Mile Report Browser

The beach is very flat now with almost none of the large wood close to the dunes visable.  This is a king tide day and the water left kelp wrack high on the beach while there is no wrack on the low water line.  Nine people and two dogs were seen walking in the somewhat blustery sunny weather.  Clouds were approaching for evening rain.  No bird carcasses were found, and no disturbances of the beach. Only one small flock of shorebirds was seen. A sign indicated there was just spraying of herbacide to remove invasive grasses before european beach grass would be reintroduced in the dune area at the south end of this mile. 

Beware of high tides and sneaker waves. Today the beach was completely wind-swept and smoothed over by recent wave action. It was almost completely clear south of house #333 (beach access there) but covered with logs north of 333 all the way to the north end of Mile 238. Waves are coming all the way in to the rock line.

Heavy surf has cleared the beach of most debris, even a crab shell is hard to spot. The sand dispersal is flattening the beach and extending the low tide line westward. Grasses and woody debris from the bluff and homeowners beachfront are being pulled down and out to the intertidal zones from the heavy surf.

Landslide that occurred on Dec 5 has covered most of south entrance from Oceanside Beach to the manmade tunnel under Maxwell point. Beach closed by Stste Park staff until danger of further landslides is assessed and any needed repairs are completed.  

There were very few people on the beach. We did speak to a woman who had parked her van on the beach to run her dog. When asked, she moved the vehicle.

Huge stranding of brownish-red "Pacific Sea Nettle" (Chrysaora fuscescens) and Moon (Aurelia labiata) jellies all along Mile 171 and Mile 172 today.  About 90% of the jellies were the Sea Nettle family. In some spots, it was almost impossible to walk below the high tide line without stepping on slippery jellies.

Overall good conditions no violations.  Groups of people and dogs on the beach.   Noted a couple dead fish and 1 bird.   Photo's attached.

No unusual and/or negative natural or human impacts were observed. Weather was sunny; surf was big and loud.

A lady running her dogs along side her vehicle and a Great Blue Heron fishing were the highlights. There were also golfers enjoying the day on the bluff above.

Large waves are causing logs to roll on the beach.  You have to pay attention and avoid logs that float.    

It seems a perfect storm of covid, high tides, floating logs, and restrictions on facilities has kept people from visiting mile 181 recently.  There's still a lot of sand near the walk up to the parking lot, but a steeper slope toward the ocean.  The water comes all the way up unpredictably at medium tide.  Fewer people usually means less human related issues like trash, fires, parties.  

My first sneaker wave. My wife and I sat in the dunes watching today's heavy surf as two children, maybe 6 and 8, played too close to the water. A man, their father presumably, watched them with a phone to his face. Sometimes I've approached people and reminded them nicely to be careful of their children, but people don't like hearing that, and I didn't this time. The sneaker wave wasn't a monster. It formed from two or three normal sized waves that merged and came ashore but with a rush of water that surged almost up to the dunes. The children tried to run but were knocked down by it. They struggled in the surf, and my wife and I ran towards them, but fortunately the father was able to reach them and pull them to their feet and to safety. The children were soaked and crying. My wife shouted to the father if he realized his children could have been swept out to sea, and he said yes.

Same time and same tidal conditions but what a difference in human presence on the southern half of this mile. Seven folks walking or running and two rock hunters here, versus 1 walker the previous day to the north. Other lifeforms were gulls and crows. Jellies also were present, though not nearly as numerous as to the north. Shells and shredded wood also marked the drift line, as did small pieces of plastic litter and styrofoam. Logs occupied much of this segment, some even tossed up into the beach grass. This half of Mile 102 continues to show significant erosion by wave action, with clumps of vegetation ripped out onto the beach.

One other person walked the northern part of Mile 102 on a chilly overcast morning at low tide. A large flock of gulls gathered on the sand at the North Jetty. Numerous jellies of varying size, many of them a dark gold, marked the high tide lines, as did shell fragments, small stones, feathers, bull kelp, shredded pieces of wood, some litter and, of course, driftwood logs. Wave overtopping and erosion of the vegetated foredune were obvious. Interestingly, the stormy waves dislodged the concrete curbing along the upper beach parking lot. Logs brought in by the King Tide blocked almost half of that lot.

