Beverly's Beach Cleanup, Day 4

As I have posted about earlier, a reader of The Daily Ocean Blog, Beverly, took me up on my invitation to collect trash at a beach near her and contribute to my Community Collection Count.

The Community Collection Count works like this.

- find a beach near you

- take a walk for 20 min. and collect trash

- take pictures, weigh your trash and send my your info.

- I'll post your findings here on The Daily Ocean.

Beverly spent many days during her last vacation doing this, here is Day four of her beach cleanup adventures. Again, thank you Beverly!

Goosewing Beach (Little Compton) October 5: 1 lbs. 4 oz. collected

I have a little trouble getting to Goosewing Beach, which is a preserve adjacent to South Shore Beach, separated by a stream that’s not passable at high tide. From the map it looks like there’s a road in to the beach but that turns out to be private property. An electronic gate confirms that.

So, I drive on to Padanarum Village and return to Goosewing Beach at low tide when it’s easy to walk across to the beach.

Goosewing Beach is extremely clean – I see the plus side of limited access to a beach. Few gulls, and very little trash. I find a few things – plastic pieces, fishing line, half a fishing rod. I enjoy walking for a few minutes, actually straining to find trash. The sun feels great and the water is beautiful – just rocks and seaweed on the wet sand. In the end I’ve got only 1 lbs. 4 oz. gathered from my 20 minute walk.

South Shore Beach (Little Compton) October 5: 3 lbs. collected

On Monday I head out to Little Compton – out from Newport, through Middletown and Portsmouth, over the bridge, through Tiverton and on to Little Compton. South Shore Beach is the Town Beach for Little Compton, houses and and fishing cottages clustered near the beach. It’s high tide and the waves break hard on this soft sandy beach. The sky is clear and you can see Westport, Massachusetts in the distance.

The gulls are loud as I pick up trash. These beaches are very quiet in off season but today some families are there, children run in the sun and couples drive by to take a walk on the beach. Beach lovers enjoying Monday morning in October. Life is pretty good when you can start the week with a walk on the beach.

I’m finding the usual plastic, a plastic sandal, a plastic (empty) bottle of Johnny Walker Red. In the end I’ve collected 3 lbs. No garbage cans here – but the port-a-potty does have hand sanitizer (thank you , Little Compton). I throw my bag of trash in the back of my car and drive away.