July 9, 2017

Report Details

Driving down 101 from the intersection of highways 26 and 101, my husband, our dogs, and I were very excited to get to our mile. The sun was shining, the surf looked wonderful, and we were excited to get out of the stifling Portland heat.  Until we arrived at Rockaway Beach.  We entered a pocket of clouds, a strong breeze (borderline wind) coming from the north, and chilly conditions overall.  The thermometer on the car said it was 68 degrees, however it seemed much cooler.  However, despite all this we were dedicated to the cause and to patrolling our mile, as we assumed there would be a great deal of litter to pick up and remove from the beach considering the recent Independence Day holiday.  When we arrived, there were very few people on the beach, only about five scattered diehard vacationers were either running up and down the beach, or making sandcastles.  It appeared that this area had been experiencing a lot of consistent wind lately as the entire beach had large sand drifts.  In comparison to previous patrols, it appeared that a lot of the driftwood had either been moved to make forts, or burned in the campfires that had taken place over the last two summer months.  We were pleasantly surprised that there was not near as much litter and debris as we expected.  Compared to our usual 4 bags of trash, we only picked up 2.5 today.  Most of it consisted of remnants of firework displays, beer drinking, and s'more making.  We came upon one smoldering fire pit, which we smothered with sand.  Due to the wind, there were very few birds on the beach. I only counted 4 gulls the entire time we were out.  We did not come upon any dead birds or other stranded animals. The high tideline had a considerable amount of tiny crustaceans, while the lowtide line consisted of black pebbles and seaweed.  There was some interesting new vegetation on the beach. Tons of small, little flowery plants had sprung up over the past couple months.  Finally, the main channel of the creek that is located towards the north end of our mile has really changed course.  This will unfortunately be our last post on this mile as we are relocating back to our home state of Alaska.  We have loved the priviledge of patrolling this mile, and will miss the Oregon coast oh so much.  I hope whomever takes over this patrol will love and care for this awesome strip of beach!