Wack Line 2023

January 26, 2023

An accumulation of lost float and marker buoys in the cobbles. Surf zone and a headland in the distance. A kiss of sunrise in the sky.
A sight of sea garbage
A two-lug float rests on cobbles shiny with indirect morning sunlight. Beach and the surf zone in the midground. The sun hasn't yet topped the low headland in the distance. Moody sky.
Two-lug float
A lost front wing rests at the top of the cobbles.
Front wing (from a hydrofoil board)
A marker buoy (#991) and a smaller float posed on a piece of driftwood high up on the cobbles. Coastal bluffs, the beach, and the surf zone in the distance. Sky a glare.
Marker buoys and floats were all too plentiful on the cobbles
A flat float, probably an old school gill net float, rests on the cobbles.
Flat floats are pretty common
A insulated soled bootie rests on the cobbles.
Big tides, big swell, and a west wind bring in all kinds of stuff
A white plastic jug with an ornate design wedged in the driftwood.
Long-distance drifter come to rest
A Dungeness marker buoy for a commercial crab pot wedged in the rocks. The tag is up to date for the 2022-23 season.
Timmie Boy lost a marker buoy with an up-to-date tag
Both valves of a razor clam, Siliqua patula, partially buried in the sand. Reflections of the forest above in the backwash sheen.
A meeting of sister ecosystems
A few strands of tangled surfgrass rest on the sand among several pebbles.
Drift Phyllospadix
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January 25, 2023

Alt: 15 cm diameter ball-like mass of drifted fish eggs. Individual eggs are 1-2 mm in diameter. The mass rests on wet cobbles.
A good-sized mass of fish eggs (I think)
Two pelagic gooseneck barnacles attached to a deflated soccer ball.
Doomed hitchhikers
A tangle of a few strands of drifted surfgrass rests on the sand.
Surfgrass Phyllospadix
Half a bleached sand dollar test (Dendraster) on the sand.
Half a dollar
A conifer branchlet (hemlock, I think) and drift Zostera rest intertwined on the sand.
A meeting of material from sister ecosystems
A single valve, exterior exposed, resting on the sand.
Green false-jingle Pododesmus macroschisma (pretty sure)
Closeup of a single sea gooseberry resting on the sand.
Sea gooseberry Pleurobrachia
Both valves of a drifted California mussel resting on the sand. Exterior surfaces exposed.
California mussel Mytilus californianus
A closeup of an upside-down and struggling mole crab on the sand.
Emerita analoga
January's dropping sand level exposes a few inches at the top of a boulder.
Seasonal changes in sand level mean this rock comes and goes
One and a half valves of a drifted Pacific razor clam shell. The exterior surface of the half shell is showing, and portions of the interior surface of the other valve is exposed.
The razor
A drifted eelgrass rhizome and a few tattered blades resting on the sand.
Recently washed out of the estuary
A closeup of a drifted rough keyhole limpet shell, right-side-up, resting on the beach while morning sunlight shadows patterns in the sand around it.
Diodora aspera
A sea gooseberry's clear jelly acts like a sense, catching morning sunlight and focusing it on the sand.
Sea gooseberry Pleurobrachia
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