reef cleanup or try to educate people?

Third post update.

Patrick sent the link to the "Tapped" movie preview.

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Second post update.

Blog reader Philipp from Germany sent me an email pointing out that there's a movie called "Hawaii message in the waves" that you can watch on youtube in 5 parts.
I saw the movie already many years ago, check what point 7 of my 10 little things to try to help the environment is:

7. Whenever possible I pick up trash, especially from beaches. I've always done that while teaching at Kanaha, but since I saw the movie "Hawaii a message in the waves", I try to do it everywhere. I love nature and animals and I just can't stand the thought that all that trash will eventually kill a bird or a fish or a turtle.

What I didn't know is that the movie is now online. Posted on May 1st 2009, I can't believe Part 1 has only been seen 643 times... let's pump that number up guys! Post it on Facebook, forums, blogs, let's spread this thing as much as possible... it's an awesome movie!

Here's part 1. I may post the other parts too later on, but you don't have to wait for me to watch them...


PS. Michael Jackson's Pepsi commercial has been seen 11 million times instead... a bit depressing isn't it?

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First post update.
Blog reader Wim from Belgium read the post and sent me this photo of him drinking water from a reusable/refillable container. I'm super happy to post it. Keep sending them, I'll post them all!
My email is on the right where the banners are. Thanks!



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After I did that post about the broken gear I found on the reef, I thought about emailing marine biologist James Douglas about the subject, also because he happens to be a windsurfer who also has a blog .

Here's the questions I sent him:
1) what's the impact of broken gear laying on the bottom of the ocean (specifically on reefs)?

2) how would you compare it to other polluting things that windsurfers do?
My guess is that the process of manufacturing the gear pollutes way more than ditching a broken mast...
To me it also seems that having all those plastic bits floating around and getting eaten by birds and fish is way more harmful to the environment too.

In other words, buying and not recycling unnecessary plastic seems a lot worse then specific windsurfing pollution.

In other more clear words, I think that buying an unnecessary new plastic water bottle instead of refilling a proper water container is a more polluting act than ditching a piece of broken mast (in a life danger situation). Also because maybe a broken mast maybe happens once or twice a year, while I keep seeing windsurfers using and disposing plastic water/soda bottles daily...

3) do you think that organizing a reef cleanup would be an effective way of helping the reef?

Here's the email he kindly replied with (thanks a lot!):

Hi Giampaolo,

I liked that blog post. It’s cool how you’ve turned your camera eye to the underwater environment at Kanaha. From the pictures it looks like mostly rock and coral rubble covered with algae- not much live coral. I have no idea if the reef was always like that, or if there was more live coral in the past. The general trend on reefs all over the world is declining % cover of live coral and increasing % cover of algae. That is bad because without the growth of live coral there is no creation of new coral rock to replace the rock lost to erosion. Without live coral, the entire structure of the reef will eventually disappear, leaving no place for animals to live, and no protection of the shoreline from storm waves.

The main human disturbances that can turn live coral reefs into dead, algae-covered reefs are:

1) Excess nutrients and sediment coming from human activities on the land, because they interfere with the growth of coral, promote the growth of algae, and exacerbate coral diseases.

2) Overfishing, which can reduce numbers of the herbivorous fish and urchins that are needed control the algae. Even if the algae-eating animals are not directly reduced by fishing, they can be indirectly reduced by changes in the food chain that occur when predatory fishes like sharks and groupers are removed.

3) Changes in ocean temperature and acidity related to global warming. High temperatures cause coral bleaching, which is when the corals have to vomit out the microscopic algae they use to create food. If the corals stay bleached too long they starve to death. Increasing acidity is a product of excess carbon dioxide absorbing into the ocean and reacting to form carbonic acid. Carbonic acid lowers the pH of the water and makes it harder for corals and other animals to form shell and skeletal materials. It also increases the rate that coral rock erodes away.

4) Direct physical disturbances to the reef like anchoring, mining, walking on, net entanglement, etc. Windsurfing gear could potentially fall into this category, too. If a lot of it was banging around the reef it could kill the live corals. And a shredded sail tangled around a coral head could literally smother the coral.

The worldwide impact of lost windsurfing gear on coral reefs is probably very, very small compared to the other harmful impacts on reefs and compared to the broader impacts of windsurfing gear manufacturing and stuff like I described in my windsurfing magazine article. However, at a major windsurfing spot like Hookipa or Kanaha the harmful effect of lost gear could certainly be enough to justify a reef cleanup, so I encourage you to organize one if you are so inclined. Keep working on people to not drink out of disposable containers, too, since bottles and cans are a huge part of the plastic ocean trash problem, and even when you think you’re recycling something it can still find its way into the ocean.

