Day 191 - Feb. 2, 2011

lifeguard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 min.

3.2 pounds collected

722.5 pounds total

COMMUNITY COUNT - Day 109 

Dean Miya

trash collected for 20 min.

3.2 pounds

666.4 pounds total

Daily Ocean combined total - 1,388.9

This is the lifeguard's water bottle that was sitting out on the deck as he was shuttering up 26 for the night. My first thought was that it would be great to take a picture of it, but I hadn't even seen the RISE ABOVE PLASTICS logo that was on his KLEEN KANTEEN stainless steel bottle. The discovery was a huge bonus to me. Surfrider's RISE ABOVE PLASTICS campaign is tremendous. You can get involved where ever you live, coastal or not. Check it out!

The Wake Project interviewed me about The Daily Ocean recently. I hadn't heard of their organization before they contacted me, but now I feel the need to pass along a link to them so that you too can learn about their amazing efforts. 

"WAKE IS AN AWARENESS INITIATIVE THAT SEEKS TO EDUCATE PEOPLE ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF SHARKS, RAYS AND TUNAS TO OUR PLANET'S FRAGILE OCEAN ECOSYSTEM. WE SPEAK FOR THOSE WHO CANNOT SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES."

Thank you to the Wake Project for taking an interest in The Daily Ocean. 

What kind of strange plastic bottle is this?

This startling fact is from the Britta Filter For Good PSA collaboration with the Sundance Channel:

"LAST YEAR THE USA USED ENOUGH PLASTIC WATER BOTTLES TO STRETCH AROUND THE EARTH OVER 190 TIMES."

My friend Danielle's short film about her cigarette butt beach cleanup in Wrightsville Beach N.C. is one of three winners at this year's Sundance Festival. Here is a great site to find out more about all three, the talented filmmakers who made them, and the inspiring stories that sparked the short films. 

Yay Danielle! What a pleasure it has been to see this grow! You are tremendous!

I want to thank Dean for coming out with me tonight. It was over nine months ago that he contacted me for the first time when he say this blog after recognizing the stretch of beach as the very spot that he surfed at most often. Since then, he has joined me several times, while also volunteering for Habitat for Humanity, Sea Shepard, and spending weeks down in the Gulf this past year getting up close to all the devastation. He inspires me. When you mention how cool it is that he does all of this, he simply says, "It can't be about me all the time."

We were talking about how depressing beach cleanups can be. As you can see from the pictures, the tide was waaaaay out, revealing a plethora of plastics and other soggy trash. We agreed after a minute or two that cleaning it up has to start somewhere. And further agreed that we find it very distressing that animals mistake this trash for food. 

Many jellyfish were stranded by the receding tide last night. I nearly picked up a jelly instead of the plastic next to it. They looked identical to me for a moment. 

Garen and I are buying our plane tickets to Chile this week. We leave the 10th of March from LA to fly to Chile to join a 5 Gyres expedition where Garen will research the effects of plastic micro-pollutants on plankton. If you would like to join an expedition with 5 Gyres find all the info here. If you would like to learn more about the one that we will be joining, and why we want to go with them, check out our story here. Hey, check out both if you feel inspired too! We hope you do.

Jen Schumacher - Swimmer supporting RISE ABOVE PLASTICS

The Surfrider Chapter of South Orange County has gotten distance swimming star, Jen Schumacher to join Surfrider's RISE ABOVE PLASTICS campaign. After swimming though trash for many years - most of it plastic - Schumacher reached out to Surfrider to ask for assistance in raising awareness against the plastic trash plaguing our oceans. The S.O.C. chapter responded and last Sat. she swam around the Island of Manhattan to draw attention to our joint cause.

Jen Schumacher, a 24 year-old Cal State Fullerton graduate student competed as a solo swimmer in the Manhattan Island Marathon Swim, a current-assisted 28.5-mile race in New York with the goal to raise money and awareness for the “Rise Above Plastics” campaign of the Surfrider Foundation.

Last Saturday, June 12^th, she started at approximately 7:25 a.m with an expected completion time between 4:00 to 5:30 p.m. depending on conditions. A minimum of 8.5 hours in the water! She finished 4th!

