September 25, 2010

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Foggy day at the beach. I arrived about 45 minutes or so after high tide but there was alot of surf, a pretty high energy system. As a result, the waves were reaching much further up the beach then I'd expected. When I reached the beach near the Alpine Chalet access, I sat for 15 minutes or so, waiting for the tide to retreat some more so I could walk the rest of the mile. More people than I expected to see, parking lots & on street parking looked about 3/4's or 7/8s full when I arrived(around 3pm), when I left (around 4pm), the lots, etc., looked about 1/2 full. Seemed to be mostly surfers, some of whom were in the parking lots, removing wet suits, or coming back up the steps but some of the vehicles might've belonged to some of the SOLV Clean up participants. There was one SOLV bag (not completely full) left at the base of the stairs down to the beach, and what looked like 4-5 more bags left next to the trash cans near the public restrooms.Beach itself was pretty clean except for the usual litter tangled up in the drift line, and the usual bits of plastic, not many pellets, mostly bits of plastic, some w/sharp edges (broken off from something else), etc. Lots of seaweed, seawhips, etc. A high energy event (storm far offshore) seems likely for so much kelp, seawhips, etc. to end up on the beach. Photos attached. I've been seeing information on the coastwatch listserve re: dragonfly flights but did not see any today, nor have I seen any in the past week on the beaches I've walked (mostly Lucky Gap to Agate Beach wayside, also north of Yaquina Head to Moolack shores). Too bad, I like dragonflies. Only ones I've seen were a week or so ago out in Five Rivers.