bumper, 5 claw bands, 3 balls of fishing line, o-ring from buoy)
• Food-related plastics: 4 (cup scraps)
• Food-related glass/metal: 1 (beer bottle, local drop)
• Nonfood/unknown plastics: 4 (small scrap of window screen, 2 cords, old abraded button)
• Scrap plastics: 16 ( 6 > 1" , 10 < 1" )
• Paper/wood: 0
• Non-plastic misc./unique: 3 (seaglass)

I found a surprising number of heavy metal lobster trap parts, as well as freshly washed-in rope. I also found lower-than-"normal" counts for trap vinyl coatings. That all points to an ocean changing with the seasons.

On to next week.

Running YTD counts:

• Total pcs of litter -- 10268
• Pcs fishing rope -- 1902
• Vinyl lobster-trap scraps -- 6399

Collection Report - October 8, 2013

Tuesday, October 8. 8:00AM. Just after low tide. Bright tide, low-50s.

This was the day after big, sustained windstorm that ran most of the day on Monday. Evidence for the energy was widespread at the beach. The tides easily overtopped the old summer berms at the back of the foreshore, leaving clumps of large wrack behind.

The pounding surf cut & scoured out a big cliff into the soft sand & cobbles at the back of the foreshore.

The weather left very interesting patterns of sand and rain on the beach. It was obvious where the highest of high tides from mid-da Monday splashed all the way up to the back of the cobbles. These were pelted by rain drops as that tide receded Monday afternoon. But then after midnight Tuesday, when the next high tide came in, the rain had stopped. The winds were lower & the tide didn't reach as far. As it receded there were no more raindrops.

Quite striking to see multiple times & tides etched into the sand, and to be able to read it like a book.

All of Monday's activity, plus the coming cold, seems to have stirred up life at the beach. Down on the low foreshore, crab and snail tracks interspersed with gull footprints:

Higher & dryer on the backshore, another denizen of the dunes:

So with all the changes happening on the beach, and all the energy, what would that mean for the finds?

15 pcs of rope, about 20 ft total

198 pcs of nonrope debris

213 finds:

• Bldg material/furniture: 0
• Foam/styrofoam: 0
• Fishing rope/net: 15
• Fishing misc.: 163 (149 vinyl lobster trap coating scraps, vent, 2 bait bags, 4 trap parts, 7 claw bands)
• Food-related plastics: 9 (4 small cup scraps, 2 food wrappers, locally-dropped yogurt tubs, six-pack ring, straw)
• Food-related glass/metal: 3 (fresh aluminum beer cans, shotgunned)
• Nonfood/unknown plastics: 9 (3 baggies, latex balloon, long red string, 2 cigarette packaging, umbrella base, fabric swatch)
• Scrap plastics: 8 ( 4 > 1" , 4 < 1" )
• Paper/wood: 0
• Non-plastic misc./unique: 3 (2 sea glass, chunk of aluminum)

A strange day. For one thing, local stuff. Including three spiked-and-shotgunned beer cans:

As expected, big stuff did ride the high waves in. Trap vent, bait bags, chunks of rope. But I was surprised how much lobster trap vinyl there still was amid the masses.

Big day: broke the 10,000-piece mark for my Year 2 at Curtis Cove! And the year's just half over.

Anyway, time moves on and the sea is always changing.

Running YTD counts:

• Total pcs of litter -- 10061
• Pcs fishing rope -- 1877
• Vinyl lobster-trap scraps -- 6272

Collection Report - September 29, 2013

Sunday, September 29. 1:40PM, right at very weak low tide. 60 degrees. Bright, bright sun. Cool seabreeze coming in. Low energy week, unchanged largely since last week.

The foreshore still awash with jumbled and poorly sorted cobbles, pebbles, and wrack. On this early fall day the backshore still looked an awful lot like summer!

A truly beautiful day to have a beach all to myself.

Things I noticed this week: The slope down to the waterline felt longer, more gradual, more consistent & noticeable. There were fewer flat berms and falloffs. There was little sorting or piling of new cusps & mounds. And little new wrack come in. But at very back of last high-tide line (20-30 feet up from what had been the end of the live-algae zone), I found an area of smushed & sand-tossed loose wrack. Lots of vinyl & plastic churned up through this loose wrack.

It's rare at Curtis Cove to see that kind of mixing. Usually the vinyl sits on top, but this stuff got churned into the back of the foreshore, yet not dragged away. As though a couple last high waves made an energetic slush, that then quickly died back away.

So what did I find?

