DISCOVERY Vessel Aventura Snorkel Cleanup

On Wednesday, August 26, 2026, The International SeaKeepers Society partnered with DISCOVERY Vessel Aventura for another volunteer snorkel cleanup. Six volunteers joined SeaKeepers’ Community Engagement team at Matheson Hammock Marina, where we boarded D/V Aventura with Captain Bill Fernandez. We headed out to Nixon Beach Sandbar in Biscayne Bay, a popular party spot for boaters on the weekends, resulting in litter like bottles and cans, as well as personal items that fall overboard polluting the sandbar and seagrass. Our volunteers grabbed their masks, snorkels, fins, and mesh bags, and hopped in the shallow water to explore the sandbar and search for debris. Over the shallowest part of the sandbar, our volunteers didn’t see much trash, but spotted lots of critters like Scrawled cowfish, juvenile barracudas, and checkered pufferfish. These animals often camouflage well with the ocean floor and the seagrass, and use this habitat for shelter and food. After about an hour, we filled up a bucket with debris like aluminum cans, glass bottles, and cardboard boxes. In the deeper water over the seagrass, our volunteers found a lot of trash, including hats, visors, sunglasses, masks and goggles, and tons of glass bottles and aluminum cans. We brought all the trash onboard and placed it in buckets to let any critters escape before disposing of it in a garbage bag. Our volunteers saw one baby octopus leave a glass bottle they picked up, and after emptying the bucket we found several crabs that had made their may out of the debris – a great reminder that marine life are using our litter as shelter, and we must be careful when cleaning it up. In two hours, our volunteers removed 16 pounds of trash from the sandbar and seagrass, leaving this environment a bit cleaner for the local marine life to enjoy. We are so grateful to all of our volunteer snorkelers, as well as D/V Captain Bill Fernandez, who made the whole trip possible!