The weather was so fine yesterday (and the Packers game so painful), that I took the opportunity to go for a SUP trip across the Narrows. It was near high tide so the current wasn’t as much of a factor as it usually is and the full sunlight along with the glassy water made for a fast and enjoyable crossing. There were a half-dozen sea lions surfacing off to the south, coughing and snorting at one another, their exhalations little puffs of cloud hanging in the chilly air. When I got to the other side – a mile or so from the start – I came ashore on a tiny sliver of sandy beach, no more than 20 yards long and about 4 feet deep, just a place to stretch my legs, walk a bit and see what I could find.

What I found was plastic. In that little span of waterfront, criss-crossed with the mouse tracks and the distinctive imprints of raccoon, I came across foam insulation, shotgun shells, an oyster bag, little scraps of hard plastic fragments, a flip-flop and white, marine styrofoam all along the wrack line, in sizes that varied from as big as my fist to single granules. Thousands of single granules.

One beach among many here in Puget Sound. One beach among millions on the planet. It was Thanksgiving and as I looked around at the absolute perfection of the late-November day, I tried not to let my concern overtake my thankfulness.