PORT ANGELES — For Lyn Muench, cleaning the beach at Ediz Hook on Sunday morning was a shore thing.
Muench was one of more than 40 people who scrambled over rip rap, slip-slided across kelp, and ambled along the sands in the first Northwest Straits Day, scouring trash off beaches from Clallam Bay to Dungeness Spit.
“I love the mornings and being on the beach,” said Muench, a member of the Clallam County Marine Resource Committee and environmental planning manager for the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe.
Meanwhile, beneath the bluffs west of Dungeness Spit, John De Boer, 45, was walking the tide line and picking up litter.
“I’m at Serenity House right now,” he said, referring to the county’s shelter for homeless people.
“We got a chance to get in some volunteer hours and show our best face to the community.”
Of the three beach-cleaning groups, 12 people working at Clallam Bay picked up about 50 pounds of trash.
Sixteen volunteers at Dungeness Spit collected about 1,000 pounds.
Thirteen people at Ediz Hook and Hollywood Beach gathered about 500 pounds, said Ian Miller, Washington field coordinator for the Surfrider Foundation.
The Surfriders partnered with the Marine Resource Committee, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Beach Watchers of Clallam County, the Clallam/Bay Sekiu Chamber of Commerce, and the city of Port Angeles for Northwest Straits Day, part of Sunday’s International Coast Clean Up.
The Washington and Olympic Kayak Clubs also were scheduled to participate, but postponed their efforts because of fog.