Know Your Ocean Etiquette

Angie, DON’T TOUCH THE MONKEY! It will eat your face off! Whack fact: Monkeys live on the beach in some places such as Railay Beach, Thailand.

The only National Marine Sanctuary in the Pacific Northwest is the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary off the Northern Washington coast.  The Olympic Coast Discovery Center in Port Angeles is open in the summer, and offers information on marine conservation, animals and habitat in the Sanctuary, and how you can help in its protection. I’ve never visited the Center, which is a personal failing I hope to rectify soon. I have visited the actual Sanctuary though, and it is beautiful!

When visiting the ocean, there are rules of etiquette everyone should follow.  These include keeping your distance from wildlife no matter how tempting it is to reach out and touch them (they might eat your face off, but also, it could harm them), refraining from feeding wildlife (seriously, stop), learning about wildlife and their habitat before you go, and spreading the word to others (like I’m doing here).  For more information on ocean etiquette, visit https://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/protect/oceanetiquette.html.

Help the marine critters make it out alive, even marine monkeys!

Clean Coastal Trash and Help Scientists!

So much garbage! We were unprepared, but improvised with dog poo bags. Note to self, bring bags and gloves everywhere!

A lot of people around the world participate in International Coastal Cleanup® Day in September of each year.  Sadly, cleanup is needed year round. There are several efforts out there, such as the Take 3 for the Sea campaign.  

This organization urges you to take 3 pieces of trash with you every time you leave an ocean or waterway (or anywhere, really), share a photo of you with your three pieces on social media with the hashtag #Take3fortheSea to inspire others, and reduce your plastic footprint.

While you’re participating in Take 3 for the Sea, why not also use the CleanSwell app?  You can see the impact you’re making by tracking things such as miles cleaned and weight of trash removed while earning cool badges, and you can help scientists identify locations and types of garbage being removed. This allows the scientist to track trash patterns and inform policy solutions.

Get out there and start cleaning!