Mile 287 - Bayocean Peninsula north of Bayocean site 2 - January 22, 2023

Report Details

The primary purpose of this visit was to observe the impact of the last of this winters king tides. Because the beach is so wide and gently sloping on this mile, the extremely high tides do not look as dramatic here as they might elsewhere. However the high tide did come all the way up to the base of the foredune, leaving little room for walking on the sandy beach (see photos). Possibly because of the high tide and sneaker wave warning in place for the day, there were few people on the beach until after the tide began to recede. What little beach was exposed was very littered with lots of debris - most of it natural (logs, branches, tons of eel grass) but also with a fair amount of human-caused trash (lots of plastic bottle lids, shotgun wads, a few plastic bottles including one with labels printed in Japanese, many short strands of plastic line/rope, several longer pieces of fishing rope, even a child-size plastic shovel). We picked up a large garbage bag full of plastic debris and saw another party of two picking up plastic litter as well. All in all, the impact of this season's king tides seemed relatively minimal today on this stretch of Bayocean spit.

Conditions

Temperature: 45 F. Cloud Cover: Cloudy. Wind Velocity: Calm/Light. Wind Direction: SW. Tide Level: 9.4 feet.

Human Activities

Number of people: 13. Number of dogs: 3. Walking or running: 13. Other Activities: 4 of the people were picking up trash as they walked..

Vehicles

Cars/trucks parking: 18.

Beached Birds

Total dead birds: 2. One was a western grebe; the other was a smaller bird missing its head and legs, making identification difficult, but may have been a murrelet.

Driftline Content

Small rocks, Seaweeds and seagrass, Shells, Animal casings (e.g., crab, shrimp molt), Wood pieces, Styrofoam, Ocean-based debris (from fishing boats, ship trash, etc.). Lots of eel grass and small plastic items

Natural Changes

Erosion of vegetated foredune, Evidence of wave overtopping.

Report Images

North facing long view of beach taken at mid-point of mile, illustrating height of tide

Closeup view of beach and foredune at highest point of king tide

Southward long view of beach and foredune at highest point of king tide

Illustration of how far wave-carried debris was deposited into foredune

Showing evidence of foredune erosion caused by king tides

Report Images

C Nelson

CoastWatcher

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Mile 287

Bayocean Peninsula north of Bayocean site 2

March 17, 2024

The cloudy marine layer that was present when we first arrived eventually burned off, providing us with a pleasant but breezy sunny afternoon for our visit. 1) We encountered an intact hull of a fiberglass boat on the mid-section of the mile; photos and location information was provided to the State Park Ranger so it could be retrieved from the beach. 2) There had been a massive influx of velella velella (by-the-wind sailors) washed ashore several days before our visit. 3) Given the number of folks in the parking area when we arrived, we had expected to see more folks on mile 287 but encountered just a typical number of visitors. 4) There was more detritus on the beach than we've seen in recent previous visits.

C NELSON