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 Oct 24, 2011

Monday, October 24. Bay View beach, Saco, Maine. 1:25PM, a couple hours before low tide. The latest high-tide had been fairly weak, and there was little new wrack/seaweed. An overcast day, 60 degrees and deliciously fall-like.

The cooler days & quieter beach gave me a little time to reflect. On ephemeral rivulets:

A seagull's walk, interrupted

And the wealth of color & texture strewn about:

It's funny what you see, when you just stop & look at a handful of sand and pebbles. (After all, in Maine, that sand may have 600 million years of history behind it.) Even with a weak tide, this was a great day for wash-ins -- slipper shells, blue mussels, tons of crab, a few fish bones. A real treat. Of course, nowadays the modern world always intrudes, though often in colorful ways:

1/1000th of one of the ~1 million lobster
traps on the floor of the Gulf of Maine

Which, I guess, brings me back to the point of a collection report. So, on to it. First, Zone N:

82 finds:

• Building materials: 7 (5 asphalt, brick, wood block)
• Foam/Styrofoam: 14
• Fishing misc.: 7 (3 rope, rope twine, shell wadding, claw band, trap vinyl coating)
• Food-related plastics: 1 (plasticized cupcake base?)
• Food-related metal/glass: 3 (foil wrappers)
• Nonfood/unknown plastics: 11 (5 bags/scraps, tube, 2 scraps >1", 3 scraps <1")
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 36
• Paper/wood: 1 (paper scrap)
• Misc./unique: 2 (fabric scrap, odd piece of paper with thin wires embedded)

A wide range, but mostly the usual suspects. (Why any of this should be "usual" is another question.) Sad to see so many cigarette butts, but hardly surprised. 5.5 trillion are used in the world each year. If even 90% of those were disposed of properly, that's still about 17,500 tossed on the ground every second. Every second. It's not sustainable, and change is in the air. Where that will leave smokers in the end is, largely, up to smokers to decide.

Over to Zone S:

31 finds:

• Building materials: 2 (asphalt)
• Foam/Styrofoam: 6
• Fishing misc.: 11 (4 rope, Plante bumper, 3 trap scraps, twine, 2 claw bands)
• Food-related plastics: 1 (Gatorade label scrap)
• Food-related metal/glass: 2 (sea glass)
• Nonfood/unknown plastics: 2 (scraps >1", scraps <1")
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 5 (4 cigs, 1 filter)
• Paper/wood: 2 (firecracker sticks)
• Misc./unique: 0

Nothing to see here. Except maybe the big black trap corner bumper, nicely stamped with the maker, "PLANTE" on the side. Also, curiously, there are two other words embossed: "CANADA" and "U.S." The "CANADA" had been X'ed out, making this seemingly meant for U.S. traps. Wonder what law/regulation is behind that. Such a regulated industry, yet still leaving such a legacy of debris.

As I was leaving, I noticed this scrawled on a drift-log up in Zone N.

I study the accidental ways we leave pieces of ourselves behind. Here's an intentional one. A hope for a little permanence in an ephemeral world. A reminder that Joyce was here. But a reminder to whom, again? Maybe it doesn't matter. She left, but for a while at least her presence is still at Bay View.

Collection Report Sept 18-19, 2010

After a week hiatus, Saturday September 18 saw me back at Bay View beach, my journalist friend Rick with me. We got there about 9AM, and spent close to three hours wandering, collecting, and chatting through Zone N. Try imagining this picture in July or August:

View of Zone N at 11:00AM; summer is definitely over

Other than one sunbather (who had abandoned Kennebunkport's beaches due to the dog waste), we had the place almost all to ourselves. It was a great walk, and a great talk. And, strangely, really nice to be bagging debris again. Even the ugly and the stinky:

Post-season revelries

Chum-laced fishing net

In a turn that will surprise nobody, the cooler weather and end of summer vacation brought a change in the haul from weeks past. Zone N, laid out:

219 finds:

• Building material: 0
• Foam/styrofoam: 8
• Fishing misc.: 6 (3 claw bands, 1 piece of lobster trap bumper, flare shell, plus large netting with rotted chum -- tossed out at beach, not brought home!)
• Food-related plastics: 14 (inc. bottle with lid sawn off??)
• Food-related metal/glass: 14
• Non-food/unknown plastics: 29 (inc. shopping bag & bag bits, bucket handle broken in two, rotted structural plastic chunk/end cap (?), nylon rope, small red rosette, multi-pin computer board piece (?), white leaf (matched one found September 4), claw-shaped thing like many found before)
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 129 (122 local, 4 likely floaters, 3 plastics)
• Paper/wood: 16 (inc. kite instructions)
• Misc./unique: 3 (2 bits of firework and gum)

The food and beach plastics are way down. Sadly, the cigarette count -- and non-food plastics -- are just as high.

As always, there were surprises, plus a couple poignant moments.

Do I want to know why this was modified?

Irony

More irony

The next morning, I finally made a return to Zone S. I hadn't done a collection there for a few weeks (busy weeks at that, with a windstorm and a hurricane near-miss!). So it's hard to say much about the numbers here. But at least this will give me a new "autumn" baseline.

The goods:

104 finds:

• Building material: 2
• Foam/styrofoam: 6
• Fishing misc.: 4 (3 claw bands, 1 piece of lobster trap bumper)
• Food-related plastics: 11 (inc. Dairy Queen sundae cup and spoon, Slim Jim, Laffy Taffy, Wrigley Spearmint, GoGurt Strawberry Splash, Stringsters String Cheese)
• Food-related metal/glass: 2 (inc. aluminum can with spongy mass (fish eggs??) growing all over it)
• Non-food/unknown plastics: 16 (VO5 Tea Therapy label, shampoo top, hard red lens/cap edge, small green cap from a mist bottle (?), bubblewrap with tape, orange toy chain (?) scrap, scrap of rigid gray wire sheath)
• Cigarette filters/plastics: 58 (35 local, 23 likely floaters)
• Paper/wood: 3
• Misc./unique: 2 (faded & tattered flag, tennis ball)

The biggie of this? 23 "floater" cigarettes -- the paper stripped away, the filter mesh bleached white. After everything I've learned about the sheer scale of cigarette trash, it's not surprising. But it's still a wake-up to see it. How many more are polluting our waters right now? How many more are being added every day?

Here's a few of the other highlights from my return to Zone S.

Expecting a winter full of these

A long and tortured tale

Mmm. Life...

Colorful "Huh??"s

So, as Maine transitions from beach weather to decidedly -not- beach weather, the finds are shifting. I'm all set to watch, record, and catalog it. And, as always, try to learn a thing or two.