This Saturday, June 20, is International Surfing Day and Surfrider is inviting everyone to gather and paddle out to send a message: stop offshore oil drilling along California’s coast.
The Surfrider Foundation’s LA chapter and a coalition of community partners are hosting a paddle out at Tower 20 in Santa Monica from 9 a.m. to noon. The event is open to anyone who wants to show up, no boards necessary, and families and kids are welcomed and encouraged to join. The more, the merrier.
The threat that is bringing everyone together isn’t new, but it has become very real in the past year. Offshore drilling has loomed over California for decades, with periodic federal pushes to expand leasing in our waters. Thankfully, resistance has not been futile and surfers have been at the front of that resistance going back to the founding of the Surfrider Foundation itself in 1984 and beyond.
While paddle outs are traditionally associated with memorials, they have become a useful tool for ocean activism in Australia. A while back I spoke to Drew McPherson, of Surfrider Australia, who explained how local surfers used paddle outs during the “Fight for the Bight” campaign that helped pressure oil giant Equinor into abandoning its plans to drill in the Great Australian Bight. Tens of thousands of supporters paddled out at beaches across the country, and the visual had a far bigger impact than standard protests with picket signs and chants. To be sure, there was plenty of that as well, but the act of going in the water made a difference. A paddle out isn’t a complaint, it’s an active celebration of what is at risk.
Recently, Surfrider hosted a paddle out in Santa Barbara to help make the case against the federal government’s renewed interest in offshore drilling. This weekend they’ll be in LA but the message is the same, “California’s coast is too special to drill,”. They couldn’t be more on the money.
California’s beaches generate billions of dollars in annual economic output, support millions of livelihoods, and host some of the most-surfed waves on earth. They also remain one of the last stretches of U.S. coastline that hasn’t been opened to widespread offshore extraction. The point being made by the paddle out, let’s keep it that way.
The details:
- What: Paddle out to protect the California coast
- When: Saturday, June 20, 9 a.m. – 12 p.m.
- Where: Tower 20, Santa Monica
- Hosted by: Surfrider Foundation LA + community partners
If you’re in the LA area this is the easy ask. Show up. Bring a board if you can. Enjoy the beach. Make some new friends and help safeguard the very thing we love most, the ocean.