Don Phillips regularly patrols the beach at Manchester State Park, picking up trash tossed up by the ocean. Occasionally he finds a treasure. He believes these bones are the humerus, radius, and ulna of a whale.
Don is planning on offering this find to a nearby college for further study. Mel Smith took these photos and I thank him for allowing me to share them here.
We knew it was coming but the reality of it is something else. A disaster thousands of miles away swept multitudes of items into the ocean last March. The Japan Current, also called Kuroshio Current, is bringing evidence of this disaster to the Mendocino Coast.
Don Phillips walks at Manchester State Beach nearly every day. He collects debris swept up on the beach as his community service. But last Sunday the amount of debris on the beach increased dramatically. Yesterday and today he hauled out enough debris to fill his car.
Yes, the tsunami debris has reached the Coast. Now the question is how do we dispose of this? Plastic can be recycled but the styrofoam is problem to be solved.
NOAA has a website to track the tsunami debris. It is: http://marinedebris.noaa.gov/info/japanfaqs.html
Don Phelps found two of these large buoys washed up on Manchester State Beach. There were no barnacles on them so they hadn't been in the water for a long time.
Gary Humfeld found a smaller buoy that had been in the water a long time as it did have barnacles on it.
Below you will see two Asian characters and a series of numbers on the buoy.
Tomorrow I will post the photo of the large light bulb Gary found. If you can further our knowledge in any way, we would surely appreciate it.