Before grabbing pickers and bags, that throng of International Coastal Cleanup Day volunteers gathered for a group photo just west of Alki Statue of Liberty Plaza. As previewed here earlier this week, Ocean Conservancy partnered with Puget Soundkeeper to host this local event as part of the international observance, the first time an International Coastal Cleanup Day flagship event has been held at Alki Beach Park. And they learned before heading out onto the sand and the streets that every little bit helps, literally. First they got the big picture from Ocean Conservancy’s Nick Mallos, vice president of conservation for ocean plastics, about today’s worldwide effort:

Puget Soundkeeper’s executive director Sean Dixon got into the specifics of what was most important to look for while cleaning – a lesson you can apply to even a simple informal cleanup while you’re at the beach (or out at sea): In short, look for small plastic pieces, which can end up not just in the water, but also inside fish, marine mammals, and seabirds:

Going for the small stuff, as was encouraged, the hundred-plus volunteers collected 142 pounds in about two hours of work on Alki.

(This photo and next by Patty Chambers, courtesy Ocean Conservancy)

If you’d like to join the cleanup movement – or are already active – you don’t have to wait for the next event; Ocean Conservancy also offers the Clean Swell app, where you can contribute to what OC says is “the world’s largest repository of marine debris data and is used to inform scientists, conservation groups, governments, and industry leaders about ocean trash and support plastic pollution prevention and advocacy efforts.” Meantime, one more simple thing you can do is use less plastic – today’s volunteers got a souvenir that’ll help with that:

This year’s International Coastal Cleanup Day worldwide stats aren’t tallied yet but these numbers from last year are eye-opening.

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West Seattle already has a strong cleanup community (A Cleaner Alki is testament to that), and this Saturday an international cleanup effort, coast to coast and pole to pole, is leading an event here and inviting you to participate. From the announcement we received today:

Ocean Conservancy, a national environmental NGO headquartered in Washington, D.C., and with offices in Bellingham and other coastal cities across the country, is partnering with Puget Soundkeeper to bring its flagship International Coastal Cleanup® (ICC) event to Seattle. Volunteers are invited to join the world’s largest beach and waterway cleanup movement at Statue of Liberty Plaza at Alki Beach on September 21, 2024. Breakfast, lunch, and cleanup supplies will be provided. (Register here.)

“Over a garbage truck’s worth of plastics – much of it single-use – enters the ocean every minute, where they accumulate year after year,” said Ocean Conservancy’s Senior Director of Conservation Cleanups, Allison Schutes. “While it’s critical that we turn off the tap of plastics flowing into the environment through prevention measures, we also need to clean up what’s already out there. Every piece of plastic collected and recorded as part of the International Coastal Cleanup informs important research and advocacy and makes a tangible difference for our ocean and the creatures that call it home.”

“We’re incredibly proud to be partnering with Ocean Conservancy on this flagship cleanup at one of the most iconic beaches in the Pacific Northwest,” said Sean Dixon, Executive Director of Puget Soundkeeper, which is celebrating its 40th Anniversary in 2024. “This year’s event will bring families, neighbors, activists, and community champions out to help safeguard this vital ecosystem. Plastics in our environment are superhighways transporting toxic chemicals into the food web and, especially during salmon migrations, are a literal poison pill for our already endangered and threatened fisheries. Every little piece of trash collected helps save a salmon.”

Partners in Washington state have been participating in Ocean Conservancy’s ICC for 36 years. Since 2019, in the Puget Sound area alone, nearly 9,000 volunteers have removed close to 200,000 individual pieces of trash, weighing a whopping 75,000 pounds. Meanwhile, Washington state has been at the forefront of plastics policy. The state has banned plastic foam foodware, including clamshell containers, plates and cups, as well as single-use foam coolers and packing peanuts; and last year, Governor Jay Inslee signed into law legislation designed to reduce single-use water bottles, other plastic packaging, and plastic foam docks. …

Globally, since the first ICC in 1986, over 18 million volunteers have joined local cleanup efforts big and small to remove over 385 million pounds of trash from beaches and waterways, making it the largest beach and waterway cleanup in the world. At last year’s ICC, over 486,000 volunteers collected nearly 8 million pounds of trash globally, including nearly 2 million cigarette butts, over 1.3 million beverage bottles, and over 850,000 bottle caps. Ocean Conservancy is expecting an even larger turnout in 2024.

Every year, more than 11 million metric tons of plastic waste are estimated to enter the ocean, impacting more than 1,300 species of marine life, including seabirds, sea turtles and marine mammals. Plastics never fully breakdown in the environment and instead, break into smaller and smaller pieces called microplastics. Microplastics are being found everywhere scientists look, from the depths of the Mariana trench to mountain tops, and even our dinner tables, showing up in proteins, salt, and even drinking water.

The cleanup is set for 9 am-noon Saturday (September 21); you can register here.

