Our Daily Ocean: Day 225

So... today's the last day of fall.  It just doesn't feel like tomorrow will be winter.... at least not here anyway.  Even though we have mild winters here, I know that cold weather will take hold at some point and our warm days will disappear.  But until it does... I will soak in the 70 degree temperatures (and brag to my family in the Midwest where they think 30 degrees is a heatwave!).

My kids and I spent part of our morning exploring the dunes at the far south-end of Wrightsville Beach.  It's my kids' favorite place to be at the beach.  Walking carefully through the paths, they get a different view of Wrightsville Beach.  Because normally, we walk down an access (that is cut through the dunes and grasses) to get to the "beach".... at the south-end we can get in the middle of it all to see the little details we could never see walking down a beach access.

Picking up litter while walking through the dunes is more sporadic than picking up litter closer to the water.  Where people typically hang out at the beach things are more concentrated... you can definitely tell where people were sitting or walking.  But through the dunes, there'll be old frayed cigarette butts with the wrack, little bits of broken plastics here and there, and then a something like a beer can tossed on top of a dune.

Sometimes finding a way to get to the litter without disturbing the dunes can be difficult... but we always manage to walk lightly and retrieve any litter that we can.  Even if it is gross.

20 minutes on December 20, 2013 at Access 44

Litter by weight: 1 lb 4.2 oz
Cigarette butts: 33

Total amount of cigarette butts removed from Wrightsville Beach, NC in 225 days:

57,316