A Fine Day for an Oyster Planting

On Monday morning a new non-profit organization was born - Plant A Fish - an awareness raising campaign for ocean restoration. In honor of his grandfather's 100th birthday this Friday June 11th, Fabien Cousteau kicked off his new campaign that aims to educate, protect and ultimately restore distressed bodies of water around the world. Being a New Yorker, Fabien wanted to begin in New York Harbor, which amazingly once held the largest oyster population in the world!

We gathered early for the ferry to Governors Island, where Fabien would then host a media conference, followed by a dive with students from the Urban Assembly Harbor School, a very unusual school located Bushwick, Brooklyn that teaches marine biology and ultimately helps grow future marine stewardship among NYC public school kids.

My role that morning was mission critical!

Governors Island was especially eye opening to me. Located about a half mile into the Harbor from Battery Park in Lower Manhattan, its had a 200 year history of military use. Most recently it was home to the Coast Guard. It's now a island for New Yorkers to enjoy.

Fabien had a brief kick off for the media, where he educated us on why oysters are important, and a larger perspective of why healthy water bodies are crucial to our planet's health. "There is no planet B," he said.

As 'photo op' locations go, this one was pretty incredible.

Then Fabien and a handful of Harbor School students suited up and went on a dive in the Harbor.



On the ferry ride back to Manhattan, a French journalist commented about New York being such a maritime city. I hadn't really thought of that before, but on Monday it sure seemed like it was.

That evening I met up with Stacy and Jason and the kids for Connor's 10 year old birthday. We first went to the new park that just opened on the far southern pier of the waterfront in Brooklyn Heights. I felt like Alice in Wonderland as just the week before, it was concrete, and was suddenly transformed into this green oasis.

Jason kept texting me because I was wandering around, somewhat dazed, trying to find them (I am also navigationally challenged on land). Looking at the bikes and runners and walkers on the waterfront, I suddenly had the perspective of this being one of those cool cities like Vancouver or Madison, Wisconsin that truly incorporates healthy recreation into city life. I had no idea New York could actually be this. I smiled when I saw a new location for water taxis to Governors Island.

When I finally found them, Stacy and I gave each other an incredulous look. "New York is getting better", we both said.