Beverly's Palm Beach Cleanup - Part 2

My friend Beverly spent days of her vacation in Palm Beach, Florida doing Daily Ocean style beach cleanups and sending me her findings. I have already posted Part 1, here is Part 2 which spans three days.

Being from the N.E. United States, I am sure that when she looks at her pictures today this sunny, beach world will feel far away as she wades through a few feet of snow to work.

I look forward to her next contribution to the Community Count Collection invitation that I have put out there for those of you who read this blog. So far each of Beverly's cleanups make me smile, and inspire me to continue on with the work I have started here. I think maybe because at the heart of the Daily Ocean is my desire to pull people together to protect our oceans, and remind them just how magnificent our only planet is. Thanks Beverly! Stay warm!

Thanks again to Surfrider of Palm Beach Co. for your friendly assistance to Beverly as she combed your beaches.

Community Collection Count - Beverly

Palm Beach Florida

Day 21, 22 & 23

9.9 pounds

153.4 total pounds

The Daily Ocean – Florida Week 2 – Jupiter, Delray Beach and Ocean Reef Park

1/27/10

Jupiter – Unnamed Beach North of Jupiter Inlet – 2 lbs. 15 oz. Collected

Jupiter Beach Park is south of Jupiter Inlet, but I ended up north of Jupiter Inlet on a beach that’s accessible but not marked. I was driving along, parked by the side of the road and walked in to investigate. This was a quiet, peaceful, deserted beach except for several gulls and a lone fisherman. ‘What’s this beach called?’ I asked him. ‘No name; I call it North of Jupiter Inlet Beach, or Rocks Beach.’ There is a rock formation off one end of the beach and gulls were flocking around it, the sun behind them. As I walked along the shore, I saw some small sea urchins that had washed up on the beach, and very little trash. This is a fairly isolated spot. Close to sunset toward the end of the day, it was quiet perfection.

1/27/10

Jupiter – Unnamed Beach North of Jupiter Inlet – 2 lbs. 15 oz. Collected

Jupiter Beach Park is south of Jupiter Inlet, but I ended up north of Jupiter Inlet on a beach that’s accessible but not marked. I was driving along, parked by the side of the road and walked in to investigate. This was a quiet, peaceful, deserted beach except for several gulls and a lone fisherman. ‘What’s this beach called?’ I asked him. ‘No name; I call it North of Jupiter Inlet Beach, or Rocks Beach.’ There is a rock formation off one end of the beach and gulls were flocking around it, the sun behind them. As I walked along the shore, I saw some small sea urchins that had washed up on the beach, and very little trash. This is a fairly isolated spot. Close to sunset toward the end of the day, it was quiet perfection.

1/29/10

Ocean Reef Park (Riviera Shores) – 2 lbs. 9.3 oz Collected

Just got back from a walk up the beach to Ocean Reef Park – it’s my last day in Florida for this trip. It’s a pretty beach, guarded, and there are the same variety of gulls on the beach as at Palm Beach Municipal Beach. Shark activity today means no swimming, and as I walk along the beach, I see a fish leap out of the water, swirl in a playful corkscrew and dive back in. The shape is long and black with a white stomach and a pronounced tail – I decide it’s a shark even though I don’t know if sharks can leap. I keep watching but no more leaps out of the water. I pick up more bottle caps, plastic bags, and straws. It’s a sunny morning, light wind and lots of activity – birds, beachgoers and fishing boats nearby.

Day 95 - Feb. 6, 2010

life guard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 minutes

2.5 pounds collected

393.4 total pounds
Santa Monica has banned styrofoam. I have mentioned this before. Yet all the time I find the stuff, especially after it has rained. Why? Because we are the end of the pipe here in S.M. meaning that our adjacent city, Los Angeles, has not banned styrofoam so therefor when it rains all of their polystyrene washes into the bay, some of it making its way back onto our beach.