November weather, clear skies with some clouds and fog, slight wind from the Northwest, surf very rough, Orford reef covered with waves.  Few visitors most picture takers of Cape Blanco.  

Beautiful day at the beach, with a surprising number of people and dogs for a Wednesday.  Chapman Point was unusually quiet.

A beautiful beach day, with small numbers of people.

Despite king tides in November no erosion or changes to any bluffs.  Water has washed up to cliffs but no further. Some small and medium plastic debris on higher wrackline. 

Beach was pretty clean, just a few shells and rocks, mostly due to the current high tides.  All the debris, both human and natural, was in the high tide line.  Gathered one full bag of the usual stuff...cans, rope, plastic pieces, and styrofoam...mostly from boats.  Nothing particularly unusual, except we found "Wilson" ('the soccer ball ⚽️ From the movie "Castaway"...finally home after all these years!

It was a busy day with more people on the beach during my walk than usual. It was on the cold side and yet a few people in the water.  My main concern was riprap installation where no structures have been built. The dunes in the two locations had no apparent erosion, so I'm not sure what was being stabilized.

Very clean, people social distancing and wearing masks. No plastic bits in the driftline. Parking area tidy - no overflowing trash.

Crissey Field Visitor Center and Winchuck River access on north side of river are both opened today. They were both closed when I last visited in July and also within the last month or two as I observed closed gates when driving by. I did not walk on north side of river, spending time walking entire stretch of south side past Calif border to the headland below the White Rock Resort Cabins instead which I measured as a 3 mile round trip. The beach on the Oregon side of the border and south of the river is very clean with no impacts. People walking were enjoying warm sunny weather on Thanksgiving Day. Very little bird activity. Winchuck River mouth side channel on south side prevents walking from bridge to beach.

A rainy but warm day on Ocean Beach.  Stopped by after the King Tides of last week to agate hunt.  Met a couple of people and dogs in the parking lot but no one else on the beach while I was there.  The debris line was notable for the amount of plastics it contained.  All sizes from micro to the size of my palm.  I personally have never seen so much plastic in the debris line.  The big rock fields at the north end of the beach are exposed and there are lots of agates.  Some large pieces of driftwood but most seems to have moved out since last week's tides.  There was a high wave warning in effect during my time at the beach and there were lots of sneaker waves.  Also noted an unusual "pod" on the sand.  

Nice sunny afternoon for a stroll on Heceta Beach.  Lane County parks staff continue to improve the North Jetty parking lot, filling potholes, etc.  Graffiti taggers have once again painted up the vehicle barrier rocks on the North Jetty.  I notified the Portland OR office of the Army Corps of Engineers via email and attached photos.  They've been very responsive in cleaning up past graffiti events.  Mostly political statements this time, unlike the pornographic imagery in the past.

Mile 171 is again very clean with almost no man-made debris noticed.  There are about 10-12 large bundles of washed-ashore bull kelp strands, rolled up into big tangles by the surf.  Almost all of the strands are missing their holdfast root feature, likely snapped from their anchor by the recent big swells.

Mile 203 was almost free from human debris.  Thanks for that. Only a couple of gulls seen. The Wrack line had minimal deposits.  Saw people walking and walking their dogs.  There was some interesting beach art/sand towns being built.  One thing I did not think was good was the surfing I saw on the sand dunes with sleds.  Not sure if this is allowed.  

The recent King Tides and storms have washed away the low sand dunes that formed over the summer seaward of the vegetated dunes south of Buckley Creek, which now flows onto the beach like a real creek. Adjacent to the creek, the driftwood log on which people had left little stones inscribed with the names of departed loved ones has floated a bit north on the tides but still holds the remembrance stones. The Buckley Creek lean-to, recently rebuilt and fortified, is again now in ruins. North of Driftwood Wayside, a new log has washed up high on the beach, a new arrival I think because of its mysterious globs of sandy but soft and slightly moist globs of something that looks to be from the sea, maybe something very common, I just don't know what.

