The Nanza In The Bay

Saturday was Baynanza! What is Baynanza! Well like the post title suggests, it is a nanza in the bay.

Actually I have no idea why it is called that. I did not name it. I do not see how a bonanza fits in with Baynanza.

But that is not important.

Baynanza is an annual event cooked up by the County Department of Environmental Resource Management.

The idea is to clean up the bay. Of course this can not really be done in one day. To really get the job done, it would take hoardes of volunteers that are out every day, not to mention an armada of boatsto transport all the people, and also look for trash floating in the water. This is not going to happen however.

So the County has a one day blitz, where a lot of people show up and pick up a lot of trash. There are other groups that take it upon themselves to do monthly cleanup efforts on a smaller scale, but even on the islands where this happens there is still A LOT of garbage to be picked up for Baynanza.

Since I volunteered, my job was what it has been for a couple of years. Show up at a site with the boat, and transport volunteers to the cleanup sites. My boat is perfect for beaching. It is a lot like a landing craft. I can park the bow right on the beach of the islands (providing I do not see a bunch of rocks) and the catamaran design means the boat remains on an even keel.

The people then get off the boat, and I head back to the staging area for more people. Or supplies. Or whatever.

At the end of the event, I go back to the islands to transport the volunteers back to the staging area.

Pretty easy really. Show up, transport people and stuff, hang out somewhere on standby in case someone needs to go somewhere OR a cooridnator needs to get somewhere OR more supplies are needed OR some crisis happens. Then when the event is wrapping up, pick up people and supplies and bringthem back to whereever they left from.

And for my efforts I get a cool 2009 Baynanza long sleeve t-shirt. Only boat captians and crew or coordinators can score a long sleeve t-shirt. Everyone else gets a regular short sleeve one. So I am special. People will see my long sleeve t-shirt and think "that asshole has a boat".

All in all - it was a fun filled event. A LOT of garbage was collected. The pile of trash bags was quite impressive - for only a couple of hours of collection.

Ill be there for Baynanza 2010.