And so it began........(Loads of Photos Inside)

Boy life started moving fast after that trip! For six whole years my career had been centered around marine biology and fisheries work, but all of a sudden I was getting sucked into this waste portal. Plastic this! plastic that! Lord knows I tried to fight it! I was scared that my love for being in the water and studying fish and coral reefs would be taken away, but the more I learned about this issue the more I wanted to create change. It was a blessing in disguise, I'd finally found the direction for my career in marine pollution of all things.

A few months after I returned from the trip I got a call from the Bahamas National Trust (BNT), a well established NGO that focuses on protecting the marine and terrestrial environment of The Bahamas. They wanted me to be the keystone speaker at one of their public meetings.  For years I had been going to the trust meetings
to listen to scientists present their research. I used to sit eagerly in the front row, waiting for my mind to be blown by doctor's and masters of marine science as they relayed their scientific work and findings to the audience. It never crossed my mind that one day I would be up on the exact same podium delivering my message to a local audience. And so it began... I was given a platform to educate the general public about plastic pollution and my goals for creating a plastic free Bahamas. The crowd was receptive and had loads of questions regarding my topic. This was the first of many talks for me and it would not have been possible if it weren't for those amazing folks over at the BNT who believed in me and set the whole thing up. Check out some photos from my talk circa September 2012 below: (photo cred: BNT)