Curtis Cove Report - June 13, 2013

Thursday, June 13. 9:30 AM. Mid-60s and on its way up. Light breeze, 1/2 hour before low tide, bright sun... Bring on summer!

And still all to myself

Long lines of clouds in the sky, reverberating energy up and down just like a plucked guitar string -- or a pebble thrown in the ocean.

"Gravity Waves"

It had been a mostly low-energy couple of weeks since my last visit, with a healed summer slope to the beach as a whole. The backshore, so ravaged in February, was back & in blossom.

The low foreshore, heavily saturated by a week of heavy & steady rains, swirled with standing pools and life.

Walking along the backshore, my feet sank into fresh sand that had been blown or washed on top of the last remnants of winter's wrack. Bits of rope stuck out of the mid-foreshore, signs that their overburden had been stripped off (and then tossed onto the backshore). What would that mean for any washed-in plastic? Well, you tell me.

184 pcs of rope, about 140 ft total

158 pcs of nonrope debris

342 finds:

• Bldg material/furniture: 2 (fiberglass fragments)
• Foam/styrofoam: 0
• Fishing rope/net: 184
• Fishing misc.: 81 (61 vinyl trap scraps, 8 bait bags/scraps, 2 bumpers, 2 trap parts, 3 balls of fishing line, 4 claw bands, trap tag)
• Food-related plastics: 19 (bottlecap seal, bottle, 14 cup scraps, bread wrapper tag, tiny plate scrap, straw)
• Food-related glass/metal: 3 (2 aluminum can scraps, seaglass)
• Nonfood/unknown plastics: 29 (6 bag scraps, 3 mylar balloon scraps, Clorox bottlecap scrap, nonfood bottlecap, hair band, 2 very old/broken toy scraps, 7 cords, 2 rubber belts/straps, 2 woven straps, plant ID stake, 3 cable ties)
• Scrap plastics: 18 ( 10 > 1" , 8 < 1" )
• Paper/wood: 1 (paper backing/lining)
• Non-plastic misc./unique: 5 (3 fabric scraps, 1"Lobster Cove" scrap, shoelace)

More of the usual. And maybe a little unusual:

The steel inside this large lobster trap scrap has all rusted away. All that's left is the permanent, nondegradable vinyl coating. How long would it take to do that, do you think?

And of course, more subtle evidence of commercial fishing's effects on the Gulf of Maine:

Bleach bottles and bleach bottlecaps are common finds. After sanitizing decks & work surfaces on a rocking boat, bleach bottles are often accidentally (or not accidentally) dumped overboard. They don't go away.

Neither do the plastic remnants of early mornings out to sea.

I have found dozens -- or hundreds -- of scraps of coffeecups and cup lids washed up on my one shore. (Many or most with sea-creature bite & poke marks on them.) More than could be accounted for by seaside strollers. Coffee is an excellent 5AM wake-up for a long day at sea. But pitching a coffee cup overboard when the coffee's gone is bad form.

Running YTD counts:

• Total pcs of litter -- 4159
• Pcs fishing rope -- 1627
• Vinyl lobster-trap scraps -- 1701

Curtis Cove Report - May 28, 2013

Tuesday May 28, 2013. 8:15AM. Bright sun, a few clouds off coast. Upper 50s. Incredibly low low tide. Water receded out in places 50+ feet further out than I'd ever seen.

Standing on the northern side of the cove I could almost hop across to the south!

Even with all this exposed, I at first was a bit disappointed by what seemed like not a lot of life. But as always, the key is to look closer. Here is a sandworm wriggling back into the mud, while the sand-cast of another lies like spaghetti next to it.

And a lovely surprise -- a "bushy-backed nudibranch"! A kind of shell-less snail that you can find in intertidal areas if you're lucky

And then, the reason I started visiting beaches in earnest 3+ years ago. Plastic. These are the ubiquitous bits of vinyl from rotted lobster traps that I find every week in the tide pools.

 Higher up on the beach, what have we here? The string to a balloon?

Nope. The entire balloon, mylar.

Another week, another remnant of someone's celebration washing up.

On to the finds...

(Same tech disaster that killed my May 15 rope photo killed May 28.)

68 pcs of fishing rope, about 80 ft overall

69 pcs of nonrope debris

137 finds:

• Bldg material/furniture: 0
• Foam/styrofoam: 0
• Fishing rope/net: 68
• Fishing misc.: 39 (5 bumpers, 19 vinyl trap coatings, 3 bait bag scraps, 8 trap parts, vent, fishing line, claw band, rope connector rod)
• Food-related plastics: 12 (2 bottle caps, 2 bottles, 7 cup scraps, triangle-cut sandwich container)
• Food-related glass/metal: 3 (can scrap, 2 sea glass)
• Nonfood/unknown plastics: 10 (mylar balloon, large rug offcut, 2 flowers, fabric scrap, 5 cable ties)
• Scrap plastics: 4 ( all > 1" )
• Paper/wood: 0
• Non-plastic misc./unique: 1 (shoe string)

blah blah

Fake flowers never die.

