Mile 187 - Neptune SP, Bob Creek, Gwynn Knoll - September 3, 2018

Report Details

Overall a surprisingly quiet day at the beach. There were far less people than I anticipated giving that it was Labor Day weekend and the past few days had been abuzz with tourists. The quiet did allow me to get a good look at a heron though who was exploring some shallow water. The tide was higher than it usually is when I visit so I wasn't able to cover as much ground as usual, but it was really interesting to see how different the beach looks with the tide higher.

Conditions

Temperature: 43 F. Tide Level: 4.8 feet.

Human Activities

Number of people: 1. Photography: 1. I wanted to get to the beach before the bustle of the holiday beach goers showed up and I sure did. There was only one other car in the parking lot at Bob's Creek when I pulled in and I never saw anyone in the car or on the beach so they might have just parked their car there over night. As I was walking back to my car another car pulled into the parking lot with Texas license plates, a girl jumped out, took a couple pictures and then was off again. Usually by the time I get back to my car there are a handful of other people, but not on this day.

Vehicles

Cars/trucks parking: 1.

Notable Wildlife

There was one Heron standing in the shallows just slowly walking around. About 10 minutes after I first noticed it it flew off to the North.

Beached Birds

Total dead birds: 1.

Driftline Content

Seaweeds and seagrass, Animal casings (e.g., crab, shrimp molt), Land-based debris (picnics, etc.). Loads of kelp along the driftline along with some of the largest crab shells I've come across. During the whole walk only spotted two pieces of trash, a packet for powdered drink mix and a hard plastic piece of unknown origin.

Natural Changes

Last time I had been to this beach, there were rolling hills of the larger rocks closest to the parking lot. On this trip it appeared that the rocks had all slide down towards the ocean, forming a more level platform to walk over while creating a large mound that would be hazardous to try to walk up or down right down at the water line.