CSUF Students Restoring Oyster Beds

 

Living Shorelines Project Protects Ecosystem

 

 

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

 

Marine biology and zoology students at CSU Fullerton are learning how to protect coastal ecosystems by participating in the Living Shorelines Project initiated by CSUF and Orange County Coastkeeper to restore OC’s Olympia Oyster beds.

 

 

SurfWriter Girls Sunny and Patti learned that the Olympia Oyster population along California's coastline has been declining due to loss of habitats, pollution and overharvesting.

 

This puts the species at risk and threatens marine ecosystems that depend on the oysters to bond together and build oyster beds – living structures that prevent erosion and provide homes to sea life.

 

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which has been supporting Living Shorelines Projects across the country, says they can help “stabilize coastal areas, reducing erosion while improving habitat, water quality, and resilience.”

 

As a CSUF grad, Sunny is glad that the Fullerton students are making a difference in restoring oyster beds in Alamitos Bay, Huntington Harbor and Newport Bay. When Sunny was in high school, she had a similar experience, doing scientific research on the Newport Beach Back Bay Estuary measuring changes in water temperatures.

 

Now, under the direction of CSUF biological sciences professor Danielle Zacherl and her former student Kaysha Kenney (now marine restoration director at OC Coastkeeper), students are working with Orange County Coastkeeper to restore the dwindling oyster beds. 

 

Local restaurants are on board, too, providing discarded oyster shells. Instead of going in the trash, the shells are being used for the project.

 

Students clean the shells, attach them to strings, and lower the shell strings into the ocean from area docks, providing sites where oyster larvae can attach during the oysters' breeding cycle. 

 

 

At the end of the cycle in early fall, students will pull up the shell strings and transfer them to oyster beds undergoing restoration...where the oysters attach themselves and bond together...

 

 

creating something far more valuable than pearls –

 

 living structures that strengthen OC’s shoreline and protect sea life.   

 

To learn more about oysters, their role in marine ecology, and why it's so important to protect them, check out the books shown in this story.  

 

SurfWriter Girls

Surf’n Beach Scene Magazine

Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to this copyrighted material. Publications wishing to reprint it may contact them at surfwriter.girls@gmail.com Individuals and non-profit groups are welcome to post it on social media sites as long as credit is given.

 

Covid - A Love Story

 

 Maria and Drew Brophy's Miracle

 

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

 

They say that love can move mountains. Love conquers all. Little did Maria Brophy know that one day she was going to need that superpower to save the life of her husband, famed surf artist Drew Brophy.

 

 

But then, Covid hit and she needed all her strength to help Drew survive a relentless case of Covid that knocked him flat in November 2021, putting him in the ICU.

 

"It's an insidious disease that goes after your weaknesses," Maria writes in her memoir, Covid – A Love Story. For Drew, "It went straight for his lungs. those beautiful organs that he had relied on for big wave surfing." Now, struck by the disease, he could barely breathe. 

 

 

And Maria, barred by a security guard from entering the hospital, couldn't even get in to see him.  

 

Not knowing which medical advice to trust or which drugs to try, Maria researched everything and drew on her faith to guide her. Then on Thanksgiving Day, when Drew could no longer breathe on his own, only one option was left – the ventilator. "This was the moment when part of my soul left me," Maria says, knowing that Drew might not wake up from the induced coma he would be put into for the ventilation procedure. 

 

 

 With so many things she wanted to say to Drew on their last phone call that day – “How badly I needed him...How I physically hurt, knowing he was suffering...to show him my soul...my deepest feelings" – instead, "all I could say was, 'I love you' over and over again." And Drew, in a deliberate voice trying to mask how weak he was, said, "I'm going to beat this."

 

As the days went by, family, friends and the SoCal surfing community came together bringing Maria food, helping at their art gallery, giving support, donating to GoFundMe, and saying prayers. It would all be needed, especially on "Ventilator Day 9" when the doctor asked Maria's permission to turn off the ventilator that was keeping Drew alive. She said, “No.”

 

 

Months passed and there were many twists and turns, an out-of-body experience, the quest to get on a life-saving experimental drug, disagreements over treatment, steps forward and backward, people who stood in the way and those who helped.