Drink bottles have a rough life on the seabed. But it's even rougher for the sea creatures that eat chunks of sharp rigid plastic.

When even multi-pour salt shakers are made of plastic, they leave a plastic legacy in the ocean.

Running YTD counts:

• Total pcs of litter -- 3817
• Pcs fishing rope -- 1443
• Vinyl lobster-trap scraps -- 1640

Curtis Cove Report - May 15, 2013

After more than two weeks away from the beach due to commitments & bad weather, by May 15 I was jones'ing to get back.

So, what did it look like? Let's see

Wednesday, May 15, 2013. 830AM. No clouds. Bright blue, temps in the 50s and warming quickly. No breeze. Still morning, a few shorebirds chirping in the distance.

The Rachel Carson Natl Wildlife Refuge had also prepared for the impending summer season with a great new plaque at the head of the trail.

Down on the beach, the cove was healing itself nicely from winter. The beach profile was returning to its gentle, steady slope -- high and proud on the backshore down evenly to the low foreshore. The foreshore cobbles & pebbles were all on display again. Winter's storms, which had dumped and dragged mud & sand on top, were now really a memory.

Lined along the backshore were the last remains of winter's rotted & dried-out wrack, some buried by recently blown-in or washed-in sand. As it dried, its plastic load peeked through.

It was going to be a busy day. Here's what I found:

(Tech mini-disaster means no rope photo - sorry!)

320 pcs of fishing rope, about 180 ft

96 pcs of nonrope debris

416 finds:

• Bldg material/furniture: 0
• Foam/styrofoam: 0
• Fishing rope/net: 320
• Fishing misc.: 35 (6 claw bands, 2 fishing lines, hard buoy top, 5 bait bags, 9 trap parts, 5 bumpers, tag scrap, 6 vinyl trap coating bits)
• Food-related plastics: 11 (2 bottles - 1 very eaten/damaged, 5 cup scraps, water flavorer wrapper, sauce pack, microwave meal box scrap, cutlery scrap)
• Food-related glass/metal: 1 (aluminum can scrap)
• Nonfood/unknown plastics: 29 (bag, Clorox bottlecap, broken comb, bandaid, 4 packaging scraps, crate chunk, clothespin, 4 upholstery scraps, 11 cable ties!, cord, crate seal, chopstick scrap, drawer organizer scrap)
• Scrap plastics: 13 ( 6 > 1" , 7 < 1" )
• Paper/wood: 0
• Non-plastic misc./unique: 7 (fabric scraps)

This badly-abused & fish-bitten bottle could tell quite a story.

A plastic chopstick scrap??

A mangled comb -- its lost teeth likely still fouling the ocean, somewhere.

A very abraded Clorox bottle scrap.

Clorox is used heavily on fishing boats for sanitation. Sadly, too many times the empty bottles are then just pitched overboard.

"Away"

Running YTD counts:

• Total pcs of litter -- 3680
• Pcs fishing rope -- 1375
• Vinyl lobster-trap scraps -- 1621

Curtis Cove Report - Apr 23, 2013

Tuesday, April 23 & back again! 1 PM. Raw. Gray, hovering masses of dead clouds. Barely 40 degrees, spitting drizzle on & off.

The cobbles on the low foreshore spoke of a slowly healing beach. All the sand that had slumped & dumped onto them from winter's storms was now re-sorting itself, returning to normal.

Higher up, vanishing drizzle marks revealed the last high-tide at the slumped sand by the backshore.

One interesting find tis day: Amid the soaking & squishy & smelly wrack, a very biofouled dog-frisbee.

Hard to collect on a leaden, soaking & chill afternoon. The story, as usual, was the fishing rope. Here's the overall haul:

155 pcs of fishing rope, about 180 ft

27 pcs of nonrope debris

182 finds:

• Bldg material/furniture: 1 (small fiberglass/plastic resin chunk)
• Foam/styrofoam: 0
• Fishing rope/net: 155 (180 ft)
• Fishing misc.: 17 (9 vinyl trap coating scraps, 2 claw bands, 2 bait bags, 2 bumpers, trap part, ball of fishing line)
• Food-related plastics: 1 (scrap of drink cup)
• Food-related glass/metal: 0
• Nonfood/unknown plastics: 5 (dog frisbee, 3 cable ties, crate seal)
• Scrap plastics: 3 ( 2 > 1" , 1 < 1" )
• Paper/wood: 0
• Non-plastic misc./unique: 0

In the gray light, with churned up squidgy rotting seaweed, everything on the beach looked the same. I'm sure I missed small bits despite my efforts. That said, minus the old rope this is a very small haul. So, did winter's storms actually purge the local sea of its debris? Or is the just the calm before the next deluge?

Keep tuning back in to find out.

Running YTD counts:

• Total pcs of litter -- 3264
• Pcs fishing rope -- 1055
• Vinyl lobster-trap scraps -- 1615

Curtis Cove Report - Apr 17, 2013

Wednesday, April 17. 11:10AM. Bright sunshine, 55 degrees, light seabreeze, just after low tide. Spring returns.