Good luck!
James

Comparing the images included in an article he also attached, I'm now 99% sure that the reef at Kanaha is mostly dead already, since it's largely covered by algae. Not sure about Hookipa, will check it out next non windy day.
So, rather than investing my time trying to organize a reef cleanup that would probably be quite inefficient (meaning, we would still leave tons of stuff that we wouldn't see and it's highly possible that it would not be particularly beneficial for the reef since it's dead already), I'm going to invest it in keep trying to educate people to do things in an environment friendly way.

You guys remember this 10 little things I do to try to respect the environment post I did three years ago?

Well, I still do that.
(actually, to be precise, my stick shift car died and now I have an automatic transmission one, but still decent on gas!)

Here's a photo I posted a in another post a few months later.


And here's another one I used in another post in 2009.


Guess what? I still have and use both those metal bottles and that bag. How many plastic bottles and bags did I spare the environment of?
A hell lot, I guess. And that feels good. But it's nothing, since way too many people keeps buying plastic bottles and using plastic bags.

This is a well done animation. I especially like the sentence: "Carrying bottled water is on its way to being as cool as smoking while pregnant".


So, other than trying to remove broken masts from an already dead reef, I'm gonna try to do good for the environment giving you shit if I see you at the beach with a plastic bottle!

Everyone's warned.

a little bit of more environment catastrophe and a little bit of boom height talk

More bad news for ocean lovers (and not). I saw this on Jeff's blog.



And this is the video that Windwiner linked in the comments:



Boom height.
Remember that sequence of me doing a couple of bottom and top turns and looking with the boom way too low in the shots right in the transition between the two? It's just two posts down.
I met Tormod and told him that I would have liked to check some sequences of the good guys to see if it happens to them too.
Didn't have to wait too long... he was nice enough to send me the link to some of the sequences he collected.
Let's have a look at:
- Keith Taboul
- Robby Naish 1

- Robby Naish 2
- Robby Naish 3

So, I was right. There is a moment in the transition between bottom and top turn in which the sailor is standing straight up (Robby's 1 and 3 in particular caught this moment perfectly) and has his arms bent so that the boom is quite close to the body. In this position, of course, the boom appears to be too low... but it's not.
In the bottom and top turns, as I said, in fact the sailor is coiled (sorry, using Kelly's words.. see below) like a cat and in the regular sailing the sailor is leaning upwind forming a triangle with mast, body and straight arms and so the boom is not upper belly high anymore, but between nipple and shoulder high as it should be.
Cool, I'll be happy to go back to exactly were I was putting my boom before Tormod took the sequence, because that one inch higher that I was trying didn't feel good at all.

Waves are up here in Maui and will be up for a while. The wind should be blowing today and the weekend, but right now (6am of Friday) it's calm and I'm going surfing. Let's see if I feel like trying a carving 360. Kelly Slater just explained me how... yeah, right.

Not too exciting weather maps in the next week in the north pacific. There will be a strong high pressure NW of Hawaii and that's a very bad (and unusual) place for it: north onshore winds will prevail and no major NW ground swells (there might be stormy N windswells though). Nice long lasting south swell around mid next week though. Could be worse... could be a lot worse!

a message in the waves that we keep ignoring + new rockstar contest sponsor + couple of videos

A few years ago I saw the wonderful movie "Hawaii - Message in the waves".

That film changed my life. Since then, the amount of plastic bottles I personally introduced in the environment has been zero. For many years I've been using my refillable metal bottles and that's something that everyone should do.
Plastic bottles are only a part of the problem of course, since every plastic object will eventually deteriorate in small bits, but they're so easily replaceable! That's why I'm pissed off when I see people (I'm talking also to you guys) buying huge amounts of them.
Same as the plastic bags, of course. So easy to replace with a reusable non plastic bag, but no many give a shit.
What's the problem? Well, if you don't have the time to watch the trailers on the movie website, here's a few pics that should be clear enough.


Shocked? How's this one? Those could be the tops and bits of a water or soda plastic bottles that you drank a few years ago... and yes, that WAS a bird. A beautiful albatross to be precise.


"Why in the world those stupid birds eat the plastic bits?", I hear someone saying...
Ever heard about the pacific gyre?
This video should answer your question.


More info here.