528 pcs of nonrope debris

528 finds:

• Bldg material/furniture: 0
• Foam/styrofoam: 0
• Fishing rope/net: 0
• Fishing misc.: 481 (456 vinyl lobster trap coating bits, 9 trap parts, 2 bumpers, big ball of fishing line, 13 claw bands)
• Food-related plastics: 11 (bottom of drink bottle, 4 bottlecap o-rings, 5 cup scraps, container)
• Food-related glass/metal: 1 (tiny aluminum can scrap)
• Nonfood/unknown plastics: 9 ("silk" flower, 6 cable ties, o-ring, anchor)
• Scrap plastics: 25 (4 > 1" , 21 < 1" )
• Paper/wood: 0
• Non-plastic misc./unique: 1 (sea glass)

Another zero-rope week! That's become a very good indicator of a very low-energy week at the cove. As is the return of large masses of lobster trap vinyl:

Beyond the vinyl, I did find one other interesting thing:

This bleached, faded, & abraded cup surely has a tale to tell. Who lost it? Where? When? Why? How? So many questions -- all of them essential if we're ever going to reclaim clean oceans & give our descendants reason not to despise us. Yet none of them answerable.

The tides go on.

Running YTD counts:

• Total pcs of litter -- 9848
• Pcs fishing rope -- 1862
• Vinyl lobster-trap scraps -- 6123

Collection Report - September 15, 2013

Saturday September 15. 1:15PM, near low tide. Mid-60s, nice seabreeze. Mostly sunny. Fall-like crisp air.

Beach looking still a lot like September 7. If maybe a bit more "unkempt." The live algae down low on the foreshore was still there -- though getting more muddled & ripped up. The low foreshore a jumble of cobbles & pebbles & boulders.

Higher against back of foreshore August's clusters & clumps of pebble-sized rocks were still there. But matted down. "Aging." Smushing themselves back down, unrestored by the late summer's weak waves.

Sadly those weak waves brought their payload of vinyl lobster trap bits again.

This time instead of up against the back of the foreshore, the bulk was strewn amid the standing water and boulders of the live-algae zone. A one-day slightly higher tide seems to have had enough energy to first spill over the foreshore berm, and then partially drag some of the vinyl load back down.

But again, there was no energy for bringing in large & heavy things like rope. It was another zero-rope day. And another sobering day.

1151 pcs of nonrope debris

1151 finds:

• Bldg material/furniture: 0
• Foam/styrofoam: 0
• Fishing rope/net: 0
• Fishing misc.: 1043 (979 vinyl lobster trap coating scraps, 5 bumpers, 5 trap parts, 54 claw bands)
• Food-related plastics: 30 (bottlecap, 3 bottlecap o-rings, 24 cup scraps, cutlery scrap, straw scrap)
• Food-related glass/metal: 2 (aluminum can scraps)
• Nonfood/unknown plastics: 11 (balloon, PhoneMate clip, Nifty Magnetic SpaceSaver Binder scrap, cord, cable tie, 2 plant stakes, anchor, 3 ring seals)
• Scrap plastics: 64 ( 16 > 1" , 48 < 1" )
• Paper/wood: 0
• Non-plastic misc./unique: 1 (tile scrap)

A couple of the wash-ins were kind of cool. An ancient phone clip from an old PhoneMate answering machine system:

And a very worn & aged scrap from a "Nifty Magnetic SpaceSaver Binder":

Neither of these makes sense as ocean debris. Yet both were in the ocean. Probably from either an accidental trash-bag rip near a gutter, or debris from a violent coastal storm years ago.

But of course, the story this week, as many weeks running, is the lobster trap debris:

979 pieces of vinyl. A record.

That's barely enough to recreate one lost lobster trap. In the hour & a half that I was picking these pieces up at least 6 more lobster traps were lost in the waters of the Gulf of Maine.

That's not sustainable.

Running YTD counts:

• Total pcs of litter -- 8991
• Pcs fishing rope -- 1812
• Vinyl lobster-trap scraps -- 5424

Curtis Cove Report - Dec 11, 2012

Tuesday, December 11. 1:35PM, half-hour before low-tide. Bright sun, mid-40s.

Actually a beautiful December day with a mild land breeze, and excellent lines of wrack banding. I also had some company this day - a lot of company:

Intersection

With berries & worms in short supply, the birds were now flocking to the relative warmth of the coast. They rooted through the rotting wrack, feasting on the bugs among it. (And whatever else was in with it.)

