Sustainable Surfing Camps and Surf Lessons

To share our love of the ocean through surfing, mutual respect for land, sea,and each other.

Tag Archives: Marine biology


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What do you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

I thought I would share these simple steps,  I use this formula when creating in general and projects, camps, workshops, life, art, etc.

Amazingly simple step are both brilliant and effective.  They have staying power and make sense across the board. For me, simple is powerful.

I was honored to be given a similar soulful guide like this many years ago and yes,  it altered  my entire life.   There was such an awakening of what I truly wanted to accomplish in my life and a huge wave of passion and adventure began.  My sense of life direction like the tides turned, I so love the ride and am so very grateful.

So, ask yourself:  “What Will YOU Create that Will Make the World Awesome?”   Lovely steps below..

The link to the full article where these steps originated is below, mahalo Greg McKeown. Though I  brazenly did a bit of my own edits….everything brilliant is Greg’s.

Step 1: Sketch Your Career. It is so easy to get consumed by activities in our lives and careers. We get so caught up in living our lives that we don’t stop to think sufficiently about our lives. We are reacting instead of being strategic. When I find this happening, I use this simple tool to get a broader perspective. You start on the left at the beginning of your career and end on the right hand side (today). You draw a single line up if you were enjoying the experience and down if it was unfulfilling for you. Write down where you were working, what you were working on, and any other factors that shaped your experience.   It also works if you paint, or make a collage, or write a song, or a poem!!!

Now Breathe, no, c’mon really slooow breathe!

(See the original Harvard Business Review piece What Will You Create to Make the World Awesome? to see/use the sketch template for Step 1 and 2).

Step 2: Connect the Dots. Use the sketch from Step 1 as a launch pad into being an anthropologist of your own life. Go somewhere quiet. You might think of it like a strategic offsite for your own life and career.

Ask: When was I truly happy and why? What activity or theme do I keep coming back to? What is my gravitational pull? When was life and work effortless for me? What isn’t working for me? When do I seem most like myself? When was it meaningless and why? When was work meaningful and why? Don’t rush the process. Pause long enough to really listen. Write the answers down as they come so you can reflect on them later. I am visual so I started a simple collage to represent these happy things and ended up doing THREE monstrous collages that blew my mind. It not needed it!!!!

Step 3: Ask, “What Will I Create that Will Make the World Awesome?” This is WONDERFULLY wild question ( I LOVE IT!) but an essential element of strategy is, to state the obvious, thinking about what we want to create in the future.

Ask: What would I do if I could do anything? What would I do if all jobs paid the same? If I could only achieve one thing in my career, what would it be? What do I really want? Again, these are big questions. But my experience is that people spend far more time worried about their job than in creating a vision for their career and how they can uniquely contribute to the world.

(If you are looking for a pep talk, this three minute video from “Kid President” does a brilliant job challenging us to figure out what we can do to make the world awesome). Brilliant!!!!

From Greg: Many years ago I followed a process not at all unlike this one and, without exaggeration, it changed the course of my life. The insight I gained led me to quit law school, leave England and move to America to start down the path as a teacher and author. You’re reading this because of that choice. It remains the single most important — and strategic — career decision of my life.

It’s a simple process. But it can help us to break down some complex questions. Like the poet Mary Oliver’s beautifully haunting question: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

Link to Greg’s story: What do you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? | LinkedIn.

Someone brilliant who is changing the world..

Greg McKeown Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum


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NOAA Ocean Pollution & Ocean Girl Project Mission-Clean it up!!!!!!

Did you know that approximately 1.4 billion pounds of trash per year enters the ocean? Where does all that trash come from? Where does it go?

Much of it ends up on our beaches washed in with the waves and tides, some sinks, some is eaten by marine animals mistaking it for food. Other forms of pollution impacting the health of the ocean come from a single known sources like an oil spill or from accumulation of many dispersed sources like fertilizer from our yards.

