I was at a yoga class not too long ago, and my teacher Tara told us a story to underscore the importance of following our passion. I know, that’s one of those ridiculous sentences that tend to stereotype people who live in Los Angeles, but just bear with me. Tara had been leading a yoga retreat in the beautiful seaside town of Tulum, Mexico, just after a hurricane. A huge amount of trash had washed up on the previously pristine beach. One retreat participant, Sara, was horrified by the enormity of the problem. Her horror turned to action, and now she’s cleaning up the beach in Santa Monica and keeping a blog about it.
I had to learn more about this woman, so I checked out her website, TheDailyOcean.com, and called her. Sara Bayles remembered that time in Tulum a few years back. The group had been sitting in a circle, talking about being at peace with the condition of the world, including the conditions of the crap-filled beach, she recalls. “And I was like, ‘I can’t get there from here, I’m not okay with it,’ and I burst into tears.”
A while after she got back home, she moved with her then-boyfriend, now-husband, Garen, to Santa Monica, about 20 blocks away from the Pacific Ocean. She was a longtime member of Surfrider Foundation, but couldn’t get to their organized weekend cleanups because of work.
“Then I decided well, I don’t have to wait for a weekend. Grab a bag, go to the damn beach.” She came home and told Garen, a marine biology professor, ‘That was disturbing, do you know how much crap I picked up?’” They brainstormed about what to do about it, and she came up with the idea of cleaning the beach for 365 days. Sara set up some parameters to keep from burning out. “I thought, I’m going to give myself 20 minutes, I’m going to go to the same place every time, and concentrate on this very small stretch of beach, see what I can get from there.”
She decided to take pictures of her finds. “I’m a creative type, I went to arts school, and felt like I could add some creativity to it. Then I figured I’ll weigh what I have. Basically the thought came to me, how much trash can one person get off the beach if they do it for a year.”
The other rule was that the 365 days are non-consecutive. “I don’t go every single day because that’s not sustainable, or relatable.”
She had planned on putting the results online when she was finished, but Garen suggested blogging as she goes. “I spent a frustrated weekend trying to figure out Blogger, which is really point and shoot, but I can’t even figure out Facebook, so that’s the level of expertise that I’m dealing with,” she noted.
And thus The Daily Ocean was born.
She’s also collected fans. One friend nominated her for Oceana’s Ocean Hero Awards. Out of hundreds of nominees, she was one of six adult finalists. “That was weird and unexpected,” Sara noted. That Oceana acknowledgement introduced Sara and her blog to Danielle Richardet, who then started a similar project on the other coast. (Just you wait, Danielle is going to be profiled next.)
Inspired by her story, my friend Sasha and I met up with Sara for a clean-up on September 8th, in front of Santa Monica Guard Tower 26. We put on gloves, and Sara handed us a reusable tote bag for our trash. She then set the timer on her watch, and we were off. It had been a scorching hot day, but at 6:40 the air was balmy and the sunlight was glinting off the waves as sunlight is wont to do. We picked up little items, plastic bags and bottle caps mostly, as we walked between tower 26 and 27.
At one point Sara announced, “Seven minutes.” I thought it meant we had been at it for seven minutes, which seemed quick. But it was even quicker; we had seven to go. Time flies when you’re scouring the sand for detritus.
Sara said she likes working by the shoreline, because then she’s getting stuff that’s just about to go into the ocean. We followed, and found a plastic bag full of dog poop, nestled into a pile of seaweed. That and a loaded diaper closer to the parking lot – and 10 feet away from a trashcan – were the most disgusting pieces of trash we found. I asked Sara the worst item she’s come across, and she said there were two items that tied for the honor. She then hesitated to tell me what they were, but I coaxed it out of her. I hesitate to write them here, so I’ll try to be a bit general: a feminine product and a sex toy. Both used. She didn’t touch either of them, and I can understand why – she’s a saint, not a martyr.
When 20 minutes were up, we headed back to the parking lot. She pulled a scale out of the back of her hybrid and measured our bags. Sasha’s and my shared bag came out to 1.7 pounds. Sara picked up the exact same amount on her own. She said it was a good day, because the number was so low. But the totes were filled with small pieces of plastic that would otherwise have made their way into the ocean.
It’s the old campground rule: leave the place cleaner than when you found it. So the next time you’re at the beach, or some other beautiful vista that’s marred by trash, pick up one piece, and tell your kids why you’re doing it. And if you feel inspired to do more, garden or work gloves are a must. Safer, and reusable-er, than plastic.
Incidentally, by the time this column was completed, she had collected 809 pounds of trash in 214 days. Even without the sex toys, that’s just nasty.