I think the Santa Monica Office of Sustainability and the Environment does a great job, but we need action from all the local communities in our watershed that feed into the Santa Monica Bay.

My view of the beach after our two days of torrential rain.

"Marine Debris", taking this term to task, like the Plastic Pollution Coalition calls for, I'd like to ask you a few questions.

A - Do you think of plastic, styrofoam, tampon applicators and used condoms as debris?

OR

B - Do you think of leaves, bits of bark, floating twigs and other natural detritus as debris?

I thought you would say B.

So, why do we call it "Marine Debris" when over 80 percent of the stuff floating in the ocean is plastic?????

It doesn't sound so bad when you say debris, does it? Which is a huge disservice to the monumental plague of plastic pollution entering our oceans.

But, like the folks at 5 Gyres say - Plastic Marine Pollution gets a whole lot closer.

I love these ice cream bars! The over sugared-strawberry-insides with all those nuts. Yum. But I don't love seeing the wrapper here.

Plastic Orange Bottle Cap - "debris"?

I want to get a campaign going to make Starbucks recycle their damn beverage packaging. Well, here's the thing. Recycling is an option, but not a very strong one. I couldn't have put it better than Manuel Maqueda, Co-founder of the Plastic Pollution Coalition and The BlooSee:

"How come producers are not resposible for the end life of their products?

Also, do we recycle? Or do we put things in bins?

Do you know what happens to your recyclables? Who can you ask? Who is accountable?

What we have now is: out of sight, out of mind + hope for the best = back to the mall to consume some more. A matrix.

Without producer responsibility, transparency and accountability, the current "recycling system" is a greenwashing machine designed to generate more and more waste."

The following is a quotation from a native of Kenya, who was involved in his country’s efforts to save the native wildlife from extinction:

• You only save what you love

• You only love what you understand

• You only understand what you are taught

Aquarium of the Pacific - Feb. 6, 2010

The Aquarium of the Pacific, or Long Beach Aquarium as many locals call it, is a fascinating place to visit. I drove down with my husband Garen on a rainy Sat. morning to meet his Marine Biology Class from Santa Monica College for their last field trip of Winter Session.

At 9:45 almost the entire class was assembled and ready to enter. I have to say that getting there early on a Sat. is a great idea. You have the place relatively to yourself before the families with strollers storm the exhibits. Although, I absolutely loved seeing the hundreds of people who brought their children out to explore the underwater worlds waiting for them. Building awareness and appreciation for these fascinating animals from a young age is a major solution to environmental protection.

A Scorpion Fish

A Ray - look at its mouth! Unbelievably cute.

A Leafy Sea Dragon - much like a Sea Horse except that they look more exotic with their "leafy" camouflage.

A Lorikeet - found in the Southern Pacific.

Aren't their colors beautiful?

Above is a picture of a diver for the aquarium that came in to feed the fish and rays. He offered leafy looking lettuce to the rays who eagerly munched it down. I think that zoos and aquariums, when managed properly, serve several important functions in the community and for the animals. But this is the first time that I briefly thought the marine life that lived there are lucky not to be digesting plastic trash, and pollution when looking for food. My thought surprised me.
A Saw-toothed Shark and a Leopard Shark maybe saying good morning as they passed one another in the shark tank.

One thing that I really like about the Aquarium of the Pacific is that they go to great lengths to educate the public properly about sharks. They emphasize how ancient they are and now how endangered they've become due to irresponsible fishing practices and Shark Finning.

If you didn't know, Shark Finning is when a shark is caught, their fins cut off, and their body dumped back into the water to sink and slowly drown. Sharks need water washing over their gills from constant movement for them to breath. Left with no fins for them to swim with, they literally sink to the bottom and drown. One of the first exhibits you see upon entering the aquarium is a huge poster explaining Shark Finning to the public. Hopefully, with awareness and activism, Shark Finning will become a thing of the past and not a part of people's soup.