The majority of pollutants going into the ocean come from activities on land. Natural processes and human activities along the coastlines and far inland affect the health of our ocean. One of the biggest sources is called nonpoint source pollution, which occurs as a result of runoff. Nonpoint source pollution includes many small sources, like septic tanks, cars, trucks, and boats, plus larger sources, such as farms, livestock ranches, and timber harvest areas. Pollution that comes from a single source like an oil or chemical spill is known as point source pollution. Often this type of pollution has large impacts but fortunately they occur less often. Discharge from faulty or damaged factories or water treatments system are also considered point source polluters.

Nutrients and Algal Blooms

Sometimes it is not the type of material, but its concentration, that determines if it is a pollutant. For example, nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus are essential elements for plant growth. However, if they are overabundant in a body of water, they can stimulate an overgrowth of algae called an algal bloom. Some algal blooms are considered to be harmful algal blooms because they can have a negative effect on living organisms. An excess of nutrients entering a body of water, either through natural or human activities, can also result in hypoxic or dead zones. When large amounts of algae sink and decompose in the water, the decomposition process consumes oxygen and depletes the supply available to healthy marine life. Most of the marine life that lives in these areas either dies, or, if they are mobile such as fish, leave the area. Habitats that would normally be teeming with life become, essentially, biological deserts.

Marine Debris

Marine debris is another persistent pollution problem in our ocean. Marine debris injures and kills marine life, interferes with navigation safety, and poses a threat to human health. Our oceans and waterways are polluted with a wide variety of marine debris ranging from soda cans and plastic bags to derelict fishing gear and abandoned vessels. Today, there is no place on Earth immune to this problem. A majority of the trash and debris that covers our beaches comes from storm drains and sewers, as well as from shoreline and recreational activities. Abandoned or discarded fishing gear is also a major problem because this trash can entangle, injure, maim, and drown marine wildlife and damage property.

Impact of Seafood

Pollution can have an adverse affect on the food that we eat. Heavy metals and other contaminants can accumulate in seafood and make it harmful to eat. More than one-third of the shellfish-growing waters of the United States are adversely affected by coastal pollution. NOAA monitors this contamination through the Mussel Watch program and also provides seafood safety tips through the Fish Watch program.

Collection Created August 2011
Adapted from: Ocean Facts: Pollution (NOAA National Ocean Service) and Marine Debris FAQ’s (NOAA Marine Debris Program)

Marine Debris Reporting Phone App

New App Makes it Easy for Beachgoers to Report Marine Debris


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Ocean Girls love Ocean Defender, Protecting, Educating, Preserving!

Aloha everyone, my name is Oriana Kalama and I am the creator of an organization called Ocean Defender. We stand for the protection and preservation of all marine life on planet earth through education, information to create ocean awareness. You can check out our terrific face-book page by clicking here. Ocean Defender on face-book  is a great place to learn about marine creatures and how to help them every day.

Today I would like talk to you about Hawaii’s beautiful tropical reef fish…

In Hawaii we have about 600 different species of tropical reef fish and 25 % of those are endemic ( found nowhere else in the world but here ). Our fish in Hawaii are very special. Have you ever wondered how our fish got here or where did they come from? Let’s  start by learning more about this.

Scientists believe that most tropical marine life ( even that of the remote Caribbean ) originated near Indonesia and the Philippines.  More marine species are found there than anywhere else. In the Philippines, for example you can find up to 2,000 species of tropical reef fish.

How did they get here?
The ancestors of Hawaiian tropical reef fish drifted as larvae. But only species with long-lasting larval stages made it; those with short larval stages died before they got here. Ocean currents did not move them fast enough.

Once the fish got here they had to adapt to our water temperatures and evolve some time creating a different species, therefore becoming endemic or indigenous of Hawaii.

A good example of adaptation to our environment is the millet seed butterfly fish (photo) and the saddle wrasse, two of our most abundant reef fishes.

Here are  photos & information on a few other endemic Hawaiian tropical reef fish.

Moorish Idol Hawaiian name: Kihikihi.

Common at any depths alone or in small groups.  Scales are minute and not visible to the naked eye .  Feeds upon sponge and encrusting invertebrates.  Attains 9 inches.  Hawaii, Indo-Pacific, Tropical Eastern Pacific.

Yellow Longnose Butterfly Fish, Hawaiian Names: La-u wi-li-wi-li nu-ku-nu-ku ‘o-i ‘o-i, and La-u ha-u.

