Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Ipswich River - Ipswich

Early this morning, after having worked the graveyard shift in Danvers, I found myself within easy striking distance of the Ipswich River's saltier stretch.  The weather was still warm, tide a little past high, and my yacht, conveniently, was already on the roof of my car.  Shortly thereafter, the Town Landing in Ipswich was located and it was found to be pretty much deserted.  Once launched, my boat and I ventured downriver towards the back side of Great and Little Necks.  The wind was gusting from the west and that combined with the now outgoing tide convinced me to turn back after coming within sight of Castle Neck's sand dunes near the river's mouth.  This photo was looking towards Castle Hill...

On the trip upriver, I encountered some critters not usually seen on my more inland travels.  Taking the place of Canada geese were these brant...

Rather than great blue herons there were snowy egrets such as this one...

 Curious woodchucks, however, are everywhere...
Back at the Town Landing, I decided to stay on the water a little longer and head upriver to the head of tidewaters.  The opening photo shows the river as one approaches the downtown area.  By this time, either the wind was subsiding or the town's buildings were providing shelter from it.  Around another bend I reached what I suspect is the end of tidal waters...
Here the Ipswich River splits into two sections and on one there appears to be the remains of a small dam. Turned around here and drifted with the current back to the now quite busy Town Landing.  Skiffs were being launched one after another.  My guess, since most of the boaters were wearing hip waders, is that they were clamdiggers heading out to work the approaching low tide.  Fortunately, there was an old set of stairs for me to use in getting my boat out of the river.  Back in the busy parking area, my modest trash haul of 22 pieces posed briefly...
In the bag were 14 recyclable containers (6 redeemable) and 8 pieces of miscellaneous rubbish such as styrofoam/paper coffee cups, nip bottles, and plastic/paper bags.  My YTD total stands at 1560. 

3 comments:

Harry said...

Disheartening to find a half-dozen redeemables in the mix. One big hope in cutting all this pollution is that more redeeming might help get more garbage out of the environment. Thx for what you're doing -- glad I discovered your blog! The river views are amazing.

Al said...

Harry, I agree that finding redeemables is disheartening and believe it demonstrates that a nickel today just doesn't have the same value it did back in 1983. A dime deposit would make more sense to me.
I understand that your state, Maine, has a much more inclusive bottle bill program than we do. What does a beer can fetch for redemption in Maine? How about a plastic single-use water bottle?

Harry said...

Cans and bottles are mostly just 5 cents up here, but they do cast a wider net. Even the quart-sized apple juice in the grocery store has a deposit on it. It definitely seems to be cutting down that kind of trash. (Though of course plenty still gets blown or knocked out of trash cans or dropped by butter-fingers.) I wish they could expand to things like plastic bags, styrofoam cups, and especially cigarette butts!