Cleaning the beaches of Huatulco...

On October 15th, the community of Huatulco was invited by the Comite de Playas Limpias (Clean Beach Committee) to help clean the “deep sea beaches” of the area, asking those people who enjoy diving and snorkeling along the Huatulco coast to pitch in and do their part.

The Comite de Playas Limpias de Huatulco is a local non-profit organization whose objective is to keep the beaches of Huatulco free of garbage for everyone’s enjoyment and for the preservation of nature. They organize these beach cleaning events at least twice a year, in the Spring and Fall.

It was a great opportunity for our company to bond as a team and get involved with the community...and Saturday turned out to be a great day, albeit an early one as groups gathered at 7:30am, to clean each of Huatulco’s gorgeous beaches.

We were assigned to clean Playa Maguey and, upon first inspection, it didn't really seem all that "dirty"...but as we combed our way through the sand we soon found old serviettes, bottle caps, straws, plastics, glass bottles, beer cans and even an old, discarded blue umbrella!  Even the local fishermen got involved as they pulled on their snorkels and fins to search for any garbage on the ocean floor.

Having said all of this, the beaches in Huatulco are really never that dirty compared to some other places in the world, or even other places in Mexico for that matter. However, like most things in life, it is better to be proactive than reactive and that is exactly what the officials from Parque Nacional and Comite de Playas Limpias are doing by organizing these clean beach gatherings. Just like the “broken windows theory”, if there is a building with a few broken windows and the windows are not repaired, the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows.  Or if litter accumulates on a sidewalk, soon more litter accumulates and eventually people start leaving bags of trash there. The idea is that if we keep the beaches of Huatulco clean, visitors will think twice before throwing their trash just anywhere.

The other thing people here are starting to learn is a phrase that we have practiced over many years while hiking in the Canadian Rockies... "leave no trace". When you leave the beach, take everything with you that you brought that day and leave the beach even a little cleaner than when you arrived.

A special thanks to our good friends Sue and Robbie for waking up early and helping with the clean up.  Also, thank you to the employees of Resort Real Estate Services for making the effort on your day off!