Storm debris

Usually, when we have a Nor'easter, or a hurricane passes by the coast, we can expect to see changes in the beach and what is on it. Usually, old shipwrecks already on the island but buried under sand are uncovered, or parts of them are washed up onto the shore. There is one near the Pony Pen dune crossover which I find interesting - it has a small disc on it, marking it as a find by the underwater archeology department of a university (I forget which one). It is funny to see it on land now, when it obviously was submerged when the archeology students located it.

This week, there is debris on the beach as a result of the most recent storm. But it's a bit different than usual. It's styrofoam chunks. A container ship traveling along the coast lost part of its load, which I've heard was ceiling fans. The fans, of course, would have sunk. But the styrofoam packing material floated and ended up here (and along the beach on the islands south of here, too).

Believe it or not, though, this is not the strangest thing I've heard of washing up on the Outer Banks after a storm. Last year, a ship carrying Doritos lost two of its containers, and many bags of the chips were found along the coast. There were pictures in the newspaper of people walking the beach with grocery bags, picking up snacks!

Here's hoping that interesting things "wash up" in your life!