June 7th, 2010

Text and photos by DeeVon Quirolo dquirolo@gmail.com  www.reefrelieffounders.com

Key Westers braved the 90 degree noon day sun to take to the street–Duval Street–to join hands and wave handmade signs to express love for the ocean.  Some called for an end to offshore oil.   Residents, business people and even tourists all gathered along Duval Street to join hands at 12:15 am today in a relatively spontaneous event dubbed “Sea to Shining Sea”.   Duval Street runs from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean.   

Realtor Joanne Tarantino stepped out of her office on Lower Duval to take part.  “We’ve all worked so hard to protect our coral reefs.  We paid extra to have the best waste treatment for Key West.  It’s just a shame that this oil spill happened,”  she noted.

Buco Pantelis ran the length of Duval Street capturing it all on video.  “It was really positive,” he noted.   “A good reaction from everyone.   People were shoulder to shoulder at the lower end of Duval and more spread out as you headed toward the other end;  I’d say at least a few hundred people were there.”

Sophia Skoglund, a sophomore at Key West High School, said she had written to President Obama.  Her letter included a special request:  “ I am asking you, as a teenager who should have been worrying about finals and summer plans of going to the beach, as a daughter much like your own, and as someone who wanted you in office to represent the people including myself, to do something about the oil spill. I am not unaware at your own frustration and anxiety in the matter. I feel the same. But I am only 15 and have little say in the world. But I do have a right to say how much I love our earth, and would do anything to protect the mangroves to the fish to the beaches that I am fortunate enough to call home.”