January 26, 2019

Report Details

This observation was most notable for the dramatic erosion that had occurred two months since I had last walked the mile. Just prior to this January visit, there had been a couple of major winter storms with high winds and seas that occurred in conjunction with king tides - and the powerful effect of the storm surf was quite impressive. Waves had carried driftwood far onshore, overtopping the foredune and depositing it in significant quantities behind the dune. There was also considerable erosion - at least 3-4 feet of sand (and maybe more) had been carried out to sea, leaving newly sculpted faces and breaks on the foredune. Photos below illustrate the erosion. The only before/after photos I have to show the full extent of the erosion are of the exposed root structure of the 'hobbit tree'. (I've called this large piece of buried driftwood the 'hobbit tree' in honor of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Years ago, when almost all of this root structure was exposed above the sand, someone painted the whole thing with blue paint and stamped white hand prints on top of the blue paint, much like was done in the Lord of the Rings movies. Small portions of the blue paint still remain on protected areas of the wood). In the December photo, only the very topmost branch of the root structure is visible above the sand, In the January photo, nearly four feet of the root structure is exposed.The other observation of note was the extremely large amount of smaller pieces of plastic in the drift line. This is the first time I've encountered so much very small plastic (1 inch or less in width) in such huge quantities. The sheer volume of the plastic is of concern, as there is far too much to pick up manually. Maybe Coast Watch could invest in the invention of some sort of 'sand sweeper' to clean it up??