This was a day to go to your favorite beach and help clean it up. I figured that I could use my kayak to go to a few difficult to access beaches and pick up lots of trash. I heard about this day from a Sierra Club newsletter, but when I showed up at the Bodega Dunes Beach there were hundreds of people from some other organization and the Sierra Club was out-volunteered. I talked to one of the organizers handing out trash bags an asked her if I could have a few bags, take them to my favorite beach, and bring them back full. She said she couldn't let me do that because it was against the rules. Rules for picking up trash? I asked her to "TELL ME THE RULES", but all she did was vaguely wave her hand at some forms and say "We need to keep track of what you pick up and where". There were already enough people working on this beach. I wanted to make a difference with my kayak, so I left for Goat Rock Beach.
On the way by I stopped at the Salmon Creek Ranger Station. They had tables set up and forms for each of the beaches. I asked them if someone was handing out trash bags at Goat Rock Beach and got a yes. When I said I was going there, they added one to a counter on the form for that beach. At Goat Rock Beach there was a guy handing out trash bags who thought kayaking to the remote beaches south of Goat Rock was a cool idea. He told me to keep track of anything especially weird that I found. They were giving out prizes for the strangest things found on a beach and he though I might find something out there. I hoped to find one of the special "Adopt-a-beach" blue trash bags (but I did not).
At Bodega Dunes, the organizers were concerned about a pile of coupons for free water filters that were supposed to be handed out to volunteers. They hid the coupons in a car to keep people from grabbing them and getting free stuff without collecting trash first. The guy at Goat Rock just handed me one of these coupons with my trash bag. Now I hoped to find an old discarded water filter for the "strange thing" contest (but I did not). I drove down to the south parking lot and put my kayak in the water.
I paddled past the accessible beach and landed at the first little inaccessible one. To my surprise there was no trash on this beach at all. Usually pieces of plastic and Styrofoam wash ashore from the ocean on any beach, so I wondered if someone beat me to this beach and stole all my trash! But my footprints were the only ones. At the next beach I started finding plastic water bottles and a truck tire shredded by the surf. The tire was missing the radial belts and most of the side- walls, it was just the outer skin of the tire. This made it floppy and allowed me to fold it up inside my kayak and take it with me. On the next two beaches I found a lot more trash, all of the variety tossed into the ocean off boats to drift to shore, and filled my bag to overflowing. Fortunately I had my kayak to carry all the largest items.
I timed my trip to return before 1:00 PM but when I got back, the guy, his table, and all the trash was gone. Apparently one of THE RULES was to bring your trash back by noon and I was too late. I considered driving down to Doran Beach where some sort of celebration was supposed to happen. But I would probably be too late for that as well, I didn't want to drive all the way down there, and the important thing had already happened: I had gotten around to cleaning up four remote beaches.
And I even got my free stuff ... Or maybe not. I looked at the coupon that I was given, and it wasn't a coupon for a water filter. It was a coupon which could be turned in for a coupon for a water filter. Never mind, I don't need a water filter anyway. I just took my trash home with me for my next trip to the dump. Then it hit me: The dump is another bureaucracy that has THEIR OWN RULES, and many of those rules concern rubber tires. I was going to have to jump through hoops to get rid of that tire now. Perhaps I'll just fold it into a trash bag and sneak it into the dump.