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Reminder that the earlier closing time for Alki Beach Park (and Golden Gardens in Ballard) is ending later this year than last year. As announced in May, the 10:30 pm closing time will remain in effect through Sunday, September 22nd; after that, closing time goes back to 11:30 pm, and beach-fire season ends. Last year, it all ended after Labor Day. The city continues to call this a “pilot,” though this is the fourth year they’ve had an earlier closing time for Alki

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Sailboat is aground in kelp bed today as the tide is going out. It’s north end of Lincoln Park. It is anchored but the heavy winds made it move toward shore. Maybe the owner will see it today in the blog and move it at high tide.

Low tide was just half an hour ago; next high tide is just before 7 pm.

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Thanks to the texters who sent photos and reports of another beach driftwood fire, this time early this morning on the north beach at Lincoln Park;

The first photo was from someone who said SFD had been called; the second, from someone who wrote, “Another log burning in Lincoln Park, just south of Lowman. We put sand on it, though it’s still smoking slightly. Someone is clearly setting these and just wondering if SFD is looking into it before it causes too much damage.” We’re not seeing any police call logged for today’s fire; we asked SFD about their response, just before 6 am, but they tell us only that their firefighters “extinguished a tree stump that was smoldering.” Previously we’ve reported on fires at Lowman Beach and at Weather Watch Park.

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David Hutchinson of Seal Sitters Marine Mammal Stranding Network sent that photo of an adult harbor seal resting off a submerged rock off Constellation Park with this gentle nudge:

Just a reminder that we are in the middle of harbor-seal pupping season. Moms nurse their pups for only 4 -6 weeks Then these vulnerable young marine mammals are on their own and typically end up on our West Seattle beaches this time of year, hauling out to rest and warm up. If you come across one, please call the Seal Sitters hotline at 206-905-7325.

The alternate way to remember that number is 206-905-SEAL.

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A texter sent that photo today of charred driftwood at Weather Watch Park, to which the fire-call log indicates SFD was summoned multiple times on Sunday. The first was for this (thanks to John-Michael for the early-morning photo):

The subsequent calls were from people concerned that the burned logs were still smoldering, SFD says; the texter says that was still continuing at sunset. This comes a month after a fire burned driftwood “forts” at Lowman Beach, also very early in the morning. So far, though, SFD’s investigator hasn’t been brought into it.

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Today is the 100th day since the abandonment of a stolen Jeep Compass SUV on a stretch of shoreline in the Arroyos/Seola Beach area. However, this isn’t a “100 days and it’s still there” story – because it’s not.

(Saturday photos sent by Robin)

Area resident Robin, who has been doggedly tracking the situation for many weeks (as we most recently noted here), went down on Saturday for a look – and discovered it was gone, nothing left behind but some parts – “the bumper is still in the driftwood and the gas tank and hood are on the rocks too. But the whole SUV carcass is gone gone gone.”

What we don’t know is what happened to it. Robin had reported it to a variety of authorities but not received any word of a removal plan. When in the area Saturday, she told us, she talked to a resident who said someone “from the city” had come by a few days ago and wanted to take photos. Another nearby resident told her they had secondhand information that “someone was taking parts off it,” suggesting it was dismantled rather than removed in one piece. We’ve checked with one neighborhood source who hadn’t heard anything. So we’ll check around tomorrow.

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That’s the Duwamish Tribe‘s Raven canoe, crossing the river by bridge instead of by water, seen as it was towed downtown for the tribe’s participation in the Seafair Torchlight Parade. Tomorrow you are invited to be at Alki Beach as the Duwamish canoe family lands while participating in this year’s scaled-down regional Canoe Journey. The Duwamish canoe will be leaving Suquamish on Monday morning, paddling to Alki for a short stop, and then continuing on to Des Moines, all participating canoe families’ official Monday night stop before finishing the journey in Tacoma. There’s no estimated time of arrival yet – from “midday” to “mid-afternoon” are the early estimates – but the tribe promises social-media updates on Monday.

9:35 AM MONDAY: The latest estimate is between 11 and 11:30 am.

10:13 AM: Another update – the weather has forced some canoes to get out of the water, so the Duwamish canoe will now be brought to Alki by trailer sometime this afternoon.

11:55 AM: New update for that – around 2 pm.

2:23 PM: They brought the canoe to Don Armeni Boat Ramp, from which they’re launching shortly, heading to Des Moines. So they’ll be paddling past Alki Beach proper. We’ll have photos in a separate story later.

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(First and last photos are from last weekend, sent by Janel)

That stolen-and-abandoned Jeep Compass has been on the rocky beach in the Seola/Arroyos area since mid-April (here’s our first report). By the time of our first followup days later, local, state, and federal authorities had been to the site, and the SUV’s owner had belatedly reported it stolen. The state removed fuel from the tank. But no one, we were told, could figure out how to get it off the beach – it was apparently exactly in the wrong position for various removal options by land or sea.

(This photo and next are from Robin)

We checked back again in mid-May. By that time, area resident Robin was tracking the situation, and trying to figure out who could do something about it. She’s still on the case; she says she’s even talked with the property owner, who was away when this happened and, she says, is frustrated too. But nothing has changed, and as her photos show, the car continues to fall apart, as the water rushes in and rushes back out. Pieces of it are strewn about on the beach.

