Oceans, Waves and Beaches

A few years ago I was at a water quality conference in Indonesia. One session involved local journalists and during the Q&A session I stood to ask what I thought was a safe question “Do you report the local water quality in your papers?”
They looked at each other and didn’t answer. Finally one of [...]

Building on the recent great article about Surfrider’s work in the Gulf is the below video.
It’s University of South Florida researcher Rip Kirby, recently featured on National Geographic, at this months Emerald Coast chapter meeting. The video is a tad shaky but priceless nonetheless. Rip’s commentary illustrates out the value of local knowledge and grassroots [...]

The crew at Surfrider Europe do an insanely great job educating kids. Last year they connected with over 100,000 people (most of them kids). They are coming out with a new program aimed at kids between 4 – 8 years old. Here’s a page out of that program.
Papa Smurf is being visited by multiple sick [...]

I recently connected with Hugo and Andy from UK’s Surfers Against Sewage. Increasingly groups with similar missions, fighting to protect our coasts, are working together to share best practices and resources.
Listen in as they summarize the Broadbench campaign which is focused on access to a wave on/near a military base.

Surfers Against Sewage Broadbench Campaign from [...]

Think about your friends. They include people you used to work with, people you spend time with on weekends… it’s a diverse group.
We all know some friends are closer than others. Some will listen to you and spend time to hear what’s on your mind. If you’re doing a walk to raise money for breast [...]

I’ve always thought that non-profits don’t compete with other non-profits as much as they compete with every alternative a person can invest their time, energy and resources into. Non-profits, like for-profits, compete with Starbucks, Target, ESPN and someone reading a book. When Justin Bieber is this month’s flavor of the month, we are competing [...]

I think about this subject almost every day. Why is ________ an activist? Why isn’t ________ engaged more, don’t they care?
People aren’t born activists.
Events in their lives shape them and push them to a point where they feel like they MUST engage.
This is illustrated so well right now in Egypt. The hundreds of thousands… [...]

Erosion happens. It’s natural and it’s expected. Add rising sea levels (from whatever cause) and you have… more erosion. Our coastal borders have never been permanent, they are always shifting.
So how can we deal with beach and wave preservation? We do the opposite of building concrete sea walls (which simply accelerate erosion). We let the [...]

Surfing Magazine asked their readers for ideas that could improve the sport of surfing. They then culled the list of 100+ submissions down to seven and asked people to vote. The results are below. Of course we’re stoked that Surfrider came in at number two but I’m more drawn to the fact that the top [...]

I podcast to share the gold.
(re-posted from mid-2008)
A few days ago I had breakfast with Julia Chunn. She was born and raised in San Diego, became smitten with the ocean while perched on the front of her dad’s longboard as a kid, came up through the ranks of the San Diego chapter, went on to [...]