Hands Across the Sand

Today, Saturday, June 26, just before noon, folks began gathering
to take part in the Hands Across the Sand event. Six locations on
Florida's Space Coast had registered, organized events planned. This
writer took part in one at Hightower Beach, in Satellite Beach. Below
is a photo of our group. Additional groups formed in Indialantic, Canova,
Indian Harbor Beach, Melbourne Beach, and Cocoa Beach. Lori Wilson
Park had 1,500 participants, which may be the Space Coast record.

The Hands Across the Sand movement took off on Saturday, Feb 13th,
2010 as a statewide gathering against offshore oil drilling. Participants
from 60 towns and cities and over 90 beaches within Florida joined hands
to protest the Florida Legislature and US Congress efforts to lift the
ban on oil drilling off Florida's coasts.

On Friday, Surfrider Foundation posted that 873 total events had been
organized, with 774 of them in the U.S.. A total of 530 cities, in all
50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, were registered.
In addition, 99 organized events, outside the U.S., were planned. 91
cities, in 35 countries, would be taking part. By this morning, a Twitter
update announced the number had risen to 910 planned events. Whoa.


The above couple are obviously veterans of the movement, their shirts
being souvenirs of the Feb., 2010 Hands Across the Sand. They, like I,
were a little disappointed that this crowd was quite small. We agreed that
more or better advertising is needed. Perhaps some posters next year...