Margo Pellegrino, 43, is paddling 2,500 km from Seattle to San Diego to raise awareness about four key issues facing our oceans:acidification, plastic pollution, overfishing and pollution from storm water runoff.
She left Seattle on July 3rd in her Pueo OC-1 canoe and expects to reach San Diego in August.A hundred paddlers in OC-1 canoes and dragon boats joined Margo as left Seattle, but since then she’s been paddling solo.Averaging about 45 to 90 km a day, she reached Oregon yesterday.It hasn’t been easy and she’s already had her share of big swells and rough beach landings, including one where she capsized and lost her spray jacket.Nonetheless it sounds like she’s having a great time and her blog is full of stories about the kindness of strangers and the beauty of the places she’s travelling through.
Margo’s working with the Blue Frontiers Campaign, an organization that provides tools to raise awareness of the solution-oriented marine conservation community.She’s stopping in communities along the way, speaking about the ocean environment and meeting with people who share her passion for the sea.
This is her fourth epic canoeing journey in as many years.Last year she travelled along the Gulf Coast from Miami, Florida to New Orleans. In 2008 she paddle from NJ and through the Chesapeake and in 2007 3,500 km from Miami Florida to Camden Maine.
Margo sums up the drive behind her paddling journey as her “way to call attention to the need for healthy oceans.” Her philosophy is guided by being a mother of two and she embraces the importance of being a role model as well as an environmental steward.She states that “While not every thing we do, every decision we make or action we take carries the weight of the world upon it, it does carry a lot more that most people think it does. Every one of us is also a living example for every one else around us – and none more so than the children around us.”A great message we can all agree with.
