Biscayne Bay Island Cleanup with DISCOVERY Yacht Knot Golfing

Overview

On March 2nd, 2025, The International SeaKeepers Society hosted a Biscayne Bay Island Cleanup thanks to the help of DISCOVERY Yacht Knot Golfing. The SeaKeepers Community Engagement team met up with 12 of our 2024-2025 JSKs at Regatta Marina in Miami, where we met up with Captain Joe Zubi and headed to Dinner Key, a popular picnic isle near the marina. Transportation of our team and cleanup resources was made possible thanks to D/Y Knot Golfing and her captain, Joe Zubi, and we offer a sincere thanks for their time and help in making a lasting impact on the health of the Bay. Our team arrived at Dinner Key and despite our efforts in our first island cleanup at this site, the island had again found itself inundated with exorbitant amounts of trash. Our volunteers quickly set to work, spreading out around the island from its shores to mangroves to walking trails and even shallow waters where plenty of both macro and microplastics had found their way into. In addition, our team was able to remove several discarded large items from suffocating the island’s plants and mangroves, including an entire floating dock and a boat engine. The City of Miami Parks and Recreation Department had implemented a Leave No Trace policy on the island earlier in 2024, enforcing that visitors should minimize any and all waste on the island however possible. Despite this, most of the trash we encountered was clearly due to groups of people leaving behind high amounts of wrappers, bottles, and much more. In two and a half hours, our amazing team had removed 187 pounds of trash from Dinner Key and left the shorelines looking significantly cleaner than we had found them. To end our day, we loaded the trash onto our DISCOVERY Yacht and were able to dispose of it on the mainland properly. We give one final thanks to D/Y Knot Golfing, Captain Joe Zubi, and of course our team of JSK volunteers for their hard work and for making this cleanup possible, and we hope to collaborate again to help keep Biscayne Bay clean!