A fantastic day to be at a deserted beach! I say "deserted," although all around were mockingbirds, chickadees, gulls, big juicy sea-ducks... and snails.

Snail superhighway!

Winter faded, as the rare chunk of marsh-grass looking out onto the open cove greened back up:

Surprise!

It was truly a beautiful day of rippled sand:

Nature's recycling:

A little mystery:

And admiring the stories left behind in the stones:

And, of course, there was plenty of this:

It had been a low energy week-and-a-half since April 8. As winter's wrack rotted back into nothingness, it revealed much left behind.

177 pcs of rope, about 150 ft

xxx pcs of nonrope debris

324 finds:

• Bldg material/furniture: 2 (weatherstrip, car/boat console piece)
• Foam/styrofoam: 0
• Fishing rope/net: 177 (150 ft)
• Fishing misc.: 90 (55 vinyl trap coating scraps, 6 trap parts, 2 bait bags, 2 trap tags, 11 bumpers, crab vent, cleat, 11 claw bands, ball of fishing line)
• Food-related plastics: 18 (2 bottle top-halves, ALMADEN bottlecap, 4 bottlecap seals, 4 cup scraps, MRE pack, meat stake, wrapper scrap, fish-bitten ketchup pack, abraded whole spoon, 2 cutlery scraps)
• Food-related glass/metal: 2 (aluminum can scraps)
• Nonfood/unknown plastics: 23 (2 bag scraps, 4 balloons/scraps, 2 hair bands, toy soldier leg, large floormat scrap, plant pot hook, strap, "silk" flower, Xmas tree light, 4 cable ties, plant stake, fabric strip "Berkshire Blanket," black tape scrap, crate seal, sock hanger)
• Scrap plastics: 10 ( 8 > 1" , 2 < 1" )
• Paper/wood: 0
• Non-plastic misc./unique: 2 (fabric scrap, leather strap)

A wild day.

Sealife nibbled the heck out of this

Silk flowers aren't silk anymore

Remember that statue ruin on "LOST"??

Plant pot hooks, Christmas tree lights, plant stakes, and a car console... If it's made of plastic, an example of it is now in an ocean near you.

Running Year 2 YTD counts:

• Total pcs of litter -- 3082
• Pcs fishing rope -- 900
• Vinyl lobster-trap scraps -- 1606

Curtis Cove Report - Apr 8, 2013

Wow. Way too far behind now. Time to make a few brief posts to catch back up if I can! Monday, April 8. 1:15PM. Three hrs past high-tide. Strong seabreeze, low 50s. Bright sun, a beautiful day to be here.

The beach was still healing itself nicely after winter's violence, getting its old shape back. On this day I found great natural sorting -- a tight layer of wrack & pushed-up plastics at the back of the foreshore; beautiful rippling and sand on the low foreshore.

All the wrack was very old & pulverized. Not a lot of new energy this week. Though at least one wave brought something interesting:

Took a wrong turn at Albuquerque

Normally, this would be the kind of day with very limited finds. But, this is Curtis Cove. And the beach's healing process included releasing more of the pent-up plastic from winter's storms. As the seaweed rots & disintegrates, ever more plastic gets left high and dry.

211 pcs of rope, about 250 ft

289 pcs of nonrope debris

500 finds:

• Bldg material/furniture: 0
• Foam/styrofoam: 0
• Fishing rope/net: 211
• Fishing misc.: 230 (188 vinyl scraps, 4 bait bags, 3 vents, 2 trap tags, 2 bumpers, 5 various trap parts, 1 glove, 25 claw bands)
• Food-related plastics: 16 (2 bottles, 1 bottle half, scrap bottlecap, 1 whole cup, 11 cup scraps)
• Food-related glass/metal: 5 (4 aluminum can scraps, bottle cap)
• Nonfood/unknown plastics: 18 (4 upholstery pcs, duct tape, 2 washers/spacers, bead, warning tag, caulk strip, 2 plant tags, cigarette lighter, bag scrap, mylar balloon scrap, latex balloon, bandaid scrap, toy taxi)
• Scrap plastics: 14 ( 8 > 1" , 6 < 1" )
• Paper/wood: 0
• Non-plastic misc./unique: 6 (3 fabric scraps (1 large), 3 gloves)

Wow, 500 on the dot! I promise I didn't plan that.

A varied week. "Only" 188 vinyl lobster trap scraps, a step in the right direction. But a really eclectic week. Of course lobster fishing heavily dominated. But a big slice of modern life was represented. A couple stand-outs:

Warning tags aren't paper anymore; they're plastic fiber. Surprise, surprise.

And of course I found still more of these plant ID stakes:

As I'm now clearing out our condo's community garden, it's easy to see why so many of these stakes get into the ocean. I'm finding many years' worth in the overgrowth. A good rainstorm can easily tumble them into the drainage gulley, and from there, straight out to the Deep Blue. :/

Running Year 2 YTD counts:

• Total pcs of litter -- 2758
• Pcs fishing rope -- 723
• Vinyl lobster-trap scraps -- 1551