Oceans, Waves and Beaches

This is the story of reconnecting to the land.
In this case when we say “land” we’re talking about your yard.
Why does Surfrider care about our yards? Because we know all those fertilizers and excess water used to keep yards green… end up in our oceans.
The Ocean Friendly Garden concept was born a few years ago [...]

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 [...]

Advertisement for Oceans Initiative, an event started by Surfrider Europe, which has the goal of minimizing our use of single-use plastics (and keeping plastics out of our oceans).

We’ve all heard a myriad of statistics regarding plastics in our oceans. We’ve seen images of ocean animals dead from ingesting plastics. This graph illustrates the delta between how much plastic have been created and how much as been recovered. Gulp.

Data: CalRecycle

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 [...]

Surfrider’s mission focuses on the place the land meets the ocean and so we care about anything that’s coming from the land and going into the water.
Many of us take prescription drugs and those pharmaceuticals pass through our body but we rarely stop to think about what happens to them at that point.
Robin Brower-McBride and [...]

I made a trip to the Gulf of Mexico after the oil spill and it was one of the most defining experiences I’ve had at Surfrider. The essence of Sufrider boils down to an activist engaging to preserve their local coasts and the Gulf trip illustrated that concept in spades.
In the midst of a Wag-the-Dog-esque, [...]

“People listen when it’s a child standing in front of them telling them that they’re doing wrong and they need to start doing right.” Jordan Howard
Great, straightforward message about awareness, engagement and leadership.