Yao Ming's, (NBA star Center for the Houston Rockets), PSA against Shark Fin Soup! Yay Yao!!!

Day 94 - Feb. 4, 2010

life guard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica, CA

trash collected for 20 minutes

pounds collected - 2: 1.4 pounds by me and .6 by Tiffany from Venice Del Play Camp

total pounds collected - 390.9

Community Count Collection

Day 20 - Tiffany

pounds collected - .6

total pounds collected - 143.5

Thank you Tiffany for coming out! Can't wait until Feb. 15th to lead a beach cleanup with your campers!
Wend Magazine is teaming up with Anna Cummins and Dr. Marcus Eriksen of 5 Gyres and Algalita as they battle stormy weather, get visited by dolphins, and find out just how much junk and plastic pollution is plaguing not one (Northern Pacific Gyre), but the evidence they have collected on their Atlantic Sail shows that there is no escaping our "human stain" even in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, half way to the Azores from Bermuda.

WEND: Adventure, Inspiration, Travel, Activism
Found "OCEARCH" on Twitter, (Ocean Research). They advocate for Marine Life, raise awareness about Marine Debris, (which is really not debris, debris is natural), and other amazing Ocean Activism Activities. Check them out!
Ocean Voices lets you send a message of hope, urgency for protection, and personal experience with the oceans for all to hear compiled on their interactive website. Join the "Ocean Revolution", check out OCEAN VOICES

"the ocean surrounds us and sustains us. We can only preserve life in the ocean by working together as a global community. Ocean Voices brings together voices from around the world for everyone to hear. Open your mouth; open your ears; join the Ocean Revolution."

People can walk by the darn-dest things. I too have overlooked many a piece of trash to be sure, but really? Are we that used to used Tampon applicators washing up on our beaches that we pass them by? I guess what is the option? Pick it up? You'll probably take a pass if you're just out for a walk. Lucky me that I had a paper towel to pick up this plastic jewel.

Here's one thing that bothers me about disposable plastic items. This TAMPON applicator will last for thousands of years, and as a girl I know, it was only used for 10 seconds max. Never mind the fact that most tampons that come in these plastic casings cause a whole blight of issues for women. Ok - off topic, sorry.
At least this bottle is made of glass. But like most glass and cardboard beverage packaging, the top is plastic. I'd like to see metal and glass used exclusively. So much easier to recycle, (last sustainable option by the way).
I still feel privileged every time I get to walk along a Pacific Beach in the winter and witness a sky like this as the sun sets.

Beverly's Palm Beach Cleanup - Part 1

My friend Beverly has done it again! For those of you who haven't read a Beverly Beach Cleanup post here on The Daily Ocean, let me catch you up quickly. She contacted me through this blog last year wanting to get involved with the Community Collection Count cleanup invitation that I put out to readers.

If you go to, or live by a beach, you can do a Daily Ocean style cleanup. Collect for 20 minutes, take some pictures of the beach and the trash, write a few words, and send it to me to post here on my blog. I will add the pounds of trash you collected to my running tally, and highlight your cleanup.

Beverly has done half a dozen at least at this point. What a cool thing that she has been out there so much that I have lost track of just how many times I have received her well written, beautifully photographed accounts of her beach cleanup adventures. She inspires me, I hope she inspires you too! As always, thank you Beverly. Her experience on the Palm Beach, FL beaches follows below.

Community Collection Count - Beverly

Palm Beach Florida

Day 18 & 19

10.43 pounds

142.93 total pounds

The Daily Ocean – Florida Week 2 – Loggerhead Park, Town of Palm Beach Municipal Beach, and Marriott’s Oceana Palms Beach Cleanup

Palm Beach County

I’d first like to thank Todd of Palm Beach County Surfrider for his generous advice and directions to local beaches – and for the Google map he created with his favorites! The first few days in Palm Beach County I visited a Turtle Hospital, walked along a public beach in one of the wealthiest towns in America, and went to a beach cleanup at my own hotel! It was a great introduction to the variety of beaches in Palm Beach County.

