Joey Beshore - Director of beach operations

This page is dedicated to Joseph Beshore, our most valuable patroller.

Joey -- has been beyond words. Born in Hawaii -- moved to Costa Rica about ten years ago. Joey is thirty years old and has a wonderful Costa Rican wife and son, a dedicated father and a dedicated surfer he has taken the bull by the horns for STF on the front lines. I have never enjoyed working with someone more in all my life.

Joey collects data for STF everyday, he does not take days off. I give Joey days off when I run the patrol for 90-110 days, but I have to fight with him about it all the time because he does not want to miss a single night on patrol. He does eventually become completely exhausted and I always give him the option when I am running the patrol.

Joey has been confronted by spear guns and machetes, and always has the right strategy to deal with adverse situations, although he did give up the nest to the spear gun ( smart move Joey) he almost always gets the nest secured. We developed a strategy to deal with the spear gun toting poacher, and shut him down. Joey is the most hard-core patroller I have ever had the pleasure of working with. He has to compete with some of Costa Rica's worst poachers.

Joey not only collects crawl data on a daily basis, he also is trained in nest re-location ( 5% of nests) and recovery. Our data is comprehensive because of Joey's tenacity during the rainy season. He is an expert in 5 species of marine turtle due to his continued involvement with STF. We will learn volumes of information about nesting habits of the Chelonia Mydas ( Pacific Green sea turtle) due to Joey's efforts.

Joey is the most motivated person we have, our highest paid employee, he works for about $2 per hour, but his efforts are priceless. Joey and I started doing marine plastic debris removal efforts together back in 1998, we have moved mountains of marine plastic debris out of the nesting area together over the years. We owe alot of our success to Joey's continued efforts as an STF leader.

Joey and I started working together back in '99 cleaning the debris covered beach's of Punta Pargos. We would work in-between surf sessions to remove tons of plastics debris that had built up over many years of neglect. We called it " The plastics corp", and we had allot of good times restoring habitat and sharing many perfect sessions at the numerous reefs that surround Punta Pargos. Soon other surfers would join in and help and the idea grew exponentially.

This was the spark that lite the fire beneath the marine plastics removal movement on Punta Pargos. Now we have three communities and Outward Bound  involved with habitat management, the idea has spread like fire. I believe we now enjoy the cleanest beaches in all of Costa Rica at the end of our yearly clean-up.