B and I took a walk at Richmond Beach by way of getting some healthy exercise while we plan our Mount St. Helens trip. The tide was pretty far out, so we got to do lotsa walking along the beach between the Sound and the railroad tracks. There’s always fun and interesting stuff to see, like this Eye of Siva somebody painted near a manmade waterfall.
Here’s a nice closeup of it for ye.
So that was nice. We dawdled on that side for a bit, then walked over towards the south, where my favorite rocks of all time are. Well, my favorites at Richmond Beach, anyway. Just beyond them, we saw this thingy stuck on the riprap.
I didn’t get too close to it due to the rusty metal bits sticking out of it – last thing I want to do is impale myself on tetanus central – but I did get a closer-up shot of the underside. Dat’s Styrofoam!
Of course, somebody’s already been at it with spraypaint, because people are people and some people like to doodle on debris.
So yes, I’m dying to know what it is. Can anyone tell? I have no idea if it’s local, or if the currents have managed to bring it in from somewhere else. The Styrofoam looks too white and new to be from the Japanese tsunami, and I don’t think any of that stuff washed up on the Sound’s beaches anyway. Dunno if it’s a dock or something else. I suspect it fell victim to a landslide over the winter – lots of bits of our coastline let go and sail down into the water, taking everything attached. I figure whatever bit of land it was attached to broke off and set it free.
In other news, we’ve pretty much got our St. Helens trip figured out. As long as the weather is reasonable at the end of the week, we’re going to spend a couple of days down there. Misha’s doing well enough that we’re going to risk leaving her for two nights. As long as nothing goes wrong, I should have some really excellent photos for you by the 35th anniversary of the eruption. Woot!
My first guess was tsunami debris; I don’t know how badly styrofoam weathers, or whether (haha!) there was more of it that has been recently ripped off, hence the fresh look on this bit. To my unpracticed eye, it looks like a piece of a concrete dock, but honestly, I have no real idea. Husband’s the one who does concrete and construction, though more in the housing line.
Certainly a bit of a dock. Possibly tsunami debris, although I don’t know if it gets that far into Puget Sound. There’ve been some very large pieces found along the coast.
Oh, and I agree with rq’s assessment of the foam — older bits are probably constantly being knocked off, exposing fresh surfaces. There was undoubtedly much more foam to start with.
Yup, agreed with above posters. That there’s a piece of concrete floating dock, and the rusty bits are where the walers (wooden planks running length of sides) used to be.
Ala this: http://blog.bellingham-marine.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Wood-Waler.jpg
(photo of concrete floating dock w/walers made in by a company in Bellingham, WA)
If you could get that nut off that embedded bolt (probably impossible), you could probably determine whether it’s Metric or “English” threads.
Ah hem. Investigate the aggregate in the concrete. Geology and all that. Aggregate is very expensive to move around and is always very local to the point on manufacture for the concrete.
The bolt idea is good to. If you get lucky they’d even be a makers mark on the head.