Love That Dirty Water

What a year for awareness of the condition of our planet’s most precious resource

This space is usually reserved for our Sea Song of the Week on Fridays, but today is different. Today is Blog Action Day, an annual event held every October 15 that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day with the aim of sparking a global discussion and driving collective action. This is our first time, but it was an easy decision for us to get involved since this year's topic is water! We are thrilled to see some of our friends from the boat-blogging community get involved with posts of their own on this issue, including Boater Life, Marine Fuel and BoatFlorida.

That Dirty Water
A few weeks ago we chose one of Boston’s unofficial theme songs, Dirty Water, as our Sea Song of the Week, not because we prefer our water to be dirty, but because we were in Boston (and because the town’s other unofficial theme song, Sweet Caroline, doesn’t mention water or boats.)

Dirty Water is a fun song to sing, but does anybody really “love” polluted oceans? Boating enthusiasts enjoy the world’s waters as much as anyone else, perhaps more... so isn't it in our best interest to keep those waters clean. This has never been more evident than it has been this past year.


Two events in particular stand out that we will not soon forget.

The Bottle Boat
First, the Plastiki - a boat made entirely of plastic bottles – sailed across the Pacific to bring awareness to the problem of ocean pollution and show the potential of plastic recycling. Along its route from San Francisco to Sydney, the Plastiki made an effort to pass by the Great Pacific Garbage Patch – a Texas-sized (or larger by some estimates) mass of marine litter floating in the central North Pacific Ocean.

The Great Oil Disaster of 2010
Before the Plastiki reached Sydney, another “dirty water” event stole the world’s attention. This of course was the BP Oil Disaster, the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry, which resulted in the loss of 11 lives and perhaps as much as 185 million gallons of crude oil being released into the Gulf of Mexico.

What is being done to keep the water of our world clean? What can you do to help? Share this post on FaceBook, Twitter or send one of those old-fashioned emails to your friends.

If you really want to do more than sing about that dirty water, sign the Blog Action Day petition below and help keep our planet clean!

Petitions by Change.org|Start a Petition »

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