The Oregon coast has been blasted by storm after storm for the last few weeks. We have experienced sideways rain, sleet, hail, and thunderstorms that delivered violent, unsettled weather, with only occasional sun breaks. Today our weather calmed a bit, and a light west wind blew. I took advantage of the weather window to walk on our Pacific beach. Soon after I began walking near the water's edge, I started seeing all kinds of flotsam that had washed ashore.
A very large pile of flotsam, named the Great Pacific Garbage Patch floats in the central north Pacific Ocean, trapped in a gyre (a giant eddy) by current and wind. The patch has been estimated to extend over an area the size of Texas (or even larger), and is thought to consist of 80% plastics, weighing 3.5 million tons. Although the patch is growing, west winds occasionally deliver some of the trash to the beaches along the Oregon coast.
On my walk today, I encountered a huge variety of plastic and glass bottles, plastic and styrofoam fishing floats of at least 15 different shapes and sizes, one tractor seat, one hard hat, a couple of shoe soles, plastic baskets, and other debris.
I have lived here on the Oregon coast since 1982. Back in 1982, on another day with a west wind, I plucked a large glass float out of the water, just off the beach. Since that day, although I have spent hundreds of hours walking on the beach, and looking for floats, I haven't found another glass float, until today, when I found two. They are 2 1/2 and 3 inches in diameter.
I was really looking for sandpipers, but I'll settle for glass floats!
No comments:
Post a Comment