Team @Oceana Joins Nautica in South Beach - by Oceana/Jon Frank

On April 10th Oceana joined Nautica on gorgeous Miami Beach for the Nautica South Beach Triathlon. It was the third time we teamed up at the Nautica South Beach Triathlon to raise awareness about ocean conservation and let me tell you, we couldn’t have asked for a better weekend!

First, there were the conditions – and I don’t mean the clear blue skies and 78 degree Atlantic Ocean water temperature – I mean the six volunteers and nineteen athletes who gave their time and effort to make the event successful for Oceana and for our oceans. Second, there was the support from Nautica, who provided us with tent space, race entries and team jerseys. In addition, Nautica raised $18,693 for Oceana through commemorative merchandise sales over the weekend.

As for the Oceana athletes and volunteers, they were an impressive and diverse group of people, who were responsible for raising over $1,500 dollars and encouraging nearly 200 people to sign up to receive Oceana emails.

Freediving Instructors International (FII), a Miami-based freediving education program founded by world champion freediver Martin Stepanek, contributed the most people to the team.  The F.I.I. folks were joined by a dozen others including Oceana’s Senior Campaign Director Jackie Savitz, Mike Gibaldi from Miami Surfrider, a freshman water polo player from Nova Southeastern University and a team from Burgess Yachts.

As for the excellent volunteers, they included a couple who met while diving, moved to Roatan for two years to dive the Meso-American Reef and now run a solar power supply company. They were joined by a local science teacher, originally from Mexico, and a pair of students from Barry University’s Master of Sports Science program.

Next up for Team Oceana is the Nautica New York City Triathlon, August 7th, where we’ll aim to raise $5,000 for Oceana and get 300-400 more people engaged in our work and activated online, where they can join nearly 500,000 other activists who are helping Oceana keep our oceans clean, abundant and healthy.