As surfers we are naturally concerned with the water quality. And I'm sure that everyone had a session where they've looked back at wondered "why am I even swimming in this brown crap?!". The thing is that with so much disgusting stuff being pumped into our seas and oceans we're slowly getting to a stage where severe water quality signs will pop out way more often. Sadly, lobbying from environmental organisations isn't enough.
A photographer, Michael Dyrland traveled to Los Angeles to see his childhood mate. Also looking forward to catching some waves while he was there. Sadly, the weather didn't play the ball covering LA in rain upon his arrival. The next day the sun came out. Mike asked his friend if he want's to head out. His reply was quite shocking: "Are you crazy? No one goes in the water after it rains. You could get MRSA, hep C, virus, respiratory infection, etc.".
Reason? Like in many large cities, when it rains the water pours down the streets picking up all sorts of nasty stuff dumping it into the sea. In LA a typical rain storm drops about 10bn gallons of water mixed with garbage straight into the ocean. Same happens, although on much smaller scale on our local spot - Portobello, Edinburgh.
When Mike came back to home to Bellingham he decided to create an ocean awareness campaign hoping for it will go viral. He called it "HAZMAT Surfing" with series of photographs showing how watersports protection will look like in the next 25 years if we won't stop polluting our oceans.
"I think if we continue with this pollution trend we are in right now, in 25 years people will have to throw on a hazmat suit to go surfing in order to protect themselves from all the contaminates and pollution in the ocean."
Looks terrifying, right? You can do your bit joining our group of volunteers and helping us to clean up local beaches in Scotland - for more information get in touch with Jake at jake (at) skymonster.com or check out the Surfers Agains Sewage website.
Also, be sure to check out Mike's website at DYRLANDproductions.com