Californians Clean Up Beach in the Nude
Mon Sep 20,11:12 AM ET Add Strange News - AP to My Yahoo!
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. - The weekend cleanup of a popular stretch of beach netted the usual garbage: clothing, beer bottles and rusty nails.
What made the effort at Bonny Doon Beach different from cleanups elsewhere on the California coast were the volunteers: Many were nude.
Members of the Bay Area Naturists club were among those who collected 600 pounds of garbage at one of Northern California's most popular clothing-optional beaches, seven miles north of Santa Cruz.
"The real purpose is not the nakedness, but clearing up the trash," said Jurek Zarzycki, 54, as he scanned for refuse in the buff. "Every piece of garbage we find out here is testimony to somebody being a sloppy jerk."
His group has been helping clean trash from the beach for 17 years. The effort Saturday was part of the 20th annual California Coastal Cleanup Day, during which volunteers removed 750,000 pounds of trash from 700 locations on the state's shorelines.
The nippy weekend weather — it was 60 degrees at Bonny Doons — persuaded some of the naturists to keep their clothes on.
"Too cold," said Bill Todd, 64, a former San Mateo resident who flew out from his home in New York state on business and decided to join old friends in the naturist club. "You don't want the wind going where the wind shouldn't go." |
