Our Daily Ocean: Day 100

I went to the beach with every intention of not doing a 20 minute clean up.  You see, I knew my next clean up would be my 100th... and I had big plans for #100.  I had been thinking about it for awhile... I really wanted to invite people to come out and join us for the momentous clean up... but sometimes things don't happen the way we think they should.  As I sat on the beach eating my dinner and snapping photos of the seagulls flying all around us, my husband said, "Look, there's a girl back there picking up litter."  Sure enough, I looked.  Then I paused and said, "Hey! That's Susan!"

Susan is a volunteer with the Wrightsville Beach Sea Turtle Project and contributes to the WB- Keep It Clean blog where she shares not only the litter she picks up, but also the treasures she finds!  Seeing Susan on the beach, made me change my mind about my 100th clean up... I mean... as much as we go out to Wrightsville Beach, we hardly ever run into people we know.  This was a rare event that I couldn't pass up!!   (Guess I'll have to do something for my 101st clean up... ;) )  In our 20 minutes at Access 40, Susan picked up 128 cigarette butts.  I'm adding that amount to the Wrightsville Beach Community Count (found on the sidebar)... THANKS Susan!!!

Another rare find at the beach last night: a horseshoe crab.  My daughter spotted it and I was super excited that she immediately knew what it was!  All those visits to the NC Aquarium payed off!! ;)  Did you know that horseshoe crabs are considered living fossils?? AND... that they actually are more closely related to spiders and scorpions?!?  Really amazing animal!!  Now, of course, it was no longer living... but it was still super cool to find on the beach especially considering I had started to wonder if they existed in the wild since I've only ever seen them at the NC Aquarium.

 On October 1, I'll be at Wrightsville Beach Access 4 volunteering with Ocean Cure for Life Rolls On: They Will Surf Again.  If you'll be in the area, learn more and register to volunteer here.  

On the same day (and same access), Surfrider Cape Fear Chapter is going to be having a beach clean up to mark the beginning of RAPtoberfest!!  What's RAPtoberfest??  Well... Surfrider will be dedicating the entire month of October to organizing beach clean ups and passing along tips to RISE ABOVE PLASTICS!!!  Bonnie, Ginger and I will be setting up our litter awareness art to help raise awareness to the amount of litter found on the beach... especially plastics!  So come out and see us!!!

20 minutes on September 15, 2011 at Access 40

Litter by weight: 1 lb 7.5 oz 

Cigarette butts: 163

Total amount of cigarette butts removed from Wrightsville Beach, NC in 100 days:

35,104