A New direction

Return to Portage Head

November 23, 2012 Comments (1) journal

Back out there

Steve and I are leaving this morning to go back out to Neah Bay. We’ll be going back to two of the beaches we surveyed this past summer to reassess the debris that is there and to see what kind of changes have developed in the intervening months. With the storms we’ve been seeing lately, we’re expecting to find more debris, some of it sure to be tsunami-related.

We’ll be going with Liam Antrim from the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary, one of our scientific advisory team members. We’re grateful for his support and continued educational efforts (educating us, that is!) It should be a great opportunity to not only provide some perspective on the changes in these specific beaches but it should also give us a chance to assess each beach for possible clean-up activities in the future.

We’ll be going to some of the pocket beaches at Portage Head (if our bushwhacking skills are up to the task), which were among the most debris-choked along our entire route. Liam is considering designating one of these isolated beaches for continued regular monitoring by volunteers in the coming months, to see what kind of debris build-up occurs and how this specific area relates to the beaches around it.

This is exciting work. I can’t wait to get started.