Marine Debris Surveys on Santa Cruz Island
This weekend I was lucky enough to go to Santa Cruz Island and survey 3 beaches on the West end of the island for marine debris. I have never been to this side of the island before so it was an amazing experience! Robyn, Dorothy, & I got to the island on Friday and left Saturday, for such a short trip we got a lot done.
We arrived at Prisoner’s Harbor around 11ish on Friday, and by the time we got the truck and got to our first location, Sauce’s Beach, it was around 1pm. That beach took the three of us roughly an hour, even though it had the most trash and we had to hike through the canyon to access it. I used my boyfriend’s giant frame pack, which was way too big for me, to pack out the trash and it was a lot easier than just carrying the trash out like normal! Will definitely use a frame pack again for surveying Santa Rosa Island. After we finished Sauces Robyn made the executive decision to head out to Fraiser Point before the sun when down, so that Saturday morning we would only have Christy Beach to survey and we wouldn’t have to rush back to catch the boat since Christy was a lot closer. We took off to the west end of the island to survey Fraiser Point and to my surprise there was not a lot of marine debris. This point gets pounded by surf and winter swells though, and I imagine a lot of debris got swept out with the surf. There were a few lobster trap fragments and fiberglass pieces there, though.
After that we drove back to Christy Ranch and set up camp for the night. It was an amazing place to camp and I feel so lucky I got the chance to do so! In the morning we drove down the canyon a little ways and survey Christy Beach. This beach (as well as the others we surveyed) were inundated with mylar balloons – most of them being from Valentines Day. We had to have removed ~20 or so balloons in such a short trip, I was amazed!
Another night there would have been awesome, just to take in that part of the island a little bit more but overall it was an amazing trip! This week I plan on processing all of the collected marine debris.
