Margo Pellegrino: View from the water

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Our friend, paddler and clean water advocate Margo Pellegrino, shares this report from her remarkable journey. Learn more at her blog, Paddle 4 Blue.

I’ve paddled an outrigger canoe solo along the length of the U.S. Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf coasts. I’ve done this for myself, my community and my two children because I still believe we can make a difference. Our ocean is in crisis, as are our watersheds, our rivers, and the very drinking water on which our lives depend. In an effort to show the connectivity between watershed issues and ocean issues, I plan to paddle, from New York City to New Orleans over the next two summers as a project of Blue Frontier (a 501c3 non-profit ocean conservation organization).

With this upcoming paddle I hope to capture and awaken the spirit of adventure that lies latent in all of us. I plan to share the stories of those I’ve met along our country’s amazing but suffering coastlines with all the folks upstream.

These paddles aren’t just simply a unique way of going from “point A” to “point B” nor are they a floating “media event” repeated over two months in different locations, although that certainly does help drive home the notion that everything we do impacts our precious water on which our lives depend. Over time these paddle adventures meld into a collection of stories of people and their relationship with their special places, and what they hold sacred. Together they make the fabric of this country, connected by water. And it is only together, in our actions and our advocacy, that we can make things better for our watery world and future generations.