It has been a while since I've been able to cover my mile. Hopefully, I'll be able to get back to quarterly reports. Easy walking today - lots of hard-packed sand; even soft sand areas near bluff were quite walkable. Very little debris; picked up one empty pet poop bag and a few pieces of plastic.

A calm, sunny but cool day.  More people out on the beach than normal, given the time of year - probably glad to get outside after nearly a week of heavy rain and storms.  No trash ... I picked up one candy wrapper.  There was a large (and very heavy) piece of compressed styrofoam almost at the tip of the spit up against the vegetation line; I could not carry it out.  There were NO harbor seals in their usual resting place at the tip of the spit, where we often see 100-200; I spotted only one in the water.  Maybe the recent King Tides disrupted their normal patterns.  There was a jet ski, a kayaker and several fishing boats in Siletz Bay.

Another beautiful day on a very clean mile, marred only by five deposits of dog poo, two of them gift-wrapped, but still, not carried out. There were two freshly fallen but minor chunks of bluff. The very large chunk that began separating from the bluff a year or so ago is still holding on, though in two pieces. As the sand's summer levels are coming down, dark sediment (iron?) is being carried away from the foot of the bluff and interlayered with the lighter sand. Tiny beach insects have dug shallow burrows in these areas, the "tailings" forming interesting contrasting patterns on the surface. I have no idea whether this description is coherent, but the photos should show what I mean, once I get them up. I had never seen these before.

This was three days after the first of the King Tides. The beach was quite clean and firm. There was evidence of wave overtopping and the dunes took some erosion. Eel grass was on the wrackline. One week ago the wrackline had alot of jelly fish. This day all of the jellyfish were gone. Only one dead bird was found, a Northern Fulmar. The whale carcass that had been there for several months was either washed away by the tide, or moved to another location. 8 people and 4 dogs. No parking violatons.

Wrack line with a wide variety of things today. Razor clam shells,few pyrosomes,crab shells,bull kelp, muscles,clams shells,and one jelly fish.More rock exposure and less sand.

Lots of erosion from last week's storm (see photos).

The park was filled with about at least 20 or more storm watches. They all wanted to know when high tide was going to happen.

Another good day for King Tides.

High Tide was at 12:08PM at 10.3 ft. NOAA had a surf height of 10-14 ft. The weather was 50 degrees, with wind blowing from the south at 20mph. Cloudly sky, and what felt like ultra, ultra, ultra fine mist--so didn't count it as rainy. My rain gauge showed NO difference between start and end of excursion.

November 15, 16, and 17 marked the first of the King Tides for this season on Ocean Beach.  The winds were calm and the temperature was warm when I observed.  The beach was covered with large amounts of driftwood, some very large.  The tide level reached the stairs before, during and after the high tide time.  Nothing but sand and driftwood was visible on the beach.  A few people drove into the parking lot and observed the tides from the parking lot.   A new development since my September report is the installation of a gate on the road to Ocean Beach.  Also, a park ranger drove through when we were there.  Thanks for all you do Oregon Parks service people!

Alsea Bay was fairly calm at noon for today's 8.985' King Tide, but on the ocean side the surf was high and roiled up after last night's rain and 60-plus mph wind gusts. This what it looked like, with surf all the way up to the dunes at times. I didn't think I would find any of the wintering Snowy Plovers which normally rest during the day on the beach south of access 67D, but as I got closer I could make out their little shapes darting back and forth along the surf, probing for food in the wet sand. Visual and photo conditions weren't great, but I counted nineteen. It was a treat to watch them all so active, making the best out of a challenging day after what had to have been a really hard night. 

A good day for King Tides.

High tide of 10.4 feet at 11:27AM. NOAA had Surf Height at 20-25 feet.

I was able to shoot from my normal beach spot-75 feet from normal beach access, didn't take a photo--took a movie clip. At the cliff top where I normally take a photo looking north to 68th street--TWO trees have have fallen down.

KING TIDE, November 15, 2020.

Invertebretes seen on beach sand at water's edge.  Worm with multiple 'legs'.  I've not seen these worms at the beach before.  Perhaps bait left by a fisherman?  No other humans in sight.

