Student Teaching in Sayulita, Mexico: Punta Sayulita Surf Competition

Our last weekend in Sayulita also happened to be the Punta Sayulita Classic, a paddle boarding and surf competition. It’s supposed to be a really big deal and surfers come from all over to participate. Even though I’ve seen a lot of surfing (and even tried it) during my time in Sayulita, it was really cool to see an actual competition. Luckily there were lots of waves on the competition days!

The competition on Saturday!

A high tech video camera mini helicopter.

I have no idea what they do with the video, but how cool!

CVIS was also involved leading up to the competition. James Pribram, a professional surfer, is so passionate about the environment that he has founded his own foundation, ECO-Warriro. His foundation brings about awareness and change in the environment through education and participation in preserving the environment. The day before the competition, James Pribram came to CVIS and led the school in an effort to clean the beach. We walked up and down the beach for 2 hours. It was hot and brutal at times, but the students got really into it. Towards the end when the beach was pretty clean and trash was hard to come by, one of my students started walking up to beachgoers asking for garbage. Now that’s dedication!

Students gearing up for a fun day of beach clean up!

Even though it looks pretty, this is sewage water

and leads to the beach. You don't want to step in it!

Every year ECO-Warrior also holds a contest. This year all of the students in 4^th grade and up participated by writing essays answering the question: “If you were president what would you do to bring about to keep our oceans and beaches clean from pollution?” The ideas students had were absolutely amazing. And the question was so relevant to them because they all see the pollution problems first hand living in a beach community. On Saturday night the winners of the contest were announced at the beach party and G-Love and Special Sauce concert, and the students got to come up on stage in front of everyone. All of the students were overjoyed and it was so great to see them recognized for all of their hard work.