Baynanza 2009

Baynanza is the annual Biscayne Bay cleanup day hosted by Miami-Dade County that coincides with Earth Day.  Over 8,000 volunteers came out to cleanup the shores of South Florida's beautiful coast line.   This was obviously my first year and I loved it!  It was very gratifying to get out there and do something that had an immediate impact on the environment.  And of course I got the cool t-shirt shown above.  (which was the winner of a local high school design contest) Each volunteer was given 2 bags and an certain area to concentrate on.  Imagine, 8,000 people filling 2 bags each... that's a lot of trash that is off our shores!!  There were 29 different sites to sign up for so there was something close to everyone.  

I signed up for the Black Point Marina site.   Here they are getting everybody assembled. 

Since I was by myself, I got paired up with a Cub Scout group.  yippie.  Actually they did pretty good and I was impressed they picked up trash almost the whole time.

Here are some shots I took along the way.  All this pics were taken with my iphone so please excuse the quality.

Me and my trash bag....

The reward for it all was making it all the way to the end of Black Point and enjoying the awesome view!

Here is a little cub scout that was following me...

I liked how this last picture came out.  It really symbolizes what the day was about.  

Trash and nature.