She started and finished at South Cove, in Battery Park on the Hudson River. Swimmers navigated around the Battery then headed north up the East River, and swam counter-clockwise around Manhattan Island. They then swam north into the Harlem River, through Spuyten Duyvil, and then south down the Hudson River to the Battery.

Schumacher is a long time NOVA swimmer, and former coach who is currently working on her Masters degree in Kinesiology with an emphasis on Sport Psychology at California State University Fullerton. Schumacher swims and trains off the beaches of Orange County, California (see http://jenschumacher.com for details and GPS map). On August 14^th, 2009, Schumacher became the 165^th person to swim across the Catalina Channel, a 21-mile stretch between Doctor’s Cove on Catalina Island and Palos Verdes Peninsula, in a time of 9:02:48. Because she is passionate about protecting beaches and oceans, Schumacher will give a portion of each donation to the South OC Surfrider Foundation http://www.surfrider.org/southorangecounty/ to support the “Rise Above Plastics” campaign.

R.A.P. - The program seeks to reduce the amount of plastics making their way into our beach and marine environments though education and outreach efforts.

In California our RAP campaign is focused on passing monumental legislation, AB 1998, which bans single use plastic bags from grocery, convenience, pharmacies and liquor stores in 2012. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will sign the bill into law if passed by the Senate this summer, setting the tone nationwide to rid this costly blight from our oceans and waterways.

Visit the program’s website, www.riseaboveplastics.org, to learn about how plastics impact our marine and coastal environments, as well as find information on how to take steps to reduce plastic “footprint.”

The Manhattan Island Marathon Swim (MIMS) is a counter-clockwise circumnavigation of the island of Manhattan, a 28.5-mile current-assisted race put on by NYC Swim. This international event attracts a large applicant pool, yet only 25 solo swimmers are accepted to race in this prestigious competition along with several 2, 4 and 6-person relay teams.

MIMS is a fundraiser specifically to help underprivileged children in the New York area get into swimming and to raise awareness about the need to clean up the waters of New York, and for the charity of each participant's choice.

MIMS is challenging in many unique ways. The majority of the swim is with the favor of the tide, however at several key points swimmers will be against the current at and must race to beat the tide. Swimmers face murky and at times smelly water and may run into random flotsam and jetsam. Because of this, swimmers are encouraged to have current tetanus and hepatitis vaccinations.

My uncle James Bayles also participated in the race. He is in his 50's and has a daughter who has suffered from Epilepsy for her entire life. He raised money for the Epilepsy Foundation of Conn. An email update from my uncle after the race said that is heart rate after he got out of the water was 100 bpm. He knows that he has had a "good race" - he has also done the Catalina swim - if when he gets out of the water, he is not out of breath. After an 8 to 9 hour swim, how many people in the world can say that? Probably most of the elite 25 who had the privilege to race last Sat.

Thank you to my uncle and to Jen Schumacher for standing up for what they believe in by competing in an extraordinary, and difficult sport.

Day 121 - May 21, 2010

life guard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 minutes

3 pounds

483 pounds total
I'm supposed to be packing for an overnight to Sacramento, but I had to get this done first.

I will be lobbying with the Clean Seas Coalition, and Heal the Bay to support Santa Monica Assemblywoman Brownley's Bill AB1998 - which proposes a ban on single-use plastic bags.

Read more at Heal the Bay Action Alert, write Brownley a letter of support through the link

Surfrider is also helping me get to Sacramento to represent their Rise Above Plastics Campaign. You have to see their site, the opening short animated video is amazing!

Please go to Oceana and take the Ocean Hero Pledge, then vote for one of the 2010 Ocean Hero finalists. It is a tough choice, but I hope you'll support The Daily Ocean. I'm one of the six! Voting is only open until May 26th. PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD.

Also Oceana gets 1$ for every pledge. Even more of a great reason to vote!!
It started to rain while I was driving down there, but the sun peeked out at the end. It had been a few days since I'd been able to get down for a collection. I miss the beach if I am away from it for more that a day or two. I hope everyone has a place they feel like that about.