It was a nice day. About 50 degrees, a slight wind, and clear skies. Since I didn't get down at a negative tide, I had a longer scramble along rocks to get to normal "Keyhole" position and didn't get any good pictures of Sea Stars. The lack of plastic in the driftline was nice. The one question I still have is the picnic table--will someone reclaim it, or will it become flotsom in the ocean with winter storms.

Other notes: I normally do the beach at the middle of each quarter. I was early several days because next week is King Tides. I also was mid-afternoon, hence many more people. Of the 4 dogs, only 1 was on a lease. With birds being fledged, only about 75-100 on my walk rather than hundreds, thousands at breeding season.

Graffiti inside Maxwell point tunnel. Contacted Netarts Bay WEBS and Oregon State Parks. Received this response from The Oregon State Park ranger. "Thanks for the pictures, I’ve passed it up the ladder to get a decision on how to move forward. Sad to see such disregard of our recreation areas."

It was a beautiful cold windy day. A few clouds overhead. More cars in the lot were for ATV activity because at first we were the only two on the beach. The waves were huge and in rapid succession and it was at the near the end of low tide so lots of beach. I love this mile because I love walking to the siltcoos river and checking out the lagoon or lake or pond. 
The lake was huge this time, I'd never seen so much water there but this is my first time reporting on this mile. I've always loved this section of the beach near Florence. I would have explored more but our dog did something to her foot. Had to head back. Very little debris on the beach or in the dune grasses. Buts lots of oyster shells tucked in the dunes south of the lake.

A calm day on mile 214 with sporadic people enjoying the beach. The summer crowds have gone and the cool temperatures brought even fewer visitors. Exciting news between the 61A and 61B sign posts -- snowy plovers! They were hiding from the wind behind little sand lumps above the driftline. 

Very quite day on the beach today with only a few shorebirds.  The tide line was remarkably clean with nothing but a few jellyfish.  

Beautiful sunny Sunday at low tide, breezy and chilly at about 48°. Pretty big surf. Saw 25 people and 4 dogs upon entering at north end of Nadonna Beach, and saw 38 people and six dogs walking back up my mile from the south. Most people were walking in family groups or occupying the many "forts" built of driftwood. One fisherman was in the water with bare feet, otherwise everyone wore shoes and stayed on dry land due to the chill. Beach looks swept clean by the high tide, with barely anything left in the driftline besides small stones, occasional broken shells (no crab; mostly razor clams), very minimal seaweed, a couple of jelly fish, and incongruously, a pomegranate. Saw only a couple of pieces of human-made trash. We're expecting King Tides next week (15-17) so I wanted to do a "before" for comparison, even at low tide. To this end I include photos of mouth of Crescent Creek to the south and between the jetties of Nehalem River to the north.

Beach and shoreline were clean with little activity.  No apparent violations to report.

Bad time for Jellies. Starting at the NW 34th access, #42, for about 200 yards north, hundreds and hundreds of jelly fish on the beach. 200 or more 10"-18" and hundreds of smaller and pieces. Most look fairly fresh and some were clearly very recently beached and had not flattened but were firm and tall but not pulsing. North of Chinook Winds, Mile 244, number was normal.. a few spaced along the beach. Took more photos but the iPhone did not catch the reflections so did not show the jellies. 

Lots of seaweed/kelp on shoreline. 

There's a tree swing, not far from the beach, on the property of 7975 NW Logan (northern most house in Roads End).  I question whether the property owner installed it.  I'll check it out.  Photo-bombed by a couple of deer.

Sunny day with a good amount of  people enjoying these beaches. Beaches are sandy with little or no debris or rock/gravel showing. Nancy Creek waterfall has very low water volume with only wet soil.

Lost plastic beach toys - I went out for an early moring walk. It was raining, no one else was on the beach. I found several toys including 2 childrens plastic beach shovels, aparently left from last night or before. I find alot of plastic buckets, plastic shovels/rakes, and other children's toys left on the beach. The buckets get smashed by the waves and broken down into smaller pieces, I often find pieces and broken handles. These plastics continue to break down and create microplastics. This is something I have been observing and not heard others mention it. I decided to start documenting catagories of beach debris, including a catagory for beach toys. I counted the trash I collected this morning, and lost beach toys accounted for 25% of the debris I found on this mile this morning. See attached pie chart and photo. 

