October Beach Cleanup

With November fast approaching (and the waves pumping at our local break), it was clearly time for a beach cleanup. Every month, NEMO picks up trash around a quarter mile stretch of Jenness Beach through the Blue Ocean Society. Fall is a spectacular time in New England -- the summer beach crowds are gone, leaves are every color imaginable, and the water's not lethally cold...yet (good luck next week with that).

Although the morning's post-sunrise session was rough, it was nowhere as brutal as the previous evening. Suzanne's right fin box from her red fish bore the brunt of those waves and is now at the doctor's office for repairs. My board managed to escape unscathed.


Jenness usually looks pristine (see below, pre-cleanup) but it's amazing what kind of stuff you can pull out of the seaweed. Today's haul totaled about 50 lbs, including notable finds of a cellphone, two pairs of glasses, and one broken surfboard fin (not Suzanne's).


No stop to the beach is complete without a visit to Joe's Meat Shoppe, our favorite post-cleanup/surf lunch spot. You've got to love any store that has a hand-lettered sign out front and still spells 'shoppe' with two p's. Need recommendations? Corn chowder, made from scratch the right way (starting with bacon), rare roast beef from the meat counter, and the ginger-lime marinated steak tips. Delicious.


-Connie