 

Maria tells it all in her memoir, sharing entries from her daily journal, the moments of despair that she couldn't let herself give into, and the hard-fought battles to get Drew the care he needed in a healthcare system overburdened by the weight of a global pandemic.

 

 

When SurfWriter Girls Sunny and Patti stopped by the Brophy Gallery recently Maria and Drew told us they don't take anything about his recovery for granted.

 

They’re grateful for all the help they got, positive thoughts and prayers. They couldn't have done it alone and want to give back, helping others to realize their own dreams.

 

 

They believe the love they got from others merged with their own love and generated "a force field so potent that it created a miracle."

 

SurfWriter Girls are hoping for one more miracle. Not just for Maria and Drew, but for everyone – that their Covid love story is made into a movie so we all can share the love. 

    

SurfWriter Girls

Surf’n Beach Scene Magazine

Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to this copyrighted material. Publications wishing to reprint it may contact them at surfwriter.girls@gmail.com Individuals and non-profit groups are welcome to post it on social media sites as long as credit is given.

 

Animals Win Our Hearts

 

Books Show Power of Connections

 

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

Human-animal connections create powerful bonds that profoundly change our lives. Anyone who has had a pet knows how it expands our world, leaving paw prints on our heart. SurfWriter Girls Sunny and Patti discovered two books that will have you cheering for the animal protagonists - Remarkably Bright Creatures, by Shelby Van Pelt, and Cat's People, by Tanya Guerrero. 

In a recent Youtube video Microsoft founder Bill Gates recommended Remarkably Bright Creatures as one of the books to read this winter. Once you meet Marcellus, the wise, curmudgeonly, especially perceptive giant Pacific Octopus at the heart of the book, you'll see why.

Captured as a juvenile, Marcellus, who narrates much of the story, begins the book on Day 1,299 of My Captivity - the same day that 70-year-old cleaning lady Tova Sullivan finds him cowering in the Sowell Bay Aquarium break room, tangled in an electrical cord. How he got out of his tank is a mystery, but Tova manages to free him, thus beginning their unlikely friendship.

Tova is still mourning the loss of her eighteen-year-old son, Erick, who vanished from a boat in Puget Sound over 30 years ago. She is also coming to grips with aging and the passing of friends and family. Talking to Marcellus through the glass panel of his enclosure enables her to open up about her feelings in a way she couldn't before.

 

And Marcellus, who doesn't care much for humans, is finally able to find someone he can bond with. What's more, he soon discovers that, through his powers of deduction and knowledge of the ocean, he may be able to help Tova get the answers she's looking for and overcome her grief.

 

Cat's People shows the power a stray black cat on the streets of Brooklyn has to bring a community together, creating meaningful connections between five strangers and a circle of friends for himself. Told from the points of view of each of his people - and Cat himself - the story shows how small acts of kindness and being open about our feelings can bridge the gaps between us and overcome loneliness. 

 

Cat, with no name or home, has learned how to navigate the city's streets, finding out which people are safe and which to avoid. Spending much of the day hidden in the shade of his favorite hedges, he has a wary friendship with Nuria (Cat calls her "Rainbow Lady"), who brings him food. Also, with Omar, the mailman, who buys him treats at the local bodega, and Bong, a grieving widower who owns the shop.

 

Collin (nicknamed by Cat "Awkward Neighbor Guy"), a successful writer who mostly avoids interacting with people, is drawn into Cat's circle, along with Lily, a young woman who came to New York to find her half-sister. Incomplete by themselves, in coming together Cat and his people all find what they've been missing - family.

 

 

These two books are great reads for the new year, encouraging us to reach out to others, enriching each other's lives and reminding us of the power of kindness.

With special thanks to Patti's sister, Eileen Ferris, who recommended both books to us. A cat person and Goodreads reviewer, Eileen loves books and cats. 

 

  

SurfWriter Girls

Surf’n Beach Scene Magazine

Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to this copyrighted material. Publications wishing to reprint it may contact them at surfwriter.girls@gmail.com Individuals and non-profit groups are welcome to post it on social media sites as long as credit is given.