This afternoon, I received a very disturbing call from Club member, past board member, and World Champion Women's Surfer, Debbie Beecham. The above title to this message, "Call to arms, this is real", were Debbie's exact words to me.
Her "Call To Arms", is in reference to the recent oil spill that occurred off the coast of Huntington Beach on October 2nd of this year, and is now impacting our local beaches here in San Diego.
Tar balls from the oil spill are beginning to wash up at Windansea and even more so at Little Point.
Our beautiful, and for the most part, pristine Natural Waterpark, is under assault by this potentially catastrophic environmental event.
What Debbie means by "Call To Arms" is that this tugs at the very fabric of the Windansea Surf Club, that as Stewards and warriors, of not just Windansea, but all beaches, it is absolutely our responsibility to protect our beach and help our neighbors to the North and South, protect theirs!
This isn't about community service, this is a 911 Emergency call and we need to take immediate action.
The image above is of the US Coast Guard cleaning Windansea Beach by hand and rake, cleaning tar balls from our namesake beach.
We need to take ownership. Each and everyone of us needs to do the same everyday. We need to get every last tar ball off of our beaches before we no longer have a beach and all of our wildlife has been killed and destroyed.
The weapons we need to accomplish this all too important task, are rubber gloves, boots, masks and plastic bags. According to Debbie the tar balls are easy to pick up.
Please also wear a Club t-shirt and/or Club Hat! We want the community to know who we are and what we stand for!
We need to turn our immediate focus and attention to Little Point and then move South to Windansea.
According to Debbie, the tar balls vary in size from quarters to larger, and if not immediately obvious, keep looking because they are there and they will keep coming and coming and we need to keep looking and looking and cleaning and cleaning until the very last tar ball washes up on our beach.
Until we discuss with the Coast Guard, and they tell us where and how they want us to dispose of our bags of tar balls, please take your plastic bags to the North end of the Lot and put them next to the trash containers. The Club Board of Directors will notify the Coast Guard, the City and lifeguards, who presumably will tell us how best to dispose of the waste and how best to combine cleanup efforts.
This is our Call To Arms, and our moment to truly be, Windansea Warriors and Aloha Gladiators.
Aloha and Mahalo
Bill Brasil