A few days ago I received Sarah’s email to the V15 Fleet: the Rozalia Project was on a west coast swing, and would visit TISC Nov 19th. How fortunate; I had two other meetings at TI and could attend!
While my chat with Rachael Miller was brief, I learned a lot about their project and goals. The Rozalia mission is to find and remove marine debris from the surface to the seafloor. They attack with gusto from many angles including direct action, technology (way cool, check out some of these ROV and radar systems), outreach and research.
So far this year they have worked with over 10,000 participants to remove over 500,000 pieces of marine debris weighing over 164,00 pounds (yes, like in 82 TONS !).
The above totals include a chair they found in the Windy City, but does not include the red tube sock (underwater view below; real sock here) they recovered from under the docks here at TISC. They hope to visit San Francisco again next year during America’s Cup time; if they do we look forward to seeing them and spending more time with their entire team.
I had fun meeting Hector the Collector – one of their most personable pieces of technology. This ROV is a Pro4 manufactured by VideoRay. No quite as personable as the Smart Little Industrious Marine Maintenance Man (we called him SLIMM) that kept our pool clean back in Acton, however much more well behaved and predictable.
While at TISC Rachael and her team introduced Hector the Collector to kids from our junior sailing program and from the Life Learning Academy here on the island. They also discovered the water was clearer under the docks than out on Clipper Cove.
They flew back to the east coast last night after a 10-day west coast jaunt. Their time in SF Bay enabled them to rank our waters with other west coast ports – I’ll let Rachael provide our rankings compared to LA, San Diego and Sacramento in and upcoming blog – and spread the word on their project to hundreds of kids and pationate adults.
You can support their programs in many ways. The easiest is to simply spread the word about Rozalia Project and keeping in touch with them. Another great way is to always be on the lookout for debris and pick it up whenever you can (the nasty stuff I see here in the yard can wreck tires; the lighter, fluffier, floaty stuff looks bad and can harm our marine friends).
We were fortunate to have them here at Treasure Island Sailing Center – another example of our role as a Launching Point for New Horizons.
All the best for this Thanksgiving – from On The Cove, Dave G
In the wake:
Here are a few links you can pass along for more information or to donate, to keep track of their progress, and for a bunch of great pictures:
http://www.rozaliaproject.org/donate/
http://rozaliaproject.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/RozaliaProject?sk=wall