Mid-morning walk south towards Gearhart beach at a very high tide along the tide line I saw a dead Western Snowy Plover (Charadrius alexandrinus nivosus) carcass with bands on its legs. I submitted a banded bird report to the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center Bird Banding Laboratory, and I am waiting to hear back about additional information on this bird. 

The north wind was brisk today, with hardly anyone on the beach.  On the southern portion of Mile 202, I counted a cluster of 17 Western Snowy Plovers, which winter here, all sheltering in ones and twos on the downwind side of beach vegetation which my new iNaturalist app "Seek" identified as American Searocket. The app is pretty neat, you just take a photo with your mobile phone, and within seconds an identification pops up on your screen.  It can be hit and miss (it identified a raccoon photo as a "placental mammal"), but it's free and fun to use.  Just one man in a small crabbing boat on the bay today, close to shore but not that far from the mouth of the bay, which they call "the jaws."  The tide was going out, and they say you need to be especially careful here during outgoing tides because the current can be strong, and Alsea Bay has no jetty.

1000s of washed up jelly fish and 1 washed up recently deceased sea lion

2 Nutria sited at Weywehauser pond.

Sorry, photos poor.

The beach was mostly deserted and there were few birds.  We saw one seal peeking over the whitecaps at us.

Very nice day on the beach, very little wildlife or debris on beach, lots of people & kelp flies.

There were 6 people present, 2 fishing and 3 surfers likely resting and waiting to go out again. The surfers were located at an establish fire pit where soil erosion progresses slowly due to use. There were very few birds and no other marine creatures observed. Overall the area appeared lightly used with the exception of the trail to the tree stand and a trail going north from Rodea point parking area. Actually, other earlier established trails appeared to be filling back in with vegetation. Most of the vegetation appeared to be in as good or better shape than earlier visits. The exception was the area below the parking/observation area by Ben Jones bridge. Very little litter was observed. The tree stand is still a concern for safety reasons. 

Be aware of bulldozing activity on Mile 238. Even when they aren't working, equipment, piles of sand and rip rap are on the beach. I will attach pictures.

Walked south of the Del Rey beach entrance 0.5 miles to cover one half of mile 327. I collected about 20lbs of trash from this part of the mile. Notable debris included fishing gear (ropes, bait bucket, rubber worm), plastic bottles and bottle caps (including one bottle with Korean writing and one bottle with Chinese characters on the label), a large wooden pallet covered with live pelagic gooseneck barnacles, and large chunks of styrofoam. I found one dead seabird: a juvenile common murre. 

Sunny Low wind, Dead kelp crab, Mola,Sunfish. occasional Heron and shorebirds (long billed curlew) 

Four of us walked mile 290 collecting abt 40lbs of trash.   A good percent of which was from the fishing industry .  We saw 2 dead sea lions . One appeared to have been shot.   The second had had it's teeth removed and had no visble wound.  We also found 5 shate egg sacks in the drift line.

The weather cleared during my visit. The sea was very calm. I decided to spend more time in the high tide zone and so noticed evidence of a land slide that happened earlier this year. The extra attention could account for my impression of more trash than usual. I found a dead gumboot chiton displayed on a rock. I believe it was "loved to death".

The beach was quiet on this beautiful autumn day. We saw two people riding horses on the beach, which we had not seen here before and someone flying a kite. The ride was dropping toward a minus tide a few hours later. It was a Friday afternoon, which may explain why there were not as many vehicles as we saw this summer and the outgoing tide may explain why we didn't see the surfers we often see near Hubbard Creek.

Much less litter than last visit. We only saw that tarp, one plastic bag, a forgotten tee shirt and a bottle cap.

There was a sea lion carcass on the port side of the beach. It has been there long enough to be partly covered over with sand, smell bad and have maggots spilling from a tear in the belly. We did not see a head, so we're not 100% sure it's a sea lion, but the color was right. It was on the small size for sea lions I have seen.

There was a lot of fresh kelp in the rack line: stems on the port side and leaves on the Battle Rock side.