1/25/10
Loggerhead Park (Juno Beach) 6 lb.s 4.5 oz. Collected
Loggerhead Park is behind the Loggerhead Marine Life Center which houses a sea turtle hospital for injured turtles being nursed back to health. This week the hospital is full as many turtles, sensitive to the recent cold, have required care.

There had been some storms earlier that day, but the weather cleared as I walked onto the beach. This is a guarded beach. I found many different kinds of plastic along the beach, bottle caps, pieces of plastic, Styrofoam. But it’s a great walk and the sand felt very soft between my toes.

1/26/10
Town of Palm Beach Municipal Beach (Palm Beach) 3 lbs. 9.8 oz. Collected
This beautiful beach is just north of Worth Avenue, with metered parking or two hour free parking nearby. It’s a guarded beach with the greatest variety of gulls I’ve seen just about anywhere. Walking along the beach looking out at the water, in the middle of great natural beauty it’s a treat to know that just blocks away shops are filled with manmade treasures – jewels, fashion, and cuisine. Which would you choose? In Palm Beach you can have both.

Marriott’s Oceana Palms Beach Cleanup (Singer Island) --- Trash collected but not weighed
I was surprised to see that Marriott’s Oceana Palms – where I’m staying – has a weekly beach cleanup as part of their activities. I had to go, and helped clean the beach with a staff member. They are building the program and it will be great to see more guests join over the next few months. A sister location on the same beach, Ocean Pointe, now gets a larger crowd for their weekly cleanup, and is great for parents teaching their children to ‘think green’. Beach clean ups were suggested by Marriott Corporate and we applaud them – it’s easy to include a few minutes of beach cleanup into a day as a thank you for vacationing on beautiful beaches!

Day 93 - Feb. 1, 2010

life guard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 minutes

today - 3.1

total - 389.5
KNOW YOUR H2O is a Surfrider initiative that I would like to pass on. This blog will give you updates on important water quality, (ocean and fresh), like the proposed:

"The Green Infrastructure for Clean Water Act (HR 4202) has been introduced by Representatives Edwards (MD), Carnagan (MO) and Driehaus (OH) into the House of Representatives. By funding and promoting both research and on-the-ground green projects, this bill will help protect and restore our water resources while providing Americans with thousands of green jobs, energy savings and better health and well-being."

If you would like to send a message of support for this bill, you will find a link to do that at the end of the KNOW YOUR H2O post. As it says on their blog, "It's your water too, get involved!"
I collected mostly styrofoam cups, bits and bobs today along the low tide line. In the past I have rushed towards a piece of plastic trash ready to be sucked back into the ocean by the next approaching wave. Today, feeling overwhelmed by the styrofoam peppered beach ahead of me, I noticed that I no longer ran to retrieve trash from the water the way I used to. Realizing this bummed me out a little bit, but, BUT - I think it is only human to go through phases of feeling hopeful about the action you take to help the environment, and in my case, specifically the marine environment, and then perhaps fluctuate towards feeling overwhelmed by it all. Here is a quote from my friends Anna Cummins and her husband Dr. Marcus Eriksen's website 5 Gyres -

"The impossible missions are the only ones which succeed." - Jacques Cousteau

It may seem like an impossible task to stop polluting our oceans, marine animals and ourselves with plastic pollution, but really what is our option?

See what Anna and Marcus are up to during their sail from Bermuda to the Azores, trolling for plastic and spreading awareness across the globe - 5 Gyres
My friend and Co-Founder of the Plastic Pollution Coalition, Manuel Maqueda, works on an amazing site called The BlooSee. If you are an ocean lover, this is a must see. Please go explore this site, it is inspiring and a fantastic resource for all of us that love the "BlooSee" to aid us in remembering why we care so much about keeping it from further environmental destruction.

