on the beach 2

 Along much of the coast in Oregon, US 101 runs high above the beaches, in the mountains that do not end until they wet their feet in the Pacific Ocean.  There are a few stretches where the highway comes close to the beach, and we stopped at one of them and wandered on the sand.

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Debris from the earthquake/tsunami in Japan last year has floated across the Pacific to the North American coast; a huge raft of debris of all kinds is caught in the central Pacific gyre.  A couple of weeks ago, a Japanese fishing boat, washed out of the harbour it was tied up in while waiting for it’s trip to the ship-breakers at the end of it’s life, drifted across the ocean to the Washington coast, where the US Coast Guard sank it with gunfire as a danger to shipping.  Japanese glass fishing floats have long been the thing to find on the beaches here; new kinds of "things" are appearing on our beaches now.

This broom, for example:

It was indeed a Japanese broom, swept out to sea and across the five thousand miles of the Pacific to the Oregon coast.

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My Japanese friend’s shadow:

Looking inland, east, towards the highway.

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Tsunami debris isn’t the only thing that washes up on our beaches:

Kelp from the sea washes away from it’s roots and ends up on land, thrown there by the waves, and occiasionally, some guy tries to throw it back, lol.

 

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