So pleeeaaaase, don't introduce plastic in the environment that is not strictly necessary.
Halloween is coming up. Just the other day I say a stupid plastic fake battery operated candle to put into a pumpkin. Now, already the fact that one uses a pumpkin for purposes other than eating it when there's people in the world that has nothing to eat should make everyone feel guilty... am I so strange?
But inserting an extremely unnecessary and polluting object in it, is just too much for me.
Nothing wrong with celebrating, just do it in a responsible (for the environment) way please: don't buy NEW plastic for your costume!

Hookipa Rockstar Contest update
I'd like to welcome yet another sponsor for the Hookipa Rockstar Contest: Cafe Mambo in Paia is kind enough to offer $50 certificate with the motivation that anybody that ends up plastered on the rocks needs a Margarita on the rocks to celebrate. They are hosting a scary karaoke night for Halloween.

Looks like there's more sponsors than contestants so far... Elena entered the contest with a rock visit last week. The problem of this contest is that not many people are aware of it (believe it or not, not all Hookipa sailors follow this blog), so please help me spread the word.
I'm also thinking of putting the biggest price for the winner and the other prices as a lottery for all the other contestants. Your name will be in the lottery as many times as you've gone on the rocks, but in this way everyone will have the possibility of winning something. All you have to do is to leave a comment on this blog or on the contest facebook page to claim your rockstar point.

Couple of videos.
Last summer I shot a video for some visitors. It was flat and they were not pros, but I was able to pull out 17 minutes of footage. Kind of boring at times, but not if you're in it!!! I uploaded the last song (which is Funeral by The band of horses... and I totally copied it from Bruno Sillac's video!). Here it is.

summer video from giampaolo cammarota on Vimeo.

Oh, if you really got nothing to do, here's the whole 17 minutes!

I'm about to receive the new amazing High Definition GoPro cameras... so email me if you want a nice video of your windsurfing vacation in Maui!

One more vid. Cookie (who is a french guy called Aurelien, but americans can't pronounce it, so someone nicknamed him Cookie... just like my name and GP) put together a few wipeouts of last Thursday at Hoookipa.

Des windsurfers se sont font gentiment corriger par leur maitre. from windsurfing fever on Vimeo.

As I said already in fact, Hookipa last week was pretty fun with clean waves and veeery offshore winds. This week the offshore wind continues but the waves are pretty much gone.
Pat Caldwell is forecasting rough big waves out of the NW for Thursday (12 to 14 feet faces) and Saturday (14 to 18 feet faces). I personally think that those sizes are a bit overestimated. What I agree with him, unfortunately, is that right after that, at the beginning of next week, we'll have strong onshore winds with big rough windswell, kind of like Sylt conditions... that must be karma!

Anyway, it's still Hawaii, one of most beautiful places on Earth. Let's keep it as such, using as little plastic as possible. Thanks.

Hang on, one more. Blog reader Rafn sends another video of surfing in Iceland! Bloody hell, those guys are good. Respect!!!

lil environmental post

I received this presentation and I thought it's well done.
Water Disaster

Publish at Scribd or explore others:

The reason I think it's well done is because at the end it stresses the fact that drinking bottled water can cause YOU harm. If it was only focused on the harm to the environment, in fact, most people would just not care...

As humans, we should be ashamed by the amount of plastic bottles we pollute the environment with. And plastic bags too.
Is all this plastic really necessary?

Not really. It's quite a few years, for example, that I refill my two metal water bottles every morning (I have a commonly available reverse osmosis tap water filtering system at home) and use a reusable bag when grocery shopping.
It doesn't take much... you lazy bastards!


This is a burning sugar can field. Maui (and also Florida, I think) is one of the few places where they still harvest it this way. I'm not expert of sugar cane harvesting, but that looks freaking polluting to me. And if you happen to be downwind of one of those monsters, you'll sure agree with me.


That must be why wonderful creatures like the sugar cane spiders have to find recovery elsewhere...

10 Little things I do to try to respect the environment

The funny thing is that the vast majority of them also allow me to save money. So, I wonder why not everybody do that. Mostly unawareness I guess, but also lack of care unfortunately. Or is it the other way around?

1. I stash a little stock of bags in my car, so that when I go grocery shopping I can reuse them and don't get new ones that will end up in the environment. At the same time, I teach the cashier not to give away too many plastic bags.
This is a photo of a tree that is located downwind of the Maui landfill. It doesn't look too happy, and I'm sure the birds that used to nest on it aren't happy either.


Now, that is one of the few trees that are on the road downwind of the Maui landfill. One wonders... what happens to the other plastic bags that don't end up stuck in those trees? Well, if you know Maui geography, it's easy to guess that they will sooner or later end up in the downwind waters of Kihei and Maalaea and do even more damage.