"BlooSee is the place to share your knowledge related to navigation and the sea (anchorages, marinas, dangers, tourist information, paradises and dream spots, etc.) on a global world chart. It is also a social network for every sea-lover out there: share photos, comments, and stories with other users as passionate about the blue world as yourself." - BlooSee website

Morro Bay Marine Biology Field Trip - Jan., 2010

My husband Garen works at Santa Monica College teaching Marine Biology. His winter term class got to go to Morro Bay, (Central Coast California), over the weekend and for the first time, I got to go along!
Our day started at Morro Rock to watch a family of Sea Otters. "But wait, that's a squirrel you say?" Yes. I wanted to include this photograph because the student pictured above came for his second time and brought tortillas just for this little fat guy he nick-named Rocko. I took his preparedness as a good omen for the day.

Obviously feeding wildlife should not be encouraged, but how could we resist the charms of Rocko? Who, as you can see, is doing pretty well for himself.

A 40 mile drive up the coast from Morro Bay led us to San Simeon where the once severly endangered Elephant Seals rest, and mate from now until mid-February. During the late 1800's it was estimated that there were as few as 20 Elephant Seals left along the coast. Once hunted for their dense blubber, they have now recovered to numbers that range in the 200,000 - 300,000 count.

It's good to be the King. A male Northern Elephant Seal can weigh in at as much as 5,000 pounds.

They are not the most graceful animals out of the water although when provoked to defend their "herem" of females, they move quickly and often draw blood.
Focused on one thing, males often run the smallest seal pups into the sand in their pursuit of females. It would be like parking a Toyota Corolla on top of a seal pup. I am glad I didn't witness this.
As Garen was giving a quick lecture to his students who were gathered in the parking lot, he taught them the official term for Bachelor Males who are herem-less, drifting off to the side waiting for the Alpha Male to turn a blind eye.

"Sneaky Fuckers." Yup. You read that correctly.

Garen mentioned that only about 30% of Elephant Seal Pups make it out of their first year. But while on the beach they gain up to ten pounds a day, feeding on their mother's milk that is 55% fat. Cows milk is 4-5% fat to give you a comparison. Essentially, if out of harms way, the pups lay in the sun, drinking mayonaise-like milk, then snoozing until their next feeding time.

Waves along this part of the Central Coast were pretty big over the weekend.

Another view of the coastline where the Elephant Seals come in to the beach.

Could be California, could be New Zealand. I love living here.

So I practiced a Daily Ocean Community Beach Cleanup with his class and I have never seen a cleaner beach than the one at Los Osos's State Park! I found 4 items of plastic. One of them is pictured above.
A fishing pole with the line still in the reel, tangling all kinds of kelp and other sea debris in it.

Fishing line seemed to be the most common plastic pollution found on this beach, but there was only very little of it.

Feeling foolish for sending 20 students out onto a nearly prisitine beach to collect trash for 20 minutes, I quickly realized that in fact this was a cause to celebrate!

I told them about my blog, and collection efforts in Santa Monica to contrast the beach they were on, inviting them to talk to me about beach pollution and the plastics saturating our oceans if they wanted to. But in the end, they had a 2 pound collection from a 20 minute stroll, giving them the chance to enjoy what a beach should look like.

Next we explored some tide pools, getting the chance to enjoy Sea Anemones like this one.

Or the chance to pick up this "Alien" as one student put it. Actually it is some kind of multi-armed starfish whose official name I have forgotten. Sorry Garen.

As Garen waited for his students to crawl over the last of the rocks to the final cove, he brandished a piece of Bull Kelp that he later taught is also called "Sperm Kelp."

A view of the tide pools at Los Osos (The Eyes)

If you eat this green algae off the rock, you get extra credit. Garen had one taker.

My time out at the tide pools ended by watching a Snowy Egret walk amongst the sea foam. Beautiful.