Mile 218 - Agate Beach, State Wayside, Little Creek - March 16, 2017

Report Details

The beach is mostly flat now, except for mild dunation around the clumps of beach grass. Very little drift wood in high zone, compared to the usual; what's there is mostly on the north end. There is a lot of wood in the mid zone all along the beach, however, which I previously observed coming in around the same time as the pelagic red crabs a couple of weeks ago (I wasn't prepared to do a survey at that time). Most of the debris mentioned above is mixed in with this wood. Little Creek is 2-3 times wider than I have ever seen it in the past five years; sand is banked up on the west side of the creek up to 4'.

Conditions

Temperature: 50 F. Cloud Cover: Sunny. Wind Velocity: Calm/Light. Wind Direction: SW. Tide Level: 7.0 feet.

Human Activities

Number of people: 37. Number of dogs: 7. Walking or running: 35. Sitting: 1. Surfing: 1.

Vehicles

Cars/trucks parking: 12.

Driftline Content

Small rocks, Shells, Animal casings (e.g., crab, shrimp molt), Wood pieces, Marine debris (plastic, styrofoam, etc. washing in from the sea), Ocean-based debris (from fishing boats, ship trash, etc.). Styrofoam, a lot of plastic bottles, some with Asian writing, picnic cooler, cans, ~3 partial trees with roots and branches intact, fishing floats.

Natural Changes

Little Creek much wider than usual.