Day 226 - Oct. 20, 2011

life guard tower 26 - Oct. 20, 2010

life guard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 min.

4.4 pounds

854.2 pounds total

plastic wrapper - Oct. 20, 2010

My camera is still broken. We are going to Costco later this afternoon to shop for a new little one to replace my trusted Casio of seven years. It felt odd picking up at the beach last night without the ability to photograph any on my findings. But then I got the idea to look back through my collections to see if I had done a beach cleanup on Oct. 20th last year, or the year before.

plastic top - Oct. 20, 2009

Jackpot! I'd done a beach cleanup for the last two Oct. 20th's! And not only that -- I found a plastic bottle top today to match the one depicted above found on Oct. 20, 2009.

Ziploc baggie - Oct. 20, 2009

And a Ziploc baggie today, just as I'd found one in 2009. See the theme developing here?

ocean - Oct. 20, 2009

I went earlier yesterday than I've been going out lately. The ocean didn't have this illuminated steely-silver quality, but the sun was about the same height in the sky. It was overcast last night too. I rushed straight home from the beach to sweat it out in a yoga class my teacher Tara Judelle led. She's visiting from Bali, and I haven't practiced yoga since...the last time she was in town. 

She threads a theme through every class. We'd eaten dinner Tues. night and she'd told me that the theme for that day's class was perseverance. Perseverance in service to help the world. 

I sighed as I told her how The Daily Ocean would likely take me another year to finish if I kept up my average of 1 cleanup every 3 days. 

(I missed 4 months straight out of last year when we sailed from Chile to Tahiti researching plastic micro-pollutants on phyto-plankton). 

Tara said that it didn't matter. 

That my job was to do, not think about it. 

Last night's class theme was gratitude. It occurred to me during class that every entry on The Daily Ocean is an expression of gratitude for the ocean itself, the people I have met through writing this blog, and the many ways my life has changed since I took a bag to the beach with me in March, 2009 to collect some trash by myself.