Happy New Year! Day 4: January 6

Hope you all had a lovely holiday season and are already enjoying the new year. It's been so cold and stormy here in Monterey that I had to take a bit of a break from clean-ups, but the days are getting longer now and the sun is trying it's darndest to warm us up! This was a particularly rosy sunset and I couldn't help but stop and stare at it for longer than usual. And now the stats...

Day 4:
Del Monte Beach, Monterey, California
20 minutes of collecting= 74 items and >1 lb.

DAY 3: December 12

There was a ton of stuff trapped by the washed up kelp...I've actually found a few pieces of rope already

This is the view towards Seaside (the next town north of Monterey)...everyone is all bundled up. Brrrrr!

Day 3:
Del Monte Beach, Monterey, CA
20 minutes of collecting = 63 items and >.5lbs.

DAYS 1 & 2: December 9 & 10

Melibe on the left and a plastic bag on the right, I'd be confused too if I was diving in for a quick snack!





I counted at least six baby Molas that had washed ashore...I asked around and apparently sea lions use them as Frisbees. Poor guys.





Trash hound extraordinaire!


























Day 1:
Del Monte Beach, Monterey, CA
20 minutes of collecting = 51 items totaling 1 pound

Day 2:
Del Monte Beach, Monterey, CA
20 minutes of collecting = 106 items! totalling .5lbs

P.S. Wondering what the heack a melibe is? Check this coolness out here.

Oh, hello friends!

Just a couple of trashy girls ready for our new adventure!



Well, the weather here in Monterey has been pretty stinky but I thought I'd do a brief introduction post while the sun battles with the rain and fog. So, what's the deal with this Daily Ocean thing? My inspiration for this blog actually came from a fellow California resident who decided that everyday should be a beach clean-up day, and that's what she did! Sara Bayles, of the original Daily Ocean, has now nearly completed her 365 non-consecutive days of picking up trash from a local beach and I am attempting to do the same. My local beach is about a five minute drive from my house and (very conveniently) on my way home from work, so each day (almost) I will stop and pick up trash for 20 minutes, photograph the experience, and share my findings/adventures with all of you! The goal is to continue this for 365 non-consecutive days and see how much trash I've been able to keep out of the ocean. So far Sara has collected over 1,000 pounds of trash which is a pretty spectacular accomplishment! Imagine if we all kept 1,000 pounds of trash from floating out into the ocean?! There wouldn't be very much of a marine debris problem, I'll tell you what!

The motivation for this project came from my Global Field Program at Miami University (total awesomeness by the way check it out here)-- this is the action component of my semester study of debris accumulation on California beaches. I actually found over 500 pieces of trash on four different beaches, and that was from collecting on only two occasions, can you imagine?! The majority of what I found was plastic-- food wrappers, utensils, bags, etc. I also found tons and tons of cigarettes which was extremely annoying. So anywho, thanks for stopping by, and seeing that the sun may actually be winning the battle today I'm hoping to get out to the beach and pick up some junk. See you tomorrow!