Surfrider Ocean Friendly Gardens

 

Celebrate Spring Sustainably!

 

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

Spring is just the time to plant or update your Ocean Friendly Garden. The Surfrider Foundation has all the information you need to turn your garden into a beautiful oasis that lifts your spirits while protecting the environment with minimal water usage and pollution.

Surfrider's crew is onboard with tips for everything from choosing drought-tolerant, sustainable, native plants to installing a water system, going organic, using mulch, and composting.

Having the right water system and drainage in place is critical because everything drains to the ocean and that's where garden fertilizers and pesticides end up. 

Using water safely and wisely is the key. Did you know that 70 percent of the water used in residential landscaping goes to your lawn? Typically, that's 45,000 gallons of water a year. 

 

What's more, over half of that water is often wasted because of over-watering and poor drainage. 

To find out how easy it is to have your own Ocean Friendly Garden, visit the Surfrider Foundation's website or contact your local chapter. 

 

Surfrider volunteers can help you or your business have a landscape that's beautiful to see and good for the sea. 

  

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.

SURFscape Shares the stoke!

 

Surf Industry Makes a Splash in Huntington Beach

 

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

Cowabunga! Surf industry leaders and top brands are hitting the beach at the SURFscape expo in Huntington Beach, April 29 & 30, 2023. Billed as the "ultimate consumer experience focused around surfing and adjacent adventures," the event features over 100 leading surf/action sport brands.

With over 10,000 people expected to converge on the sand, there will be new product demos, hands-on-gear testing, interactive displays, and other immersive activities. 

It's a one-of-a-kind event to discover your stoke and to share the stoke.

 

Surf Industry Members Association (SIMA) president Paul Naude says, "We're thrilled to bring all these incredible brands and amazing products to the beach where consumers can experience them firsthand."

 

Joining together to create this tsunami of a beach event, the SIMA members are pulling out all the stops to get people engaged and involved in surfing with surfboard and wetsuit demos, van life exhibits, health and wellness experiences, a surf art gallery, storytellers stage, food trucks and more. There's even a surfboard shapers village where people can see how the boards are made.

SIMA president Naude is eager to shine the light on surfing and get everyone onboard to enjoy this sport of Hawaiian kings. "Once someone catches the wave and surf stoke, they're a surfer and surf product buyer for life. We're looking to grow the market with this unique consumer-facing experience in a way that's never been done before." 

Made up of surf apparel and accessories manufacturers, board builders, retailers, service providers, and others in the surf industry, SIMA is all in on this expo that's an ode to surfing. The doors are open and you're invited to come in! Big names Vans, O'Neill, Roxy, Rip Curl, Quiksilver, Reef, and Jetty are just some of the brands waiting to greet you, along with new, up-and-coming brands to discover.   

Event producers VIpe Desai and Melinda Simpson will be right in the middle of the action, making sure that the surf magic is on display for all to enjoy. Desai says "it's a huge opportunity...to get consumers down to the beach and have them experience these products where they'll actually use them." An avid surfer himself, he can't wait "to inspire and get people in the water and the outdoors."   

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.

Surfrider SoCal Chapters Merge

 

Channeling The Power of Three

 

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

After years of collaborating on beach and environmental advocacy programs three of the Surfrider Foundation's Orange County, CA, chapters made it official and merged into one combined chapter.

So, in 2023, Surfrider's Huntington/Seal Beach chapter and Newport Beach chapter became the North Orange County chapter. 

 

Representing a 14-mile coastline of some of California's most beautiful and iconic beaches, the new NOC chapter will be better positioned to maximize the power of its members by working toward common goals and sharing resources.

 

The new alliance is also going to focus on expanding inland to encourage people who might not go to the beach often to come and enjoy the ocean. It's important for them to know the big role they can play in protecting it by reducing trash and other pollution that flows to the ocean through inland waterways and drainage systems. 

 

Much of the trash that people see on the beach comes from someplace else. Everything drains to the ocean. Discarded cigarettes, plastic bags and utensils, Styrofoam containers, bottles and cans, and other debris make their way to the sea. Even garden fertilizers and chemicals reach the ocean through groundwater runoff.  

 

In 2022 Surfrider volunteers collected more than 10,000 pounds of trash that washed down the Santa Ana River toward the beach outlet between Huntington and Newport beach.        

New co-chairs Richard Busch and John Wadsworth are eager to get the chapter's environmental message out to the community and elected officials about the need to protect our oceans, waves, and beaches. "It's not just a coastal issue," says Wadsworth. "We're all in it together."

 

This is why Surfrider chapters are doing things to benefit all of us. Cleaning beaches, testing ocean water, promoting recycling and sustainability, showing how to plant "Ocean Friendly Gardens" that are good for the environment, and more.

And it's why Surfrider's North Orange County chapter is glad to be on board, channeling the power of three. 

 

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.

Threatened Species Red List

 

More Animals Facing Extinction

 

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

Having "a red-letter day" means a day that is pleasantly noteworthy. In banking it celebrates the last day of the financial year.

But, when the International Union for Conservation of Nature puts an animal on its Red List of Threatened Species that's a day of sadness. It signifies that the animal is approaching extinction.

