Angela-Tools and Sampling

The first time I visited Caspersen Beach, FL, was during a visit to the USA in the late summer of 2005. Venice Beach had turned out too busy so we went exploring and after driving on a bumpy dirt road, through what looked like a jungle to me, we came across this wonderful place. The beach was covered in large shells and there was only one other family visiting this remote little area.

Fast forward to 2013, not only have trees and brush been cut down to make the road wider, but concrete has been poured all over it for the myriad of beach-goers that have discovered this not-so-secret place. As I made my way down to the high tide line I found plenty of plastic, but the type that is left behind by lazy people and not the type I'm looking for.

After making it through the maze of visitors, doing my best to not "accidentally" kick a booming stereo, it turned out that people can have different opinions on what a high tide line is. My husband insisted that I had to sample where the tide was hitting the beach at that very moment; I kept explaining that the high tide line was further up on the beach where the moist debris composed of shells and seaweed was resting. We agreed to disagree and do it my way.

There are two parts to my sampling methods:

1. During the visual survey I scan the high tide line area for plastic debris pieces. Once I find a plastic piece I use metal tweezers to pick up the piece and put it in aluminum foil. However, due to the large amount of small shell pieces along the high tide line, I felt like I was looking for a needle in a haystack at Caspersen Beach, FL.

2. The plan was to stop and scoop a sample of sediment every 10 feet along the high tide line; however, due to the vast amount of visitors and large rocks along the beach, I had to adjust the plan and instead walked along the high tide line and when I came across debris that had not been disturbed by visitors I took a scoop and notated the GPS, Global Positioning System, coordinates.

In addition to the GPS device, the metal tweezers, aluminum foil, and a small shovel that has aluminum wrapped around its plastic hilt, I was also carrying around my quart-sized glass jar, field notebook, and a camera. I look forward to inspecting my samples under a microscope in the lab and learning more about the available lab tools. 

On a side note, the place we luckily chose to have lunch at turned out to be right next to the Mote Marine Laboratory, which I had never heard of. It is a bit of a drive but figured I'd share in case someone might be able to use the organization as part of a project.