As promised, here are some pictures from the beach cleanup on Saturday just before we headed back to Caltech!
Here are some pictures from the rest of the trip.
Tecolote sewage system inspection and cleanup:
Tern habitat restoration:
One last picture on Coronado Beach, during which there were many falls, "ow's," and snickers from passerbys.
I am posting a lot of pictures from today….I could not ask for more gorgeous sites to have visited.
Our work was to clear the nesting grounds of the Least Tern, an endangered bird that comes to the San Diego region every year to raise its young. Terns like to make their nests in sandy areas with very little vegetation. The few plants that do grow must be low-lying in order for terns to easily spot predator birds. Most native plants in the region we were working in are naturally flat, and so we set to work removing non-native vegetation. Often, the weeds grow over or under the native plants, so extracting the invasive vegetation is quite delicate work. In particular, the filaree weeds were a great nuisance…the plants have sword-like structures, each of which is a seed. When the seeds fall, they curl up into screw-shaped coils, which allows for easy penetration into the soil or, as in the case below, my pants. Those little buggers hurt quite a bit....the seeds have surprisingly sharp tips. Another weed we removed, the Devil's Thorn, has seeds sharp enough to puncture bike tires. Needless to say, there were several scratched hands by the end of the day.
Below is a picture of the Nuttall's Lotus, the native plant we're trying to preserve within the tern habitat. It actually lies flat on the group, and the photo is a shot from below.
After our work, we decided to visit the lighthouse in Point Loma, continuing the trend of breathtaking scenery for the day. I have never seen a more gorgeous view of the ocean. There is even a seaside trail that goes along the cliffs; we didn’t have time to hike it, but it is now officially on my to-do list for this summer.
For dinner, we decided to have some fun and have a barbeque on the beach, complete with s’mores afterward. It took a while to get the campfire started and the charcoal warmed up (how many techers does it take to light a fire?), but it was definitely worth it as everyone ate burgers and watched the sunset.
Tomorrow, we will actually be working on the beach. Can’t wait!
There are over 300 miles of sewer lines in the canyons of San Diego. As can be expected, these sewers and manholes can get overloaded or break, spilling millions of gallons of untreated sewage and the contents of your toilet into the ocean and canyons. Only a few years ago, the EPA ranked San Diego in the worst quartile in terms of sewage spills. Thus, the San Diego Oceans Foundations works with the public to raise awareness and recruit volunteers to patrol the canyons and monitor the status of manholes and the sewage system. And so today, we drove out to Tecolote to clean up the canyon and inspect the manholes. The area we hiked was extremely wild and not charted (at times the trail simply disappeared). At one point, we ended up on the highway:
However, we did manage to find 16 manholes, one of which we reported as broken. We also collected several full garbage bags of plastic and glass along (and off) the trail.
We also stumbled upon an unexpected find…..golf balls. They were buried in the soil and embedded in the walls of the river. By the end of the day, we’d dug out hundreds and hundreds of golf balls. Lugging the bags back to the car was no small task, but we managed it and now have an impressive collection of golf balls weighing more than many of our volunteers.
In the evening, we went to Old Town to have dinner. It was a very festive atmosphere with open markets and colorful colonial and Hispanic decorations. The Duke-Villanova game happened to be on TV while we ate our tacos…..its result made me quite sad and robbed our group of free churros (our waitress promised us all free dessert if Duke won). Next year……
Tomorrow, we will be working with the Audubon Society to restore bird habitats. Should be really fun, and we’ll definitely get to see wildlife this time!
We finally arrived at the hostel in the afternoon. It’s the first day, and we’re getting settled in. Before it got too dark, we decided to take a jaunt down to the beach, which is located only a block and a half away from where we’re staying. The following is a message brought to you by two lovely members of the Caltech Y:
The hostel we’re staying at is located right in the middle of Ocean Beach, a salty-aired California town straight from the pages of a storybook. As I am writing in my room, I can hear Jamaican steel drums outside my window. All along the street are shops and indie cafes, and today the street was blocked off for the weekly Farmer’s Market where you can buy fresh produce, gorgeous flowers, and homemade crafts. We will be on the trail most of the day tomorrow, but we will hopefully get a chance to explore the streets in the evening. During the day, we will be hiking the Tecolote Canyon to inspect man-holes and the sewage system. The area we will be exploring is still in the process of being charted, so I’m sure we’ll be in for some surprises. We’ll also be on the look-out for animals as we help clean up the canyon.
