Day 47 - August 23

Life Guard Station 27, Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 minutes

estimated pounds collected today - 2 bags - 2.7/1.3= 4

estimated pounds collected to date - 258.4

The tide was waaaay out today. The way the early evening light was reflecting off the usually covered sand was beautiful.

Garen had to help me collect today because I had forgotten to change out of a skirt I'd worn to his parents house earlier in the day. A Marilyn Monroe impression was not what I was going for.
This is a seat cushion from a boat maybe? Someone had decided to stomp up and down on it, but not drag it to the trash. If I had added the weight of this out of place upholstery in all its water soaked glory, I would have shot the days tally up by at least 20 pounds.

Thanks to Surfrider's Soup, e-newsletter that I get weekly, there was an article about how our ocean temperature is on the rise. Click here for more info and to read the article from the New York Times.

"Average temperatures of waters at the oceans’ surface in July were the highest ever recorded, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said."
The Daily Water Bottle.

Well speaking of Surfrider above, they have a campaign called Rise Above Plastics. You can find out more about what they are up to at their monthly meeting tomorrow. I will be attending the 25th anniversary meeting Tuesday the 25th, at Duke's in Malibu off the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway). Festivities start at 7pm, there's a speaker and music, and I will have a few minutes somewhere in there to talk about The Daily Ocean to drum up local support to come collect trash with me. You know you want to come!!!

You don't have to be a surfer to attend. I'm not, I just think that what Surfrider does for our beaches and oceans is something to be a part of. Seriously, if you are local, come along.
Lets talk about Global Warming again. A cheerful subject I know. There are many opinions about this topic, but few could argue anymore that it is not happening, and if you are one of those people you probably were not drawn to read this blog.

There is a cold water current that travels across the Arctic and keeps harmful pollution circulating thru that area. Because of melting Arctic ice and other factors mentioned in this short article we may have:

"WITHIN 60 years the Arctic Ocean could be a stagnant, polluted soup. Without drastic cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions, the Transpolar Drift, one of the Arctic's most powerful currents and a key disperser of pollutants, is likely to disappear because of global warming."

This is actually Life Guard Station 26. For anyone paying close attention I usually lead my posts with an image of this LGS, but today chose a picture of LGS 27 instead. I collect between these two points. This was the way the beach looked as we walked out at 6:35 p.m. yesterday. Not bad.