July 22, 2023

Temperature: 63 F. Cloud Cover: Foggy. Wind Velocity: Calm/Light. Wind Direction: NW.

Number of people: 43. Number of dogs: 13. Walking or running: 36. Sitting: 5. Surfing: 2. My first sight, after descending to the beach from the long stairway down, was of two people staring at their dog as it deposited a pile of feces in the intertidal zone. It's such a pleasure to see how some visitors to the Oregon coast display their respect for the cleaniliness of the beach, the ocean, and the health of local surfers. I saw many dogs on the beach today, and some ran around vigorously, ignored, for the most part, by their owners. Which means if those dogs deposited feces on the beach, their owners might not even have noticed. However I didn't, fortunately, have to avoid stepping onto any (different then walking w/30' of the west side parking lot of Agate Beach wayside) but since the tide was out, the beach was wonderfully wide/big.

Fire

Apparent violations: Observed remnants of 2 fires: (1) built immediately adjacent to a pile of drift logs; (2) built close to a bluff w/vegetation, if the wind was blowing when the fire was active, it was close enough that sparks might've landed in the vegetation..

Total stranded mammals: 1. Stranded/dead. I couldn't get a good look at what I believe was a dead seal as somone or several someones had decided to bury it, not by digging hole, putting the seal into & covering the hole but by piling some sand on top of the seal. I could smell the body as I got close to it, and I frightened off 2 vultures & 3 crows, so I'm reasonably sure it was a dead seal even if I didn't actually see it.

Small rocks, Seaweeds and seagrass. Sea whips. Saw no whole shells, only relatively small (1/2 to 1" at most) pieces of shells, fair number of them appeared to have weathered edges. Noted lack of the usual mass of plastic bits, nice not to see them.

Landslides/major boulder falls, Visible retreat of solid bluff. Saw exposed tree roots (not newly) w/the tree slowly tilting more & more, only a matter of time & perhaps some heavy rain & wind before it ends up on the beach.

There's no action to take, far as I can tell, I'm seeing natural erosion, slides, etc.   The culvert that I believe goes under 101, that's about halfway (maybe between halfway & 2/3s, walking south) on my mile continues to deteriorate.   I could hardly see it this time because of a pile of drift logs obscuring my view.