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A mass of plastic in the Pacific, increasing tenfold each decade since 1945, is now the size of Texas and killing everything in its wake. Currently, there is six times more plastic than plankton floating in the middle of the Pacific. (Link to Article) The plastic is poisoning our fish and sealife and killing the Oceans. The plastic passes along toxins to humans through fish we eat.

– Each day, North Americans throw away more than 385,000 cellphones and 143,000 computers— electronic waste is now the fastest-growing stream of garbage. Lead and mercury are seeping from this waste into ground water. Some of the e-waste, however, is winding up in the sea.

– Each hour, North Americans consume and discard about 2.75 million plastic water and soda bottles; that’s 24 billion a year.

– Globally, 100 million tonnes of plastic are generated each year and at least 10 per cent of that is finding its way into the sea.

– Worldwide, each year 113 billion kilograms of small plastic pellets called nurdles–the feedstock for all disposable plastics– are shipped and billions are spilled during transfer in and out of railroad cars. Those spilled nurdles are ending up in gutters and drains and eventually carried into the ocean. Nurdles resemble fish eggs or roe. Tuna and salmon feed on them indiscriminately. Around 2.5 billion humans eat fish regularly. Plastic and other man-made toxins are polluting the global food chain and it’s rising at an unprecedented rate.

– Each year, a million sea birds and 100,000 sharks, turtles, dolphins and whales die from eating plastic.

Oceanographers and conservation biologists believe the only way to contend with the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is to slow the amount of plastic flowing from the land to the sea.

Buy six organic cotton shopping bags. Use them instead of supermarket plastic bags. Make it a habit to return those bags to the trunk of your car after unpacking groceries.

Reuse your plastic water bottles. If you can refill one bottle for a day then why not attempt it for a week.

See Other Amazing Posts:

The Most Amazing Photos You’ll Ever See of Waves

Diver Fights and Kills 12 ft. Tiger Shark (Photos)

1000 Lb Stingray and a Fish with a Transparent Head

Incredible HD Footage of Surfer in the Barrel

Photo Credit: Andrew Buckley

Hellmen, Ross Clarke-Jones and Tom Carroll, take on insane waves in storm conditions at Shipsterns Bluff, Tasmania. Check the fullframe slideshow at Surfermag.com along with a full sequence of what has to be the wipe-out of the year (Ross Clarke-Jones). Shot of sequence below:

In a move that screams “We really don’t give a flying &*$% about surfers,” United Airlines recently raised their fees to $175 per surfboard per way. Brendon Thomas of Surfer Magazine writes a letter to United after having to pay $700 for board fees on a roundtrip flight to Hawaii. Last year airlines raised carry on fees across the board, but United’s surfboard fee seems to target surfers specifically. Write United Customer Relations expressing your dissatisfaction on their fees (it’s a web form).

To put it in perspective, you can fly with golf clubs that weigh up to 50 lbs in place on a checked bag (no fee), but flying with a 6 lb surfboard costs $175.

While one particular airline jacking fees on surfboards is not particularly troubling, but when it starts a trend it becomes a serious barrier for surf travel. Let airlines know now that unfair surfboard fees are prohibitive.

United Customer Support Contact Page

Surf Photographer – Tim McKenna – narrates a selection of photos of Teahupoo courtesy of Surfer Magazine. Tim has shot Teahupoo for close to a decade and has some incredible images.

Photo Credit: Marco Garcia

The New York Times profiles Kala Alexander, Pipeline local and founder of the Wolfpack, as he explains why the Wolfpack got started and how it regulates and protects the Pipeline line-up. Kala cuts a larger than life figure as a pipeline local, community volunteer, actor, surfer, and businessman, but with a violent past. He spent time in prison for assault charges on Kauai. Regulating the line-up at Pipeline has meant physical intimidation and occasional violence to those who don’t follow the rules. Da Hui and the Wolfpack emphasize respect for the locals and order in the line-up; they enforce the code through violence and/or threats of violence. Kala was also profiled recently by Outside Magazine and has his own website. Unfortunately, there’s no blog on his site; it would be interesting to hear Kala’s thoughts and responses to readers. Youtube interview with Kala at the bottom.

From the NYT article:

“The code is to respect other people,” Alexander, 39, said. “People come over here and don’t respect other people. You’re going to run into problems if you do that.”

That is what happened to Chris Ward, a 30-year-old professional from San Clemente, Calif., and runner-up to Kelly Slater last month at the Pipeline Masters. In November, Australian publications reported that Ward cut off a local surfer while riding a wave at Pipeline. He was banished to the beach, where a Wolfpak member smacked him in the head. Without providing details, Ward confirmed that the incident happened.

“It was crowded when I came here,” Alexander said about Pipeline. “A lot of people in the water, not much respect. Where I grew up on Kauai, you respect everybody in the water, especially your elders. Don’t step out of line. We just brought that mentality over here.”

Photos via Surf Nation Blog. Ryan Hipwood at Shipsterns Bluff, Tasmania getting shacked. The photos are entries into the Oakley Surfing Life Big Wave Awards. Photo credit: Rodd Owen.

A high pressure sitting over California and a big West-Northwest Swell driving toward California could set up ideal conditions for the Mavericks contest this Friday. The Swell is expected to be in the 15-20 ft. range, which is on the smaller side for Mavericks, but ideal conditions with warm weather and off-shores could have the contest going for Friday. Forecast courtesy of Stormsurf.com. Check the Mavericks Surf Contest home page for updates.

Great photo of the paddle out at Snapper Rocks, Gold Coast, Australia. The photo is by Narelle Autio, who resides in Sydney. Here’s a link to gallery.

Indonesia issued a Tsunami alert after a quake of 7.2 magnitude struck near Manokwari on the island on Papua in eastern Indonesia.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A strong earthquake in remote eastern Indonesia cut power lines, cracked building walls and sent panicked residents running out of their homes toward higher ground Sunday, authorities and witnesses said.

The Indonesian Meteorology and Seismology Agency warned that with a preliminary magnitude of 7.2 it was strong enough to cause a tsunami. However, there were no immediate reports of giant waves and the warning was lifted within an hour.

The tremor struck at 2:43 a.m. local time, around 85 miles off the coast of Manokwari, Papua, at a depth of 6 miles.

The U.S. Geological Survey put the strength at a more powerful 7.6 magnitude and nearly three times the depth. Shallow earthquakes generally cause more damage than deeper ones.

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Transworld Surf reports on an Oregon State Study of wave heights that measures Pacific wave heights from buoy data and finds that waves are increasing by an average of 7 cm per year. Surfers are likely to the only people rejoicing over this information as larger wave also result in more coastal erosion among other problems.

“Unlike sea level, the current data suggests that wave heights are not increasing uniformly across the globe. However, many regions lack the right data to do proper analysis. Bigger wave heights off the coast of Oregon were first discovered just a few years ago by other OSU scientists. They had the advantage of working with the unique dataset created by the Pacific coast’s longest-floating buoy; it’s been gathering data on wave heights for over 30 years.

“This is high quality data and you didn’t have enough data to do this kind of analysis until very recently,” Ruggiero said.

Despite the clear wave-height increase in the data, particularly of the largest waves, Ruggiero and his colleagues still can’t explain it.”