Coasting

For All the Wrong Reasons

April 21, 2019 Comments (0) journal

Touching Home

Got back from the coast last night after two days of beachwalking. I was able to get to the beach at the Norwegian Memorial, First Beach in La Push and Rialto Beach, up to Hole-in-the-Wall. While Norwegian had quite a lot of small plastic fragments and pieces along the high tide line and on up into the woods, I would say that the beaches looked pretty good, overall. I figure that First Beach and Rialto get a fair bit of cleanup attention throughout the year so that didn’t surprise me much, but there were very few buoys and rope on Norwegian’s beach either, and that was unexpected.

Still, the amount of plastic out there is sobering. Every wave seems to bring another shotgun shell, another toothbrush, some other plastic artifact. The fact that there were very few large items is reason to be grateful, I suppose, but it also draws attention to the uncountable mix of smaller pieces that are becoming part of the ecosystem at every turn.

So, back home long enough to gas up the truck, load up and go to Bellingham for a Tuesday presentation and fundraiser for this summer’s South Kuiu Cleanup. There’s a strong Bellingham contingent of volunteers that will be making the trip to Cape Decision… this is a chance to help raise some of the money that will get them there.

Then it’s back to Tacoma, run a table at the Slater Museum on Thursday night at their Ocean Night at the Museum, another chance to get the word out before leaving Friday morning on a Seventy48 training paddle. This will be the last chance I’ll have to do the course before the actual race at the end of May and I promise to take it more seriously from the start this time.

Today is Easter. The calm before the storm.