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Hi, crazy clams!

This is the last of five posts summarizing my Ocean Conservation Journey thus far.

In 2025, my actions in ocean conservation picked up speed. Two more events were important in shaping my Ocean Conservation vision until now.

The first experience was about my work. I organized an aquatic guardian day. In the morning, there were talks on the trip garbage and plastic made from streams and rivers to the sea, and the impact of microplastics on our food chain and health. I showed “Mystic Ocean,” my Ocean Conservation Film, to the public for the first time. In the afternoon, we did a river clean-up. I filmed with my GOPRO and took pictures of the group with my drone. I truly enjoyed organizing and coordinating the event and had a fantastic time.

The second event was discovering mermaiding. Since PADI mermaiding courses were also given at my local diving club, I decided to try them out. To my great surprise, I was completely and utterly thrilled by the experience. Now, I want to develop that aspect more and become a bona fide mermaiding instructor. This mermaiding aspect will be further addressed in a future blog.

Looking back on my journey thus far, I can see a few important elements.

To begin with, a word of caution, however. Of course, it’s easy to look backwards and see the path, and notice what worked and what didn’t. It’s the curse of knowledge. It’s like looking into a funnel by the small end or doing a maze in reverse: of course, it’ll be easy to find the path. It’s just the opposite of moving forward, when the path has yet to be forged and the future lies before you like freshly fallen snow. When you look back, you see all your steps, but when you look forward, there’s nothing to follow.

Looking back, the first thing I noticed was that while online courses, books, and thinking were important in gaining skills and insight, they were secondary to true, live, bodily experiences, such as snorkelling, diving, and meeting people physically. The most rewarding experiences were those involving other people directly, those experiences with a bi-directional person-to-person interaction. In an age of emails, chats, tweets, and posts, this is important to understand and put into practice.

The second thing I observed was that it was important to be aware of the effect the activities had on me, how they made me feel. This gave me a good indication as to whether I was going in the right direction or not. Did I feel comfortable, at ease, enthralled and pumped, or afraid, stressed, overwhelmed, and discouraged? Just as an example, scuba diving still stresses me a bit. There’s a lot of equipment and many things to check and control, while freediving and mermaiding are more natural and less stressful for me. This is probably because I’ve done more snorkelling than scuba diving. To this date, I’ve done only 38 scuba dives. With time, I think that scuba diving will come more naturally.

The third thing I saw was that it’s when I let things unfold organically, without forcing them and with an experimental mindset, that I made the most progress. When I let go of expectations and stopped trying to figure things out only in my head, I grew closer to my calling. I’ve come to realize that activities involving fun, play, and informal in-person relationships energize me. I’d like to bring together mermaiding (a fun and playful activity) with Ocean Conservation (something more serious and important for the future of our planet).

Finally, I want to end on an important note for all my readers. There’s no unique way, no single, best path towards Ocean Conservation. Each person’s journey is legitimate and has its place. There’s no competition and no need for comparison. You can be landlocked (live far from the sea) and be inspired by a NETFLIX documentary on Our Oceans, or you can be a marine biology university professor who has taught and tutored thousands of students. All paths are valid and just as important.

In the last five posts, I’ve shown you my quest for finding out how I can contribute something that is valuable and unique to Ocean Conservation. I hope my posts will inspire you or help you somehow to take Ocean Conservation action.

I wish you the best of luck on your own Ocean Conservation Journey!

Onwards!