There's were 19 dead birds and that seems like a lot for such a small section of beach. Could something at the dock be killing them or is it just that dock activity draws so many more birds? (I missed the space to put the number and am afraid to go back because I lost my whole report when I tried to go back before)

There was an elaborate drift wood shelter next to Battle Rock.

The woman ahead of me on the path down to the beach from the Driftwood Wayside parking lot cried out "Yes! Yes! The beach!!!"  I don't know where she was from, but that's how beautiful it was today. I walked in the dunes looking at some of the driftwood for which the beach is named, old stumps and logs that have been deposited in the beach grass at the base of the cliffs. I counted tree rings ranging up to 110 years old, and these old logs were obviously not new to the beach. Driftwood Beach is very wide, and it's hard to visualize the kind of storm surges that must occur here. Where Buckley Creek flows onto the beach, in addition to the petroglyphs inscribed in the sand cliff, people have left little memorials to departed loved ones on a driftwood log next to the creek.  For when the wind blows, someone has reconstructed the nearby lean-to and added an entranceway. Despite the human traces, you'll almost certainly be alone here.

Fishing in the marine reserve which i called into the wildlife tip hotline.

All was normal for this time of year.

It was a lovely day with sun and hardly any wind.  We did note a dead and partially eaten seal on the bay side.   

Rather an uncomfortable day with strong winds from the south and a low overcast sky.  We did see 12 species of birds and 10 Harbor Seals.  The Great Blue Heron was standing in the ocean near the edge of the water.  The first section of beach by the parking lot had 314 dead Moon Jellyfish stranded in two different tide lines.  They were all sizes, the biggest being 15".   The beach was clean without any trash.  Very few people and they mostly stayed in the first section except for the rock hunters.  The sand has moved back in so it is not so rocky.

A foggy day with few people. Vehicle tracks on beach show that vehicles had been there the day before, where they are no longer allowed. One pickup was on the beach today. McPhillips Park access is blocked off so they must have come from Tierra del Mar direction. Perhaps people don't realize no vehicles except those needed for boats are currently allowed from Tierra del Mar to the mouth of the Nestucca River. Although the people in the black pickup today acted nervous when they saw us so i suspect they knew full well they were not supposed to drive on the beach.

The beach seems pretty busy for a Tuesday in October. It was a beautiful sunny day and I suspect people were trying to soak up the last of the sun while they could. There have been significantly more people at this coast this summer. Since people were not able to travel out of the country and other activities being canceled, it seems they have all come to the beach! There has been a huge problem with litter at our beaches this summer with the increase in visitors. SOLVE just did a big beach cleanup so it was pretty clean today. Today I wanted to document what high tide looked like at a swell of 6 feet to compare it to the big storms this winter and the King Tides. There was still some dry sand, but the beach was very narrow at the far south end. Along the north end, the water comes all the way up to the riprap in places. OPRD has filed for a permit to convert the stairs at Carlton street to a ramp for emergency vehicles. Carlton street would be graded to drain east to Hawk Creek. 

A beautiful day on the beach, Chapman point and Ecola Creek continue to be popular spots for visitors and walkers. Lots of activity in these areas. 

Beautiful morning, sunny with light breeze. Beach was clean. Low tide. Active sea birds. One dead seal.

A beautiful day on the beach today. What was significant is the small amount of debris left on the beach, after the weekend. COmpared to other Mondays when I picked up litter, there was very little on the beach today. Only 3 masks in the debris pile (compared with over 20 a few weeks ago).  The sign near Tolovana regarding the contaminiated runoff remains - the sign indicates the runoff is contaminated, don't play in it. There were a few dead birds, some kelp along the tide line.

Bright, sunny Monday with normal activity. Sand level is receeding somewhat based on rocks at NW 26th.  

Foggy morning hike of mile 34. I saw evidence of someone using a chainsaw on downed trees along the shoreline. I've attached photos.

Nothing unusual to report.

Dead beached whale on Mile 238, either a new one or the recently buried one has been unearthed. Horrible smell extends up and down the beach.

