10/15/2024
My husband Michael and I have been beach shellers and boaters for years. We are Floridians after all. We have made a point to go to different beaches looking for specific shells and maybe a special find, to add to our ongoing collection. But the true joys came when we would get home and look over all our treasures that we found together on our beautiful shores. Unfortunately, we have been wearing blinders. We started to notice the garbage more and more and would pick it up and by the time we would get halfway down the beach we would have to empty our bag. This deeply saddened us. Our beaches we grew up on are not the same beautiful beaches. We started bringing a bag just for garbage and a small bag for our shells. We would empty our garbage bags multiple times before ever leaving the beach. Now our bag for our found treasures is no longer shells or special finds, our bags are full of garbage.
We were walking the beach one day and there was more garbage from the ocean than usual. I made a comment to Michael that the ocean is angry, and it does not want this garbage and it is spitting it back at us. And that is when Angry Oceans was born.
We do not look for shells as much anymore, and that is okay. We feel that our beautiful shores deserve to stay beautiful.
As we walk the beaches picking up garbage, we have multiple people stop us along the way thanking us for doing it. We have even had people ask us, “Doesn’t the State do that?”, It’s not the states responsibility to clean up the beaches, oceans, and waterways, it’s our responsibility to clean up after ourselves and occasionally others, but it’s worth the effort.
Our God given vision is to have more people do their part. If everyone would spread the word it could become contagious. Anyone can take that extra step and see the difference that can be made. If everyone would pick up around their little 6’ area before they leave, it would make our beaches, waterways, and oceans happier.
It will be amazing to see the day where there is no more garbage on our shores or the waters.
Our time on this earth is limited, we shouldn’t limit the amount of love we have for it.
Get your gear and help start the conversation.
See you at the beach!
~The Millers