We thought a marine-focused environmental advocacy group might have a lead on accountability. That inquiry dead-ended. We then turned back to the state, whose Department of Natural Resources has a Marine Debris Removal Program. (We mentioned it five years ago, when state commissioner of public lands Hilary Franz came to visit a crew.) So we tracked down DNR spokesperson Michael Kelly, who asked around and then told us this could be a matter of “jurisdictional issues”:

Some of the problems we run into with vessels may be at play here with this vehicle. DNR only has jurisdiction on State Owned Aquatic Lands (SOAL) and not all tidelands are within SOAL. Cities and counties have jurisdiction where we do not but may lack the ordinances allowing them to remove private property from private property. Another is funding, we can only remove vessel when we have the funding to do so.

The private property owner can get a junk vehicle affidavit filled out by their code enforcement office of their local law enforcement department to get the legal right to remove the vehicle, but it would be at their expense.

However, he had one tip for Robin as a concerned citizen – to file a “large debris” report via the agency’s MyCoast app.

She’s already tried the city’s Find It, Fix It system – which went nowhere because it wasn’t on a public beach – so now she’s trying this too. Robin told us in one exchange, “The car is falling apart and I am sure several things have just washed away into the Sound. They will surface further north of here or some poor creature will be killed or maimed by it. Tragedy on so many levels.”

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It was just before 1 pm when cannon fire boomed offshore, announcing the Seafair Pirates‘ annual approach to Alki, where a welcoming party awaited them in honor of their 75th anniversary.

After a pause to assess the situation, the Pirates jumped in to wade their way ashore:

(Video and photos, from here, by WSB’s Patrick Sand, unless otherwise credited)

Once on the sand, the Pirates did more posing than pillaging:

The Pirates and Seafair royalty – Queen Alcyone Ming-Ming Tung-Edelman, King Neptune Chris Cashman, Miss Seafair Karina Hlastala – made their way to the Pirates’ ship-on-wheels Moby Duck, where King County Executive Dow Constantine challenged the royals to stop the pirates from claiming a symbolic key:

Once the pageantry predictably yet spiritedly reached its conclusions, the pirates readied to make their rolling getaway:

(Photo by David Hutchinson)

They have a busy summer schedule ahead, including the West Seattle Grand Parade two weeks from today, on July 20th.

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If you are planning on going to the beach to stay cool on Saturday afternoon, here’s your reminder that you might find yourself in the middle of a high-seas showdown – tomorrow brings the annual Seafair Pirates Landing, with the “Pirate Kings of the Northwest” approaching from offshore, barging onto the beach, and declaring this summer’s regional party officially under way. Announcements have listed their expected arrival time as both 1 pm and 1:30 pm, so our advice if you don’t want to miss the spectacle is to be there on the earlier side. Once ashore, the Pirates bluster, mingle, showboat, and become the Pirate Kings of Photo Ops – and then climb aboard their shore-going “ship” Moby Duck, rolling away to other stops on their itinerary (which, two weeks later, will include the West Seattle Grand Parade on July 20th. Tomorrow, look for all this toward the west end of the sandy beach, by Alki Bathhouse. (If you haven’t been before, here’s our coverage from last year.)

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After the 4th of July, you have two days to gird yourself for West Seattle’s next big summer event, the Seafair Pirates’ Landing at Alki. They’ll be storming the shore Saturday (July 6), usually near Alki Bathhouse (60th/Alki). Though their arrival is usually preceded by offshore cannon fire, and a whole lot of ferocious-sounding “arrrrr”‘s, once ashore, the Pirates are usually seen gruffly yet cheerily handing out stickers and posing for photos. It’s their 75th anniversary, and they’re expecting to land in the 1 pm-1:30 pm vicinity, according to the official announcement (which you can read in our calendar listing); they’ll be led by their newest Captain Kidd (Jay Albrecht). Once they’ve landed and mingled, they usually sail off on land instead of sea, via their trusty ship-on-wheels Moby Duck, which you’ll also see in the West Seattle Grand Parade two weeks later (Saturday, July 20).

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Harbor seal “pupping season” in our part of Puget Sound runs from June – September. After the pups are born, they spend only 4-6 weeks with their mothers before heading out on their own. Over the next months, beach walkers in West Seattle will very likely come across these vulnerable young seal pups on both our public and private beaches. These marine mammals are protected by federal law. If you come across a seal pup (or any marine mammal) using the beach, please keep back, keep people and pets away, and call the Seal Sitters’ Hotline at 206-905-7325.

The telephoto image in the poster is of “Loki,” a harbor seal pup that was rescued from Constellation Park by Seal Sitters and successfully rehabbed by our partner SR3 at their facility in Des Moines. Loki was eventually released back into Puget Sound.

Seal Sitters is part of NOAA’s West Coast Marine Mammal Stranding Network. We are authorized to respond to all marine mammals, alive or dead, that end up on West Seattle Beaches. The official NOAA stranding map, which shows the coverage areas and the contact information for the various groups, is viewable at this link – then look under “Network Maps”).

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