Images from Opposite Sides of Cook Inlet - Hands Across the Sands (and the Sea)

Hands Across the Sand, a global project creating and connecting images of people from around the world, showing solidarity for realistic solutions to the enormous problems highlighted by the devastation of the Gulf oil spill, occurred Saturday. I wanted to go to the Pt. Woronzof event, but had a lot to do in my garden. I wanted to go to Anchorage anyway in the evening, to listen to the California youth symphony playing that night, so two trips to Anchorage in one day made no sense. My Valley-to-Anchorage carbon footprint is big enough already, even if I drive a diesel Golf that gets 50 miles to a gallon.

I'm trying to get people to stretch their hands across the sands and seas and toobz, though. We don't have much time.

Here's Shannyn Moore, at the Hands Across the Sands event on Turnagain Arm, holding up a jar of oil-mixed-with-sand from Prince William Sound, a 20-year-old relic of the Exxon Valdez tragedy.

The oil was collected last year, but if you went back to where they got it, there is a lot more there. And it will still be there, under the sand and rocks of the shores of places like Knight Island, Green Island, Eleanor Island and Sphinx Island for generations.

Right across Cook Inlet from where Shannyn and a hundred or so people held hands last Saturday, Erin McKittrick, Bretwood Higman and their young child, Katmai, are finishing up research on the ground in the areas around the proposed Chuitna coal mine. This week, they'll be returning to this side of the Inlet, then up to the Healy area, to study the Usabelli coal mines up close. Here's Hig with Katmai:
Three weeks ago, British ocean rower, Roz Savage, finished the Pacific portion of her solo row around the planet. When she finished, I e-mailed congratulations to her. Roz's mom e-mailed me back immediately, and soon Roz got in touch. I suggested she find a way to connect with Erin and Hig, as they all are involved in remarkable achievements involving muscle power and raising global awareness on ecological and environmental issues.

Now they are in touch, with Roz and Erin e-mailing back and forth, possibly preparing to work together in 2011. Now, that's hands across the sands, the Inlet, and the Pacific.

Speaking of hands, here are Roz's after a long day of rowing:
And here's Erin, holding a found glass fishing ball in her hands, contemplating a planet where people care:
images - top two - AKM; third - erin; fourth - Roz Savage; bottom - hig