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Organizations

Hillary Hauser

Heal the Ocean

ocean-related adventure travel, and about ocean science,

politics and news.

Taking up bodyboarding relatively late in life at the

age of 42 (13 years ago) this has given me the ability to

experience and feel the ocean in an entirely new way -

on the edge, where the sea meets shore. Through my

associations with surfers, too, I have gone to some

incredible places in the world, and learned more about

wind, waves, reefs, weather, swell - things oceanographic

- than I ever have in my diving career, which I continue

to this day.

Recently I wrote an underwater adventure article on

Komodo Island, Indonesia. My latest diving project is

the most fun one, yet: to dive the Big Wave reefs of the

world - Waimea, Todos Santos, Pipeline, Jaws,

Cloudbreak and Mavericks - for Surfer’s Journal. (I’ve

done all but Jaws and Mavericks, which will wait until

the sea calms down again (next spring). Steve Pezman’s

take on what I’m doing is “Scrounging in the basement

of skyscrapers.”

What have you done for surfing?

I would like to think that my formation in August

1998 of Heal the Ocean, a citizens action group in Santa

Barbara, might be my greatest contribution to surfing.

Or so I hope! Within a year of its formation, Heal the

Ocean has facilitated the homeowners at the Rincon to

abandon their old, polluting septic tanks, to get on sewer

lines, at a cost of $2.9 million. When this sewering is

done, surfers at the Rincon will be able to surf without

fear of getting sick from bacteria, which has been a

complaint here for far too long. Heal the Ocean has also

facilitated other beachfront homeowners to abandon their

septic systems (they do not belong in the sand, along the

Forming Heal the Ocean

With Heal the Ocean supporters at a special event, Hammond's Reef, Santa Barbara