April 25, 2010

Temperature: 55 F. Cloud Cover: Sunny. Wind Velocity: Calm/Light. Wind Direction: N. Tide Level: 6.0 feet.

Number of people: 2. Number of dogs: 1. Walking or running: 2. Today was the second beautiful day in a row. We woke up to calm but cool weather yet the New River was pretty much a mirror. We headed out at about fifteen minutes to nine with LucieAnne for a bye-bye-in-the-boat-trip to the beach. I emptied the rain water out of our dinghy, and we boarded, first Blaine, then I helped Lucie in, and then myself, and we set out down the creek in very calm conditions. Before we reached the far side of the New River (Is that Inverness or Far Rockaway?), I set down my oars and took pictures both upstream and down as it was so charmingly peaceful and bucolic. There was a little mist adding to the beauty of the scene. We beached at a little sandy spot on the western shore and made our way over the dunes. I noticed a single raccoon’s tracks with its distinctive five-toed marks, perhaps looking for Snowy Plover eggs? I took pictures as we crested the final dune before our view of the ocean, once again it was fabulously inviting with white waves against a green blue (aquamarine, Blaine said) sea. The waves were taller than they had been, perhaps five feet trough to crest. And Blaine noticed we could not see the rocks in front of Bandon nor the Cape Blanco Light due to the mist. I thought it might be because there was more spindrift, but she said there was more mist ashore in the valleys east of our house and probably was at the shore too. We walked north and I said that I would like us to reach the mouth of the New River. The beach was wide and gently sloping with very little gravel amongst the sand. There were about ten round fishing floats the size of a basket ball every mile, most of them black. There were also plastic bottles of various descriptions and more than ten glass bottles per mile, all with the their tops on but, alas, empty. Upon thinking about it, I realized glass bottles without tops would all sink and sailors, even if inebriated, weren’t about to lose bottles that still had liquor in them. There were new large pieces of drift wood in the first mile and even fragments of gorse plants in the surf. I’ve never seen that before. The driftline had lots of small pieces of wood, from the size of tooth picks on up. I don’t recall seeing that before either. The only birds we saw on the entire walk north were a little flock of birds about the size of sparrows (plovers?) flying in unison from the surf over toward the dry sand, chirping as they went. As we got into the second mile the sand dunes were overtopped more frequently and the terrain between the surf and the New River became flatter and the amount of large driftwood increased. At about the one mile point (where the Mermaid’s Chair driftwood piece is found on the west bank of the New River, Blaine found four colorful crab floats and we carried them across the isthmus to the west bank and left them there to be picked up during our return. We also found one of those large 500 watt light bulbs. Once again one of its filaments was intact although the screw-in metal base was missing. As we made our way towards the mouth of the New River the waves became smaller, perhaps limited to three foot trough to crest. As we approached the mouth we could make out the haystack rocks off of the town of Bandon. We kept an eye on the surf, looking for seals or otters but saw none. Near the mouth there were pieces of gorse plants over ten feet long on the wet sand. Big pieces of driftwood were everywhere on the dry sand. I have never seen anything like this on miles 93, 94 or 95. Big pieces of trees where lying within twenty feet of each other everywhere. As we rounded the corner at the mouth of the New River, Blaine spotted four seals on the west bank of the river and they eased themselves into the water. They surfaced not far away and appeared to be studying us for some time, especially two of them that stayed near for perhaps five minutes while the others swam north toward the mouth. As we walked south several individual white gulls with long slender wings flew north, cawing, perhaps at us or at nothing in particular. We heard water rushing behind us and turned to see a wave, which broke into a series of waves, making its way upstream. It was nearly a foot high and extended across the entire river. I quess it might have been the tide. I hadn’t seen that before, either. We passed two auto tires partially buried in the sand along the west bank. We also found one gorse bush, the first actual bush I have seen on the west bank. There were occasional duck or geese tracks in the sand but no other tracks. As we walked, LucieAnne entered the water to bath and drink occasionally and ran in front of us, apparently in quite good spirits. She would be a tired girl the rest of the day. As is usually the case we saw no evidence of recent human activity or any people save each other. Just before we reached the Mermaid’s chair, we retrieved our four crab floats. I was already carrying a round pink float encased in netting, the first of that type we had ever seen. All would be destined to festoon our fence. All told we spent two hours walking on the beach and the bank of the river. We got back to the boat with sore shoulders from carrying our treasures, and the three of us got in, and I rowed us back while Blaine navigated as I, of course, was facing backwards.

Disturbances: Shorebirds moving in response to humans/dogs

Little flock of shore birds flying in unison, about half a dozen sea gulls flying over New River

Few crab and shellfish shell parts

Seaweeds and seagrass, Ocean-based debris (from fishing boats, ship trash, etc.), Small rocks, Styrofoam, Wood pieces. Not other, but for the first time lots of wood, from the size of thooth picks up to and past the size of a pencil at the edge of

Lots of new drift wood on beach

We brought back four floats.