Its A Skipper's Life For Me

It has been seven months since I started at Coastkeeper, and it’s cool to look back and think how excited I was to start working for such an amazing organization. Back then, I think the part of my job that I was most excited about was having access to the Coastkeeper boat, and 19’ Boston Whaler, called Clean Sweep. Being new to boating in San Diego myself, I was stoked to meet our only volunteer boat captain, Kevin Straw, and have him show me around San Diego Bay and learn about all the great work  Coastkeeper had done before I arrived. I had visions of scoping out pollution incidents , taking pictures and video, testing water quality samples in our lab, working with our legal team to start a lawsuit against the vile polluters, testifying in court, and bringing justice to our local environment and community.

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 I also saw us using our boat to talk to the San Diego boating community  about how they can help to keep our bays and ocean clean. San Diego could become the leader in eco-friendly boating practices. Boaters in San Diego are after all enjoying the clean water we all help to protect. We could cruise through marinas, yacht clubs, regattas, and anchorages talking about how people can properly pump out sewage, pump gas without polluting, scrape their hulls without shedding copper, and reporting pollution incidents themselves. We could come to be so well known in the boating community, the Port of San Diego and the San Diego Lifeguards would throw a water parade for us while boat owners rained cash donations instead of confetti upon Clean Sweep as it passed.

 

Ah to dream. . .

The reality is though, we’re getting closer. We have recruited two new volunteer boat captains bringing us to a total of three, we’re talking to boat owners about being eco-friendly, we’ve tested potential pollution water samples, commented on the new hull cleaning practices from the Port, and created an outreach plan for boaters in San Diego. We’re making progress, but we need your help.

If you have a Captain’s License, or 5 years of boating experience, we want you to become a volunteer Clean Sweep skipper. We’ve got ambitious plans, and the more we can get on the water, the faster we’ll finish our course.