ASA Certification – Why Take the Exams?
ASA is a nationally recognized sailing certification and accreditation program. These organizations, which include sailing schools, charter companies, sailing instructors and sailors, set competency standards for both sailing knowledge and on-the-water skills for sailors and instructors from basic to offshore sailing levels. Certification simply means a person has demonstrated a standard of proficiency by passing both…
What is Marine Debris?
Marine debris has been defined by NOAA as any persistent solid material that is manufactured or processed and directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally, disposed of or abandoned into the marine environment or the Great Lakes. In layman’s term marine debris is trash or litter that ends up in our rivers or oceans. It is found throughout…
Marine Debris: Oceans or Landfills?
There is an area in the North Pacific Ocean between California, Hawaii and Japan that is accumulating garbage at an alarming rate. This area, commonly known as the North Pacific Gyre, has been transformed into something that resembles a plastic soup. It is the result of our “disposable lifestyle” and it’s only getting worse. It is becoming clear…
Netting Plastic and Marine Debris
Remember the classic scene in the movie, “The Graduate” at Benjamin Braddock’s (Dustin Hoffman) college graduation party? One of his father’s friends came up to him and said: “One word son- PLASTICS!” I have occasionally thought to myself, yes, I should have listened to that line and pursued a career manufacturing anything plastic, becoming a multi-billionaire, until now. I’m quite content running a sailing school, working on ways to clean up all of that plastic I could have become rich off of. All Pacific Yachting boats will have fishing net on all of our boats located in the outside lazarette for netting trash and plastic on our marine sanctuary. Please do your part in helping the marine environment.