This is the site where I found that photo (that makes me sick in my stomach...): read it and see how you will feel next time you get plastic bags at your grocery store.

2. I try to keep all the electric appliances at a minimum when at home. In six years that I've been in Maui, I think I used the drier once or twice (in very rainy weeks). Otherwise, I do it the way I always did in Italy (there's NO driers AT ALL over there): I put my clothes on a line and let the sun dry them. Guess what? My clothes last a lot longer too!

3. I shut down all eletrical appliances when not at home. Here in the States, there's a horrible habit of leaving on lights, fans, computers, a/c, radios, ect. in houses and offices. There should be fines for that.

4. I own a 4 cylinders, manual shift, small engine car that does 33 miles per gallon (up to 35 lately!!). Compared to european cars it still sucks, but for here it's pretty good. How come a super technologically advanced country like the US doesn't make efficient cars? Maybe because the automobile industry and the gas companies have strong lobbies in the government? Most businesses can write the money for buying a large SUV/truck off their taxes...
And how come a large number of Americans proudly own 6 or 8 cylinders, 3 liters or bigger engine, huge SUVs/trucks? I'd say a mix of brain wash from tv commercials and lack of awareness. In most cases though, they just don't give a fuck about the environment.
This guy is so proud, he even wrote it on the plate!


5. I reuse stuff as much as I can. For example, since I spend quite some time at the beach, I always need to have two plastic bottles filled with water in my backpack.
I have personally installed a reverse hosmosis water filter at home, so that I can refill my two bottles as many times as I want. Doing so, I also save money (big time) compared to buying new water bottles every time.
Now, is refilling water plastic bottles safe for your health? That's one of the things I couldn't really find a clear answer on the internet... oh well, at least I'm eventually doing something bad to myself, not to a defenseless turtle.

6. If I can't reuse, I recycle. Thank god a couple of years ago they introduced the 5c cash back when recycling beer bottles and cans in Hawaii too, so that more people would be motivated to recycle. Actually, what I noticed is that most rich people keep don't giving a fuck, but now at least there's hords of poor/homeless people digging in the trash that do the job in order to make a few bucks...

7. Whenever possible I pick up trash, especially from beaches. I've always done that while teaching at Kanaha, but since I saw the movie "Hawaii a message in the waves", I try to do it everywhere. I love nature and animals and I just can't stand the thought that all that trash will eventually kill a bird or a fish or a turtle.

8. I use rechargable batteries.

9. I try to teach people to respect the environment. Hopefully this post will do better than my individual little efforts.
Especially if you guys will add your suggestions too. And, for this specific post, I kindly ask you to do so using my new forum, instead of the comments. In that way, the discussion can go on for longer. Here's the forum address again: http://www.hotsailsmaui.com/forum/viewforum.php?id=5

10. The last one is a quite generic one: I try to live as naturally as I can. Let me try to explain this.
The nature is an amazing self-adjusting wonderful system. I've been watching a really killer documentary lately (BBC's Planet Heart available also in DVDs) and two things appear clearly:
a) all animals act driven by the survival instinct that allowed them to evolve and survive for millions of years
b) the humans are the only species that has deviated from this natural course.
Thanks to our gift (can we really call it a gift?) of some kind of intelligence (questionable in most cases), we have been able to develop habits that are far from being natural. As a conseguence of this, at the same time we are also destroying the environment and that is a fact that, unfortunately, not many people of the western countries know well enough yet. I would recommend the vision of Al Gore's "An inconvenient truth" for a heads-up on the still incredibly UNDERESTIMATED global warming issue. Here's a photo of the Vorab glacier in Switzterland that they are trying to save from melting covering it with a huge blanket...


Back to my point: what I noticed is that the most naturally I live (and by that I mean following my natural instincts), the less I pollute and viceversa. I could list hundreds of examples. But I'm going to list a few very basic ones, just to give you an idea.
I pollute less if I eat a fresh tomato rather than one in a can.
I pollute less if I choose not to smoke a cigarette.
I pollute less if I choose to walk instead of taking my car (whenever possible, of course).
And the great thing is that by doing so I'm also healthier! Most of the human diseases, in fact, are caused by society induced behaviors.

So, my final message here is to try to live according to your natural instincts.
Unfortunately, in the western world, those have mostly been overrun by the desire to own an SUV...

How pathetic.

NOTE: THE DISCUSSION ON THIS POST CAN BE FOLLEWED HERE ON THE FORUM.