Things are happening all over!

Now that Shore11.org is officially launched, here's my official first blog! Things green are happening all over, as more and more people realize that the security of our future generations depends on conserving our natural resources and managing them in a sustainable manner, especially our ocean resources. The desire to avert certain ocean-destruction manifests itself in some interesting personal challenges of late.

Right now eco-rowers are making way into Hawaiian waters! Actually, it's one eco-rower and two eco-sailors. Roz Savage, who last year had to abort her first attempt to row the Pacific due to technical boat issues and an overly zealous and overly concerned well-wisher, is within days of reaching Hawaii. She should land there either Monday (Sept. 1st) or Tuesday, and will have a rest before heading out again. This will be the first stage of her three part row, which will eventually end in Tivalu,hopefully before that island is lost forever due to rising sea levels due to . . . well you know. You can check out her adventures on http://rozsavage.com/

The eco-sailors are two guys from the Algalita Marine Research Foundation's "Junk" project. They just recently sailed into Hawaii. You can read their story at - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26436974/ as well as their own website http://www.junkraft.blogspot.com/ These guys started to run out of food but had plenty of water, which was amazing, because when they ran into Roz in her rowboat (well, it wasn't quite as perfect as that-she had to row back a mile or two to get to them since they were caught "in the irons," to borrow a sailing term) she was able to gave them food in exchange for water. She had been running pretty near to empty because both her sweet water makers broke so she was on a very limited reserve supply. "Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink."

When Roz finally clambered aboard their boat made of plastic debris (and you wondered why it was the junk project??), Dr. Marcus Erikson and Joel Paschal treated her to a fresh-caught mahi mahi paired nicely with copious amounts of water. Talk about a miraculous meeting. I think it would be easier to find those needles in a haystack everyone always looks for than have two such teeny tiny vessels actually meet up with one another out there on the big wide Pacific.

Oh, and why do they feel compelled to do what they do? Well, both Roz and the guys are hoping to educate us all about the dangers of our single-use plastic items. They are not only a hazard to marine mammals, sea-turtles, fish, and birds, but they also end up in our food chain. Eventually we eat them as well. As the Algalita folks say, this is one facet of the myriad ways in which we assault our ocean, it also happens to be the most obvious (check out http://messageinthewaves.com/ ).If you explore both Roz's site and Algalita's, as well as the Blue Frontier, and a host of others, you will see the whole ugly picture. And it is ugly. It meets every aspect of a challenge, but we certainly can take it on if we pull together and do what needs to be done! The plastic battle is more than likely the easiest- if it's plastic, it has to be able to be recycled. The petroleum used to make such stuff is far too precious to end up cluttering up the ocean, in a marine creature's belly, or ours, plus it's just downright unhealthy to be eating that stuff....

One last thing I've got to mention which is very important for Roz, who also battles the basic challenges of securing funding, is that she's looking to secure a grant from American Express, but she needs your help! Check out her website http://rozsavage.com/ and go to the "Members Project" on the right-hand side of the page--and vote for her! Hey, we all have to do what we can for Mother Ocean, so, while you're at it...click on over to The Blue Frontier at http://www.bluefront.org/news/ and order yourself a copy of David Helvarg's "50 Ways to Save the Ocean." Someone once asked me what five things they could do to help our ocean. Hell, why stop at five? Mr. Helvarg has 50! Isn't that nifty?