Be a Hugger of Waves

Purchase our Wave Hugger T-Shirt and support the protection of our coastal heritage. This T-Shirt is only available online at Save The Waves Store. Available in Men's and Women's style:

www.savethewaves.org/store

Maldives Epic Surf: Privatized Soon?

Maldive surfers are organizing around a potential threat to surf access on Thamburudhoo Island, home to two of the area's best surf spots in the Maldives.

The Government of Maldives represented by the Maldives National Defense Force (MNDF) has proposed to develop a tourist resort on the island of Thanburudhoo through a lease to a third party. Thamburudhoo is the only island with two world class waves - the left, popularly known as “Honky's” and the right known as “Sultans”.

The surf points at Thamburodhoo have been pivotal in the development of surfing in the country and have for many years been an integral part of the businesses of many small live-aboard safari vessel operators and surf excursion organizers. 

If the development goes ahead the local surfers, the live-aboard surf safari vessel operators, local guest houses that organize surfing excursions and the tourists staying at other resorts will completely lose access to the last accessible surf location with both a left hander and right hander. 

Read a news report about the issue here and stay tuned as Save The Waves develops more action to save these waves in the Maldives. 

Martin's Beach - CLOSED

Located just off of California's scenic Highway One near Half Moon Bay, Martin's Beach is a small enclave of unique coastal access for local surfers, picnickers and other beachgoers. On a stretch of uninhabited coastline where there are limited ocean access options, Martin's Beach is a historic gateway to sand, surf and ocean for those in the know. 

Since 2008, a new owner has blocked access to Martin's Beach by locking the gate on the road that leads to the oceanfront beach. Previously, the public was granted access for a small entrance fee.

According to the California Coastal Act and historic precedent, in cases where the public has had continuous access to the coast through private property, the state can enforce the preservation of that access.  (A San Jose Mercury News article here details this issue and features the owner's lawyer's comments.) 

Art on the billboard at Martin's Beach protested its closure. Video below.

The Coastal Act of California, Section 30604 (c), provides that "Every coastal development permit issued for any development between the nearest public road and the sea or shoreline of any body of water located within the coastal zone shall include a specific finding that the development is in conformity with the public access and public recreation policies of Chapter 3."

Local residents are organizing weekly protests at the gate to Martin's Beach. You can learn more and support this cause at the Open Martin's Beach Facebook page. 

In late 2010, graffiti artists protested Martin's Beach closure with billboard art at the entrance to Martin's Beach on Highway One, an act of defiance which was immediately painted over by the property owners: 

Support this campaign here: Open Martin's Beach.

We Exist to Oppose This

This is what an extinct wave looks like. Save The Waves Coalition was formed to stop this type of problem from occurring. Learn more about Ponta Delgada and support our campaigns to Save The Waves: http://www.savethewaves.org/wave/ponta-delgada-madeira-portugal

An Invitation

An Invitation from Save The Waves: let’s define a wave. 

From the perspective of those who experience it, the purpose it serves, the feelings it evokes. How it looks, sounds, and moves. How it behaves. How it awes, and inspires, and delights us. How it holds the power to utterly transform us.

Let’s give voice to the reasons waves are special, treasured, cherished, adored. Let’s explain why they’re vital. The truths about why we worship at their altar.

Let's explore this elemental, fundamental part of our lives. A reflection of unexpected, surprising, taken-for-granted truths about the simple, awesome thing that is a wave.

We want to speak from the perspective of surfers and non-surfers alike. From that of naturalists, conservationists, and environmentalists. From nature-lovers and ocean-lovers. From young and old. Scaled and finned. From all over the oceans, all around the globe.

Let’s capture the inexpressible, magical power of the wave, and touch, in everyone, the place where these sentiments reside.

An Invitation (Watch the PSA video here)

Let’s show them just how to help keep waves protected, for now and for the future. At savethewaves.org

New Fuerza Chile! Posters

Check out these new rad posters by Dominick Frabizio. The artwork is cool, pulp mill pollution is not. Follow the links below for more creative works by Dominick.

www.brownstchronicles.blogspot.com
www.dominickfrabizio.blogspot.com

Click here to see how you can get involved to protect the coast and ocean in Chile.

Update on Sandbags at Sloat

Save the Waves supports San Francisco’s proposal to use sandbags as a temporary bluff slope protection measure.


The City of San Francisco has recently obtained an emergency permit from the CA Coastal Commission to place sandbags along the shoreline of the Sloat region of Ocean Beach. This permit is intended to protect the Great Highway and Lake Merced Tunnel from potentially significant bluff retreat during the winter storm season. As seen throughout the last decade, storms can cause major bluff retreat at Ocean Beach and impacts infrastructure built too close to the coast, such as the Great Highway and Lake Merced Tunnel.


Unlike in previous years, however, San Francisco has opted to implement a relatively softer bluff protection measure. Sandbags are flexible, easily installed and easily removed, and do not have the same destructive impacts as rock and concrete revetments.


According to the design report, the Great Highway and Lake Merced tunnel will be temporarily protected from winter storm events by large sandbags that will be placed along the bluff toe and slope. Approximately 375 tan-colored, geo-textile sandbags will be used as bluff protection. The bags would be deposited in a 4-foot-wide by 70-feet long toe trench that would be excavated to a depth sufficient for 2 bags to be embedded.


While sandbags are indeed a step in the right direction from the destructive armoring strategies that the City has implemented in the past, it is important to urge San Francisco officials to move away from coastal armoring altogether and to adopt strategic relocation (a.k.a managed retreat), which is a more sustainable bluff protection and erosion control strategy.


Click here to watch a video of the sandbag placement, courtesy of Tom Prete/Ocean Beach Bulletin.

Here are photos taken in early January of the work:

Photos: Save The Waves Coalition