One of our guiding principles at Brown Girl Surf is "Respect and Love for the Land and Sea." So this past Saturday, for Oakland's Creek to Bay Day, our Brown Girl Surf community put together a waterborne kayaking team of Trash Warriors to collect trash from hard-to-reach places along the Oakland estuary. By removing trash like plastic and styrofoam from the water's edge, we prevent it from flowing into the Bay, and eventually the ocean, where plastic pollution is harming the entire marine food chain. We were supported in our work by the City of Oakland Dept of Environmental Services, and our awesome friends at California Canoe and Kayak Co, who lent us watercraft for the day, and taught us the basics of paddling and safety.
Last April, on Earth Day, we also got together as a community in partnership with the Oakland Museum of California, to care for Channel Park, at the base of Lake Merritt. We had a super fun time, removing invasive species from the water's edge to make room for local plants which support local wildlife, picking up trash, and helping in the community garden. We learned about the connections between the estuary and the ocean, including the fact that some of the animals that live near our surf spot in Half Moon bay, like bat rays, also live in Lake Merritt!