It’s been 33 years since I first sat around a table with Rusty Preisendorfer, Debbie Beacham, Ignacio Felix, Fred Borelli, Sam Armstrong and John Otterson to plan a surfing contest benefiting cancer research through Scripps Institution and Moores Cancer Center.
Thirty-three years, roughly $13 million raised for cancer research, an uncountable number of waves shared with legends that include Dale Velzy, Terry “Tubesteak” Tracy, Rabbit Kekai, Mike Doyle, Donald Takayama, David Nuuhiwa, Rell Sunn, Margo Oberg, Skip Frye, Joel Tudor, Joe and JoJo Roper, Kathy “Gidget” Kohner, Jericho Poppler, and Pipeline monarchs Jock Sutherland and Gerry Lopez.
It adds up to more good times than any one person deserves to have in a single lifetime. I have never surfed in this contest. Instead, I emcee it, walking the beach and speaking into a microphone, describing the history of surfing as it is acted out live and in person by some of our sport’s greatest practitioners.
My friend, artist and legendary board builder Tim Bessell, created the beautiful artwork for the event this year. It depicts Bessell’s close friend Chris O’Rourke, who passed away from cancer at age 22, in 1981, and Rell Sunn, the Queen of Makaha, who lost her cancer battle in 1998 at age 48.
Others who have been taken from our tribe too soon include legendary board makers Velzy, Billy Caster and Terry Martin.
The high number of board builders who have become cancer victims makes me wonder how much of this crippling disease is caused by environmental pollutants. That brings me to a group that is inadvertently fighting cancer, the Green Marines.
While one goal of the Green Marines is removing plastic from the ocean, a side benefit of their efforts is cancer prevention. Plastic, as must be apparent to all my readers, is carcinogenic, and it’s omnipresent in our environment — bags, wrappers, floors, car interiors and bottles are made from this product. Coca Cola Bottling Company alone produces 250,000 plastic bottles a minute. All recyclable, but are they all being recycled?
There are no requirements to join the Green Marines.There are no dues and no rules. The only thing needed is the desire to clean up the ocean and the Earth. With that in mind, the Green Marines’ first move is to instigate what they call Plastic Free Fridays.
The idea here is that nobody buy anything plastic on Friday. I realize this does not solve the problem, but it is a start. Another agenda item is to have all balloons made of plastic that degrades in water after a few days. Trust me, the whales will thank you.
Removing plastic from our environment is a massive challenge, but something tailor-made for modern American technological ingenuity.
The Green Marines would like to thank the Legends of Science and Surfing for their continued fight against cancer. As a Green Marine myself, I want to join the fight. Green Marine T-shirts and assorted other gear will soon be available through the website: perelandrapublishing.com
