On this overcast  but partly sunny Saturday, 16 volunteers arrived at the Mussel Rock car park finding that it needed a little love. Several volunteers have cleaned up in the week prior, but there were still corners that needed improvement.

We picked up a total of 99 pounds of trash, including a Japanese plastic pallet, which

was

reported to the disasterdebris@noaa.gov in case it could be traced back to the 2011 tsunami. Jeff Christner did an amazing job pulling this 52-pound monster up from the beach on his own. He has always been involved in our tsunami-related finds. This was so freshly out of the water that the goose neck barnacles were moving (creepy!), coming out of their shells as they dried up in the heat.

Kudos to Jan McCulloch (see photo), who must have read my mind as I had wished I’d sent a volunteer down Palmetto Avenue. She found about a dozen empty pint-sized motor oil containers that she hauled back along the road on her own!l

Christine Burr was inspired to use a new, long-handled brush and broom set that I contributed to the team for sweeping up lots of cigarette butts. She did a really thorough job in the corner of the car park, which is notorious as in this place butts seem to congregate when it is windy or it rains (a natural bioswale). We picked up approximately 1000 butts, to add to another 1000 butts picked up by Dave Ellers during the work week there.

There seemed to be less recyclable trash this week!

Humpback hales were abundantly feeding on schools of herring below the bluffs. We know so much more about whales after the excellent Whale Town event, held on 19 August in Pacifica.

Joe Recto explained how important keeping the place clean where you enjoy spending time outdoors is, to two young boys, Matthew (Junior) and Andrew Avelar, and Veronica, their Mom (see photo).

Jose Corodo and Philip Vellas (see photo), two freshly minted high school graduates, returned to our cleanup from prior years, who enjoyed cleaning the bluffs that are difficult for some volunteers to climb down. Inspired by Jim Nixon, they also helped Myrna, Helen and Jeff to carry the super heavy plastic pallet up to the car park. We wish them both the best of luck in their chosen courses of chemical engineering and civil engineering, respectively, and hope to see them again in the next few years upon returning to Daly City.

Julie Walters pointed out a blue frisbee or lid drifting in the ocean, possibly destined to become contents of a whale’s stomach, reminding us of the large exhibit we saw at the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, made entirely of plastics extracted from dead whales.

Thanks to Christine for helping relocate buckets and gloves to my garage, and Julie who put out sandwich board signs.

It takes a team of volunteers to make a fun cleanup, but it takes passionate volunteers to make it a special miracle!

Personal thanks to all the Mussel Rock Stars (Julie, Myrna, Joe -see photo, and Jeff) for their amazing friendship as they consoled me on the death of a best-buddy-a-girl-could-have, Sir Henley Percival Nicely, the Wonder Dog! Rest in Peace, dear Boo! 24 August, 2016.