Long Nose Butterflies are, as their names would imply, quite interesting in shape. Their elongated snouts distinguish them from many other Butterfly fish.
The Long Nose Butterfly is often found in pairs. These fish feed on small invertebrates, plankton, fish eggs, and various other items that they find scavenging in tiny cracks or crevices in reefs. The long-nosed adaptation that gives the Long Nose Butterfly its name aids it in this search for food.

Parrot Fish, Hawaiian Name: Uhu

Parrot fish inhabit shallow, tropical seas around the world. They are easily recognized by their parrot-like beak of fused teeth, a bluntly rounded head, large scales, and brilliant colors. Like their relatives, the wrasses, parrot fishes have a single continuous dorsal fin and swim with lazy rowing motions of their pectoral (side) fins.

Some Hawaiian endemic reef fish are unusual and not seen around our main Islands but abundant in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. For example, the Yellow Bar Parrotfish and the Lined Coris are uncommon to rare, while the Hawaiian Black Grouper and the Masked Angelfish (Blue Masked Angelfish in photo below) are almost never seen in our waters.

How to protect our reef fish.
Reef fish are a very important part of a healthy reef’s eco system.
All fish have a job to do. Some eat algae which keeps the reef’s clean from algae overgrowth, some eat parasites from other fish and marine life, which helps the fish stay healthy, indeed, the ocean works in a symbiotic way… everybody helps each other.

Remember these simple things:

When you go out surfing or snorkeling please remember do not step on the reef or touch anything.

Going in the ocean for surfing, snorkeling or free diving should be a completely visual experience. When I go in a protected area or a Marine Preserve I make sure my sunscreen is chemicals free or don’t use any sunscreen at all, instead I wear a long sleeve rash guard that protects me from the sun. These areas are visited by people by the hundreds on a daily basis and the chemicals in the sunscreen are harmful to the reef and the reef fish.

Never feed the fish or any marine animal. There is plenty for them to eat and what we eat is not meant to be eaten. Things like peas and corn and bread will only harm their digestive systems.

Pick up any rubbish you see and around beaches and the reef, little by little we can all help keep the reef’s clean.

Recycle so nothing ends up in the ocean.

Other Threats to reef fish in Hawaii

Did you know, one of the biggest threats to our tropical reef fish in Hawaii is the Aquarium Trade business i.e. Mainland Pet Stores?

“Forty five percent of all tropical reef fish sold in the USA mainland and pet shops come from Hawaii.”

For decades now our tropical reef fish have been taken from our islands and sold as pets all over the world. Some fish like the Hawaiian Cleaner Wrasse (blue and yellow fish in photo)only eat parasites, this fish will die within a month after taken from Hawaii.

The photo below is sadly of more than 600 dead fish discovered  January 2010 in two bags  in a Dumpster near a launch ramp at Honokohau small boat harbor on Hawaii.  Mechanical pumps fail, big surf makes for difficult and dangerous catch returns, live wells on boats  malfunction, and pipes leak, along with many other malfunctions, which cause this type of sad loss.

Many algae eaters like the Yellow Tang (photo) are taken, therefore in some areas the algae has grown too much and it’s suffocating the reef and killing it. The Bandit Angelfish only eats sponges, they also die quickly and are quickly replaced by another… Imagine how many fish we have lost throughout the decades.

How can you make a difference? Education and information is the best we can do now. Inform all your class mates, teachers, friends and family about the troubles our Hawaiian tropical reef fish are going through, that helps a lot. Follow reef guidelines and remind others not to walk on the reef or take reef fish for aquariums. Ask questions and do research!

If you own a fish tank with Hawaiian tropical reef fish and you collected the fish yourself ( or your parents ) then you can return the fish to the same place they came from. If you bought the fish from a pet shop, please don’t buy any more and take good care of the fish you have now.
For more information on the Aquarium Fish Trade check  For the fishes.org

Together we can protect our oceans and all marine life!

Thank you for doing your part,

Ocean Defenders and Ocean Girl Project Sustainable Surfers Hawaii

What You Can Do Links:
For more information on the Aquarium Fish Trade check  For the fishes.org Snorkel responsibly, without damaging reefs.
Support efforts to cap carbon pollution at levels that won’t overheat the earth or turn our oceans more acidic.