All is well

peaceful early fall evening

It was an absolutely beautiful sunny and clear day on mile 291.  Quite a few people were out strolling and playing with their families.  Very little man-made debris. 2 jets flew over and also a Coast Guard helicopter.  I found one bird skeleton, but could not identify it.  I walked the most recent high tide line in one direction and last week's very high tide line on the way back.  Not much to mention in either one.  The very high tide line did have rocks with kelp attached in parts of it.  There was one 55 gallon blue plastic drum up at the high tide line.  It must have been floating for a while, as it had numerous barnacles and mussels growing on it.  

A great day to be on the beach - perhaps one of the last before the weather changes again.

A very clean beach mile with scattered crab shells and small piles of bull whip kelp. People were eating lunch or walking dogs.

Found more garbage  than expected, but less than usual, thanks to the Solve cleanup a week ago.  Usual stuff, but more flip flops than ever??  plus a life vest & lots of beach toys...it never ends.

Mile 147 looked clean with the build up of blowing summer sands.  The fordune was continuous with the beach as the sand had accumulated in front of the fordune making a ramp to the top.  Same with the Jetty rock and the old road leading to the foredune. 

The Sparrow Park rd. leading to the beach has had some improvement to the giant water hole that a vehicle must cross before reaching the beach. 

A large die off of moon jelly fish. A lot of dead crabs in the wrack line.

Not much to report. The low, thick fog just on the beach, was unusual

The beach was fairly clean on the 26th. Many people were using the beach for recreation. There were lots of Burrowing Sea Cucumbers along the whole mile and a dead seal skeleton on the beach (pictures attached).  

Mile 214 was overcast and shrouded in fog this afternoon, but that didn't slow any visitors. People enjoyed walking their dogs, flying kites, and even horseback riding on the unseasonably warm/humid fall day. It's obvious that familes of whales are just offhshore as whale burps of all sizes dotted the wrack line. Other treasures in the wrack line included stranded moon jellies and a dead bird. 

After the recent storms, I was surprised not to find any marine debris of human origin.  Instead, along the driftline were hundreds of strange little jelly like pods with tiny tails.  After a lot of Googling, these turned out to be dead "burrowing sea cucumbers" (Leptosynapta clarki), which live beneath the sand offshore but can get washed ashore after storms.  See

https://www.beachconnection.net/news/seacuc091315_624.php

Although I haven't seen Western Snowy Plovers nesting along this stretch of the beach, they do winter here (40-50 seen at a time last winter).  Today I came across a cluster of 15-16 settled down in little sand divots near the water.  With few people on the beach, and surprisingly almost no dogs, the plovers, which forage mostly at night, seemed content to just rest in the sand.

Human Activities: Most people were just walking the beach. I only observed one women with her child climbing a bluff. I observed a few people flying kites, playing football, and a few riding bikes. Although I did not see it happen it was obvious that there had been additional vandalism in an area I had previously observed (picture attached), and additional graffiti on the bluffs but I did not observe anyone doing this.
Shoreline Wildlife: Numerous dead jellyfish (30+), far more than usual. There was a whale vertebrae on shore but it had no meat left on it. I observed an old skeleton of a seal or sea lion that did not have any flesh left on it, and no skull (but I believe this was north of my mile, in mile 222). There was far more kelp on the beach than normal. I observed a lot of sea foam with colors that led me to believe there was a great deal of oil in the water. (picture attached)
Physical Changes: There is a great deal of erosion, especially south of the State Park beach access. Road debris (concrete & asphalt) falling from above. (pictures attached) This is worse each time I do my survey.

So much plastic debris. Especially microplastic. But very little that appeared to be from visitors to the beach.

From memory.....lots of people in groups, beautiful day.....nothing unusual except the crowds.

Human activities near or at the shoreline were confined to two fishermen at the far north end of the mile or just beyond (pictured). Otherwise, the only activity was far above the shoreline where there were people driving and walking along Otter Crest Loop and visiting the Lookout area to enjoy the view from the high vantage point, though the Lookout structure itself was closed. The only wildlife observed were gulls and cormorants roosting on offshore rocks and occasionally taking to the air. There were no unusual sightings or any natural or man-made changes to the shoreline.