At its December conference in Montreal, Canada, the IUCN added 700 new species facing extinction to the list, including a variety of sea life - the Dugong, a marine mammal related to the manatee, 44% of the world's abalone, and the Pillar Coral found throughout the Caribbean. 

 In all, the Red List currently totals 150,388 species at risk of extinction. 

 

Threats range from hunting, poaching, and accidental capture in fishing nets to commercial development and climate change. Pollution and loss of food sources, such as underwater sea grasses, are other threats. 

Dr. Bruno Oberle, IUCN Director General, said that we need to make “profound changes to our economic system, or we risk losing the crucial benefits the oceans provide us with. He emphasized, “We simply cannot afford to fail.”

In the case of the abalone, the IUCN states, "The most immediate action people can take is to eat only farmed or sustainably sourced abalones." 

 

With hundreds of governmental and nonprofit organization members around the world, the IUCN is actively seeking to get everyone involved in saving at-risk species from extinction. There is little time left for the Vaquita, a tiny member of the porpoise family native to Baja California. The rarest of all marine mammals, there are estimated to be only 10 Vaquitas remaining. 

Whenever an animal or plant species disappears from the planet, it diminishes all of us, creating a space that is impossible to fill. That’s why it is so important to help preserve the environment and reduce our carbon footprints. 

Where did the Dodo go?

What will we do when the Dugong is gone?

The Barbary Lion, Ivory-Billed Woodpecker.

One-of-a-kind names and faces.

Now just empty spaces.

Note: When SurfWriter Girls first wrote about the Vaquitas in September 2017 there were close to 30 Vaquitas left in the ocean. So many have been lost since then. Here’s the story link on Vaquita. 

 

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.

Heart to Heart with the Dalai Lama

 

A Valentine to the Planet

 

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

His Holiness the Dalai Lama and celebrated Mutts cartoonist Patrick McDonnell might seem like an unlikely pair, but both are committed to protecting the environment and the future of our planet for all creatures large and small.

Together they have created a treasure of a book, Heart to Heart: A Conversation on Love and Hope for Our Precious Planet.

 

The duo is calling for a "compassionate revolution" in which we all come together to tap our feelings of compassion to stand up for the endangered species whose lands, and very homes, are being destroyed by unlimited development and pollution. 

In doing so, we will also be standing up for ourselves and the type of world we want to live in, filled with natural beauty and the sounds of birdsong.

The Dalai Lama says that he "welcomes everyone as a friend. In truth we share the same basic goals. We all seek happiness and do not want suffering." 

So, when a giant Panda shows up at his door the Dalai Lama is happy to see him and ready to accompany him on a life-changing journey. 

It's a journey of enlightenment that we all can go on through the pages of this book.

 

A beautiful book to read, share or give for Valentine's Day, Heart to Heart will touch your heart and remind you of the power of love and the positive impact that even one act of kindness can have on making the world a better place. 

 

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.

California Surf Museum Shares the Stoke!

 

A Wave of Treasures to Enjoy

 Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel 

In Oceanside, California, just steps from the beach and municipal fishing pier, there is a surfing treasure waiting to be explored – the California Surf Museum. 

 

Filled with surf paintings, photographs, classic boards, mementoes, and displays, it is a welcoming beacon of surf lore in a beach-loving town.

 

Navigating the well-designed, inviting space, SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel kept making new discoveries. And with two, classic rattan chairs placed in front of a giant wave backdrop, we were ready to kick back and soak it all in.

From the larger-than-life image of renowned board-shaper Donald Takayama shaping one of the boards surfers have dubbed as "magical," we were drawn into this special place. With his six decades of board shaping prowess, Takayama is the perfect one to put front-and-center by the museum's entry.

 

Nearby we saw an exhibit of a totally different kind of board – an homage to Tom Morey, the creator of the Boogie Board, that soft, flexible piece of colorful foam that has given fun and enjoyment to so many.

Walking through the Timeline of Surfboards display took us on a journey through time that makes you want to grab each board and take it to the ocean.

While much has been said about the Zen of surfing, there's a science to it. The bright, yellow buoy in the museum's Wave Science display shows how buoys operated by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography’s Coastal Data Information Program monitor ocean temperature and wave direction to predict swells, letting people know when "Surf's up!"

 

SurfWriter Girls were lucky to run into Jane Schmauss, the museum's historian, and find out how the museum got started and has grown since it was founded by a handful of surfers in 1986.

 

Schmauss said it took dedication from surfers and the community. She donated a corner of her restaurant in Encinitas, George's Restaurant, for the museum's first location. Later it moved to other SoCal spaces until finally landing at its current spot. 

 

Since those first surfers got together to talk about preserving surf history their vision has grown into a premiere surfing museum that has hosted more than 650,000 visitors from around the world and holds an annual gala to celebrate surfing. 

 

SurfWriter Girls found out about the surf museum from Tom Gibbons, a member of the board of directors and its history/social sciences consultant, when he invited us to the museum's 14th Annual Gala in Carlsbad.

 

The festive gala in November honored leaders in the surfing community and presented three Silver Surfer Awards to pioneer surfboard shaper Bing Copeland, Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard and Kathy Zuckerman (AKA "Gidget").

Located at 312 Pier View Way in Oceanside, the California Surf Museum is right in the middle of all the action for a day of surfing, fishing, or sight-seeing. 

 

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.