Our experience with the three 'Hands Across the Sand' locations on St. Pete Beach, from the public beach to the Sirata Beach Resort and past the Tradewinds Resort, was thrilling. Hundreds of participants at both the Sirata and Tradewinds were able to link. We reached out to the public beach to the south, and could have stretched down to the public beach site with a few bullhorns to stretch the crowd apart.
It was the most amazing, incredible thing I’ve ever seen. The energy was electric, and when our own long-time volunteer Marea Dorian of Dorian Photographics flew past in her red helicopter to film us, the crowd went wild! Above the red helicopter was an airplane pulling the sign of our alliance: "Love Tourists Not Drilling" – prompting more cheers from the crowd and providing a special photo op among the many photo ops that day.
This article appears in Feb 10-16, 2010.