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What do you do to help the reef? Feel free to leave suggestions, photos and comments!


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Art with a purpose, underwater people reef complete

‘The Silent Evolution’ by Jason deCaires Taylor is comprised of 400 permanent sculptures in Mexican waters.

Isla Mujeres in Cancun, the site of “The Silent Evolution” Photos courtesy of Jason deCaires Taylor

Coral reefs are an integral part of oceanic wildlife. They make up less than 0.2 percent of the world’s oceans, but they are home to one-fourth of all marine life. They filter the water, feed the fish, buffer coastal areas from storms, and provide homes for oceanic life. And as the Los Angeles Times recently reported, a coral reef-like structure can also take the form of an impressive underwater art exhibit.

Taylor views the statues as a metaphor for the evolution of human life, but they also exist as part of actual marine life, operating as an artificial reef. The installation will be inaugurated on November 27, 2010 to coincide with the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico.
Artist Jason deCaires Taylor recently completed “The Silent Evolution,” an underwater museum and permanent sculpture exhibit set up in the waters near Cancun, Mexico. It is located in the National Marine Park of Isla Mujeres, Cancun and Punta Nizuc.
Experts hope that the exhibit, easily accessible by snorkeling, will alleviate some of the tourist traffic on the nearby natural coral reefs. Cancun Marine Park is in close proximity and receives up to 750,000 tourists annually.
Called “awe-inspiring” and “surreal” by the L.A. Times, the exhibit is 400 sculptures of people standing silently on the ocean’s floor, eyes closed, heads tilted towards the surface. As deCaires Taylor shared with the Times, the exhibit has “taken 18 months, required 120 tons of cement, sand and gravel, 3,800m of fiberglass, 400kg of silicone, 8,000 miles of red tape, 120 hours working underwater and $250,000.”
Coral reefs are under assault all over the globe. Sewage and agricultural run-off from coastal areas poison many reefs via toxic algae blooms that can cut off their much-need oxygen supply. Human visitors also cause extensive damage by literally knocking into the ecosystems, breaking off pieces of souvenir coral, and dragging boats and anchors across its fragile surfaces.

"underwater sculpture", "artificial reef", "marine life", Mexico, "Jason deCaires Taylor"

We probably don’t have to mention the life-threatening conditions natural reefs are under today due to human behavior. However, artificial reefs, which are quite a new phenomenon, have proved to be a very good alternative as they are durable, environmentally friendly and offer relief to the natural ones as they can regenerate. With 400 life-size human sculptures installed 9 meters below sea level, Silent Evolution plays many roles, but it is foremost an artificial reef encouraging the growth of marine life. Taylor’s sculptures are created with a pH-neutral concrete, reinforced with fiberglass, which (surprisingly) attracts marine life. Taylor also ‘rescues’ coral damaged in storms or by humans, and replants these on his sculptures.

In all its beauty there’s something a bit eerie about The Silent Evolution. Is it the closed eyes, the surrounding blue hue of the sea, or perhaps the emotions the lifeless sculptures still seem to express? There’s a strong feeling of hope in the work, even though the physical structure of the sculptures look as though the people have been tied together. Taylor’s message can be read in many different ways and voices, but what he does succinctly is to remind us of our close relation to – and not to mention dependency on – nature. It definitely causes one to pause.

Made from environmentally friendly materials, deCaires Taylor’s sculpture promotes awareness of the plight of coral. The artist says his sculpture garden in Mexico is only in the first stages of development. As he told the Los Angeles Times, “I would also like to point out that this installation is by no means over and the second phase is dependent on nature’s artists of the sea, to nurture, evolve and apply the patina of life.”
Jason de Caires Taylor’s underwater sculptures create a unique, absorbing and expansive visual seascape. Highlighting natural ecological processes Taylor’s interventions explore the intricate relationships that exist between art and environment. His works become artificial reefs, attracting marine life, while offering the viewer privileged temporal encounters, as the shifting sand of the ocean floor, and the works change from moment to moment.
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