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| GuideBook | |
| Weather | rain and waves |
| TrailConditions | logs and more logs |
| Owned By | e2holmes |
| Mailed to WacList | |
| RowId | 483 |
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The WAC Beach Clean 2010 was an event for the hardy this year.
Pictures here: picture gallery
On Saturday morning at the Forks Thriftway, to get espresso of course, the rain was coming down in sheets. Whoa. Though somewhat later, it improved to a driving mist. It would be a bonding experience for the Mahaneys, Sargents and Zikans*. High tide was a 3pm but even at low tide, the wind and waves were bringing the waves in close to the bluff. A few early birds got around the bluff and cleaned there (Zikans were not there, but Doerte said turning the bluff was challenging this year). Working the log debris on Oil Beach was hard with the rain, but we got quite a few bags and some tires and a big drum. There didn't seem to be quite as much trash as in previous years.
Around 4pm, the bonfire was successfully started (not easy given the rain), the rain let up, and we all started to dry out. It was right about now that Eli realized she no longer had the keys to the Zikan car. This after just spending 2hrs crawling around in the log maze and debris. Uh oh. A thorough search of the car turned up nothing nor did a pointless attempt at searching in the log debris. Sadly, the spare had been left in Seattle. Karel borrowed the Sargent's car and headed off to retrieve the spare key (in Seattle 4 1/2 hrs away...). Meanwhile, back on the beach, hotdogs, pot-roast, marshmallows, beer, wine, and later singing was enjoyed. But main excitement of the night was the "message in a bottle". Tami found a bottle with a message inside. After dinner, we had the opening. Drum...roll.... It was released by someone on a merchant marine vessel on New Year's 2001 off the coast of Chile! Wow! 10yrs and 1000s of miles... See the photos for a picture of the Pacific Ocean drift currents and how our bottle might have made its journey.
Around 9pm, we retreated to the tents to sleep the night away...or so we thought. We had placed the tents well above the high, high tide mark (which had been at 3pm), but we didn't count on the wind kicking up and bringing in big waves. At 2:30am (half hour before high tide), we woke to the sound of huge crashing waves and what sounded like logs moving around. Emerging from the tents, we saw that the waves were lapping the lowest tents. The Zikans (minus Karel) quickly moved higher, while John kept watch to make sure the Sargent boys didn't get swamped (their tent was lowest but harder to move). 3:30am, the tide began to recede and we all could all get back to sleep.
Sunday morning dawned bright and with a little blue showing. Everyone stumbled out a bit groggy, except the 3 teenage boys who I believe did not wake up during the whole tide/storm excitement. At 8:30am, Karel walked back into camp looking surprisingly chipper despite driving all night. As he strode into to camp, he had something in his hand...Eli's keys to the car!! She had left them on top of the car! As we hiked out to the cars with the final loads of trash, we found that Beach Clean 2010 has one more bit of "excitement" to throw our way. Mike's truck had a flat.
*Michael and Magda showed up Sat evening, and enjoyed, I am sure, a beautiful sunny Sunday on the beach. They also camped higher and missed the tide drama.
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WASHINGTON
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