Down lower on the foreshore, the fine, saturated sand was eroding in incredible works of art:

Ephemeral beauty, gone in hours

And by the water's edge, a Curtis Cove first:

First mostly dead, then fully dead

When I tapped at this red sculpin (sea raven), presuming it dead, it wriggled! It had been speared or clawed in the side and was in a bad way. I moved it back into the water in case it still had any fight in it. But it finished its life just a couple minutes later. When I left I saw the seagulls diving on it. Reminded me of words I'd learned some time back: "The sea isn't cruel, it just doesn't tolerate any mistakes."

Also down at the water's edge was another amazing sight:

High Occupancy Zone

Thousands of tubeworm "condos" poked up out of the sand. These sand tubes are cemented together by the burrowing worms that thrive in gentle muddy coves like Curtis Cove. All the fresh and decaying seaweed mixing with the tide waters is a smorgasborg.

You can look at a beach, see nothing moving, and think there's no life there. But you'd be wrong.

Surprisingly, in the end I found very little of this:

This knife at first looked like a new, local drop. But a closer look showed chipped teeth on the serrated edge and a frosted/etched look to the plastic. It's another wash-in from afar.

Given all the beautiful banding of gently-laid wrack I was sure this would be a heavy-plastic day. But in my zone, it wasn't. (The banding was its strongest just south of my zone, so maybe plastics etc. were pushed that way this week?)

62 pcs of rope, about 70 ft total

61 pcs of nonrope debris

123 finds:

• Bldg material/furniture: 0
• Foam/styrofoam: 0
• Fishing rope/net: 62 
• Fishing misc.: 17 (10 vinyl trap coating scraps, 2 trap parts, trap tag, metal ring part, bumper, 2 claw bands)
• Food-related plastics: 12 (bottle - old w/ top cut off, 5 cup scraps, CapriSun, OLD ketchup pack, 2 wrapper scraps, frosted/old knife, straw)
• Food-related glass/metal: 3 (fresh beer can, 2 old can bottoms)
• Nonfood/unknown plastics: 12 (10 bag scraps, 2 mylar balloons - one very old)
• Scrap plastics: 14 ( 9 > 1" , 5 < 1" )
• Paper/wood: 0
• Non-plastic misc./unique: 3 (2 fabric scraps, 1 worn/eaten fabric glove)

A curious day. The conditions seemed ripe for heavy debris. And much of what washed in was the old, degraded, broken bits of modern society that are all too common now in the Gulf of Maine. Yet by Curtis Cove standards there wasn't that much to find. At least on the surface. As so often, it's not always about what you see. It's about what lies beneath.

Not collected - how many more are there?

Running YTD counts:

• Total pcs of litter -- 11360
• Pcs fishing rope -- 2810
• Vinyl lobster-trap scraps -- 4688

Curtis Cove Report - Nov 10, 2012

Saturday, November 10. 1:45PM, just past low tide. Beautiful slack water, with barely a ripple kissing the soft mud at the lowest foreshore.

A week now after Superstorm Sandy, and the high foreshore was still a cliff of wrack, wrack, and wrack.

But much of the storm's cast-up sand and mud was oozing back toward the sea. Burying many of the low foreshore cobbles, and leaving ephemeral beauty in its wake.

Higher up the slope, other things were left.

This was a week of high-energy waves meeting a steepened beach face, and the two trying to work out some new meeting of minds. Most of the debris had been dumped & pushed high up onto the foreshore, and was big & bulky like that SOLO cup. Very little small stuff managed to settle out, high or low.

Here's what I found:

124 pcs of rope, about 250 ft total

57 pcs of nonrope debris

181 finds:

• Bldg material/furniture: 1 (toilet seat rim)
• Foam/styrofoam: 0
• Fishing rope/net: 124
• Fishing misc.: 21 (10 bait bags, 5 trap tags, 3 trap parts, vent, bumper, vinyl coating)
• Food-related plastics: 14 (old, dragged bottle, bottle cap, cap o-ring, cap seal, cap scrap, 3 PS cup scraps, 3 food wrappers, cookie tub, spoon)
• Food-related glass/metal: 1 (bottlecap)
• Nonfood/unknown plastics: 11 (7 baggies/scraps, sleeve/grommet, 2 strapping, crate seal)
• Scrap plastics: 9 (6 > 1" , 3 < 1" )
• Paper/wood: 0
• Non-plastic misc./unique: 1 (fabric scrap)

This is the signature of a beach still in the grip of Sandy's aftermath. It's not the amount of debris, but the size of the pieces. And it's not the usual dense seabottom flecks, but lighter, bulkier, buoyant material hurled over the distant rocks at the head of the cove. 77% directly related to the lobstering industry. More of the Gulf of Maine's lasting legacy.

Running YTD counts:

• Total pcs of litter -- 10667
• Pcs fishing rope -- 2487
• Vinyl lobster-trap scraps -- 4564