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Other Ocean Voices>>

A Creation from a Teacher Who Makes the Ocean Her Classroom

From Tragedy Springs a Way to Celebrate
the Ocean's Gifts While Giving Back

I would like for The Ocean Registry® to become a major catalyst for promoting ocean conservation and education worldwide. —Lina Virzintas

My inspiration for The Ocean Registry® came from a combination of my greatest passions—water, the ocean and my children—and a tragedy that deeply impacted me.

My family has had a summer cottage near Lake Michigan for generations. I swam in the same waters that my parents and their parents swam in and my children now enjoy. Our family has taken care of this lake, its beach and its surrounding ecosystem for years, often cleaning up litter from its waters and shores. That beach and those waters are a part of my history and I wanted a way to dedicate those waters to my family and children.

Lina Virzintas

I also love to be in the ocean, to snorkel and scuba, because I am fascinated by ocean life. Living in Illinois, however, makes it hard to be a part of the ocean as often as I'd like. So I wanted to create a means for everyone to be closer to the ocean no matter where they live and to inspire those who rarely think about the ocean to embrace it.

And I wanted to create a way to give back, to help protect our planet and its natural resources. I have seen my beach and my Lake Michigan waters change throughout my lifetime as the amount of garbage on the beach and floating in the waters has increased. I have also become increasingly aware of the environmental issues that face our planet and global ocean. It was important for me to create a business with a serious ecological mission. And as I love my children, I also wanted to be a part of a movement that makes the planet better for my kids and future generations.

Then in 2002, a terrible accident happened that led me to combine these goals. Two brothers, both close family friends since childhood, set out on a fishing trip on Lake Michigan to catch some perch for Easter lunch the next day and never returned. The Lake County sheriff's search and rescue team spent the first days searching for them, but in the frigid waters of Lake Michigan that time of year, the rescue mission soon turned into a recovery effort. For weeks, divers searched for a boat and for my friend's bodies to no avail. The lack of closure, of not knowing what happened to my dear friends, deeply affected me. I set out on recovery missions every weekend to search for signs of their boat, to find them and bring them home.

Weeks later, divers found their boat at the bottom of Lake Michigan, a few hundred feet from shore. Family and friends were faced with the sad but long-awaited knowledge of what happened to the young men. These two brothers drowned after their boat took on water and rapidly sank in 34-degree Lake Michigan waters. Two months after their disappearance, my friends' bodies were recovered from the lake and family and friends were finally given closure to the tragic event.

I went out to the location where their boat sank and left a wreath of flowers there. I felt sad as I watched the flowers float away on the current. I wanted to honor my friends and the Lake County search and rescue divers who spent countless days in freezing waters to bring our friends home. I needed a way to officially dedicate those waters in a way that was tangible and would not float away. And I instinctively knew that other people must feel like I do—that they have a personal attachment to special places in water, not just in the Great Lakes but also the ocean. Thus, the Ocean Registry® was born.

Lina Virzintas

The Ocean Registry® is designed to foster a greater appreciation for the ocean while giving to those who feel an attachment to the ocean a way to dedicate a piece of it as a cherished gift. At www.OceansForMe.com, you can claim a special place in the ocean for yourself or dedicate an oceanic location to a friend or loved one. Once you register a location, your dedicated marine space is marked on the OceansForMe.com 3D Google Ocean map. The registrant receives personalized documents that are sent via e-mail or that can be professionally printed and framed in an eco-friendly gift set made of recycled materials and soy ink. Then, your gift recipient can find your special message to them within their ocean space on our map.

The Ocean Registry® is a creative and unique gift idea that can bring about positive change on our planet by raising awareness of the importance of the ocean in all our lives. In fact, the Registry can help people make the world a better place as it donates a percentage of each parcel registration to nonprofit education and conservation organizations that work to help conserve the ocean, including SeaWeb.

Lina Virzintas

As the Ocean Registry® certificates are circulated around the world and as people visit the OceansForMe website to discover their parcels on the Google Ocean map, my hope is that this inspires people to have a greater connection to the ocean and a desire to explore and learn more about it. In fact, I would like for The Ocean Registry® to become a major catalyst for promoting ocean conservation and education worldwide. A goal of my company is to create interactive educational features on the OceansForMe.com Google Ocean map, where visitors and parcel registrants can learn about the ocean. I hope this website and the Registry can inspire all people to feel like the ocean belongs to them so that more people take part in helping to preserve and protect it.