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 Oct 20, 2010

October 20th at Bay View beach in Saco, Maine brought a long-lost sight.

Sandpipers and their overlord

Which brought a smile to my face on a very chilly morning. When you spend each week scouring the world for the ugly, it's all the more crucial to notice the beautiful. Sometimes -- no, especially -- in places you least expect it.

Someone's collection of found art

Because we all know there's plenty of ugly to go around.

...

Hmm...

I was just about to do the fancy segue. You know -- first show a few pretty pictures, and then hit folks with the ugly; insert obligatory shots of trash on the beach, tug at heartstrings, yada yada yada. Then it occurred to me, this one time I don't want to do that. That's so predictable. There are plenty of other pages on the Flotsam Diaries choc-a-bloc with depressing imagery. So many. Today as I write this, the sun is just rising over the treetops. Our home is bathed in a golden glow, and the branches outside that aren't yet bare are aflame with their last hurrah of color -- coppers and rusts and vermillions.

This one collection report, my heart isn't into the ugly.

But this is still a collection report; so I'll at least post what I found. If briefly.

Zone N, 77 finds:

• Building materials: 16 (fencing, asphalt chunks, brick bits, roofing tile bits)
• Foam/Styrofoam: 10
• Fishing misc.: 5 (shotgun shell wadding, bits of lobster trap coating, trap bumper)
• Food-related plastics: 4
• Food-related metal/glass: 1 (scrap of aluminum can)
• Non-food/unknown plastics: 11
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 23 (14 local + 9 "floaters")
• Paper/wood: 1
• Misc./unique: 6 (glove, chunk of wax, furniture fitting, gum, 2 bits rotted shoe leather)

Zone S, 43 finds:

• Building materials: 17 (mostly fence slats and bits of asphalt)
• Foam/Styrofoam: 11
• Fishing misc.: 5 (lobster trap feeder plate, bit of rope, shotgun shell, 2 shell waddings)
• Food-related plastics: 0
• Food-related metal/glass: 1
• Non-food/unknown plastics: 7
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 0 (!!! a first)
• Paper/wood: 1
• Misc./unique: 1

All told, 120 more bits of trash to add to the list.

It's so easy to cross that line between caring about something and being consumed by it. I was a guy who saw trash on the beach, and now I'm a Flotsam Diarist. It's clear that we're creating a plastic world, and that tugs at me. But in my heart, I'm not an outraged activist. I've tried that suit on, and it doesn't fit. I'm a radical moderate, who just wants to leave the world better than he found it.

A parting picture.

Scoured sand

The winds of October have already begun to reclaim the beach and return it to the ocean. As they have since the dawn of time. Much of the loose top sand has already been scoured, leaving an older and harder layer exposed. Throughout the winter, the sand will move far offshore, one storm at a time, and the beach will sink and be scooped away. Then the tides of summer will again slowly deposit it back, one wave at a time.

This is a good world. We should keep it that way.