Can it be that it is already the end of the 2012 sea turtle nesting season?? Wow, it hardly seems possible! I just looked back at my calendar to see that I completed 16 early morning clean ups this summer, and I feel so very fortunate to have begun each Friday morning this way. There is nothing like being greeted by the sunrise over the Atlantic.
On Friday, August 31, I was instead greeted by an equally beautiful sight: a very-near-full moon! I arrived at the beach just before 6 am to find that it was still completely dark outside. I waited for about 10 minutes before I began walking, because I actually could not see very well at all. But those 10 minutes gave me the opportunity to capture a few photos of the moon, with sea oats swaying in front of it. Pretty spectacular, eh?
As the sun began to shed a bit of light on the beach, and I began to walk, I instantly noticed how different the beach looks once the summer season is over and school is in session. There were no piles of sand toys left in the sand. In fact, there was very little evidence of activity on the beach at all, except for the wrack line. The wrack line was unfortunately covered with cigarette butts and other small bits of plastic litter and styrofoam in huge quantities. I picked up many, many cigarette butts, but did not count them all out this week. (After the 422 I picked up last week, I was feeling kind of disgusted, truthfully.)
The good news is that I only picked up about 1 and 1/2 bags of trash today. This included one pair of sunglasses, 1 pair of women's underwear, 1 beer can, and 6 glass beer bottles. If not for the 6 bottles, I would have only found 1 bag of trash. And it appeared that the bottles had all been dropped by the same group of people, as they were scattered along a stretch of about 1/2 mile, but they were all in a straight line, like some people just walked along, drinking and dropping as they went.
The awesome thing about Friday morning is that every person I encountered just seemed to be loving the gorgeous (RAINLESS!) weather and beautiful, sunny morning. One jogger picked up an empty cigarette box and tossed it into my bag as he ran past me. A couple sat enjoying the sunrise and asked if I would take their photo as I walked past. Another jogger paused to ask me for an update on one of the remaining sea turtle nests at WB. And yet another person stopped to tell me that there was a particularly good spot on the beach for shell hunting that morning. It was fun to get to talk to so many different nice people. WB brings out the best in people, for sure! :)
Peace,
Susan
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