Helping the world one Pebble at a time!

This past weekend I had an experience of a lifetime. On December 6th an oil tanker was punctured off the west coast of Korea. 66,000 barrels of crude oil spilled out into the ocean and washed up along 35 kilometres of coastline. Most of the people who live along that coast are fishermen or are supported by the tourism from the beaches. However, with the spill all of these people have been devastated. So, in hopes of helping in some way I went with 3 of my friends to volunteer with the clean up mission.

It was an adventure. We woke up on Saturday morning around 6AM and made it just in time to grab the 7:20 bus headed north. We weren't really sure where we were going as we all forgot our guide books (I know sounds like my home friends!) which made it more interesting. The bus we were on was definitely the milk run. We had one transfer were we managed to find a huge dollar store and got some supplies. We then arrived in Taean. We knew we had to get to the city hall in order to get to one of the cleaning sites. So we got a cab and we knew we were in the right place when we pulled into the parking lot and saw tonnes of relief supplies like water and food. We managed to find a few people who spoke a little English and with many actions and laughs we got across that we wanted to help and that we had rubber gloves and masks but that all we needed were boots and a bus to one of the sites. We met this one guy who was amazing! He was so funny we managed to figure out that he was a forest firefighter. So he hooked us up with this other guy who spoke English really well and he took us in his car to one of the amazing beaches that have been devastated. For a minute we thought we might be heading there in the back of a huge truck and were pretty psyched!

The drive from Taean to the coast is about 20 minutes and is covered with Ginseng fields. They are wild to see, they look like huge fields of lean-to black tents. We discovered from the guy who was driving us that 17,000 volunteers were helping all along the coast on that day and there was 16 different sites where volunteer missions are set up (were not sure that we got all these facts straight as there was still a slight language barrier, so don't quote me :) ). Once at the site we were set up with boots and coveralls and managed to book a 'convention' which is another word for a bed and breakfast for the night. Once all the logistics were figured out we headed down to the beach. It wasn't as shocking as I was gearing up for but that's because a lot of the oil has been buried by the tides coming in and out. However, the entire coast line is stained black and the smell of oil was unavoidable. The most shocking part of the entire experience was when we were showed what to do to help. Basically, we were given a bag of rags and showed to where you dig up oil covered rocks and then start cleaning each rock/pebble one at a time. It blew my mind that with all the technology in the world that this was the way to clean up this mess. Because of the tides coming in and out all the oil has been covered up or pushed back out to Sea. Although, in more murky areas in the bays you can see the oil sitting on top of the sand.

So, we found a good spot on the beach and in the sun and began to scrub rocks. We were surrounded by hundreds of Koreans doing the same thing. Many people came up to us as we stood out like a sore thumb. We were four of the few people wearing white coveralls and everybody else was in blue (representing Seoul) or yellow (representing Incheon). We met some great guys who we are going to stay in contact with and posed for many pictures with curious Koreans. After a few hours of this we were greeted again by our driver and told that we had to get going as the day was over.

Back on the road we travelled down a few sea side roads to our amazing beach house. We had a cute Korean style bed and breakfast. The owner made us and everybody else staying there some great soup and other essential Korean food like Kimchie and rice. It was fantastic! So tasty! We settled in for the night and managed to buy some Soju, beer and some mystery meat that the boys insisted we get as we had a BBQ.

The next day we cleaned right outside of where our bed and breakfast was. So we just walked down to the volunteer site and got geared up again. It was another gorgeous piece of coast with cliffs, huge rocks and an amzing blue colour to the water. We were again greeted by many amazing Koreans who were very thankful for our help. We packed it in around one in the afternoon and started our journey home.

It was a great experience and although I know our contribution was so very minor in the grand scheme of things I know we made a difference.