‘Treasure hunt’ cleans up after annual Florida party
BOCA RATON, Fla. – A day after the annual Boca Bash on April 28, Brook Crist took to Lake Boca for a day of “treasure hunting,” as she likes to call it.
The treasure? The dozens of gallons of garbage left behind in the water by this year’s boaters at the bash, the once-a-year water party held on the last Sunday in April in Boca Raton.
Crist was at the event, but not in the way most others were.
She drove there to fly her drone overhead to capture footage of the water from above, to compare it to her footage from the next day, when she’d fly the drone again. She’s since uploaded a vlog of the “treasure hunt,” featuring both clips.
“There were hundreds of boats, and like thousands of people anchored everywhere,” Crist said. “The next day, when we went back to clean it up, there were maybe, max, 10 to 12 boats.”
For the last five years, Crist and her now-husband, Viktor Hluben, have cleaned up the lake after the bash.
The pair are content creators with social media pages dedicated to fishing, diving, cooking and life outside. Crist has more than 295,000 subscribers on her YouTube page, Brook Crist Outdoors; and Viktor, with Landshark Outdoors, has more than 725,000.
“Boca is very local to me,” Crist said. “It’s basically our local sandbar. So as far as cleaning up, I feel like I’m cleaning up my local waters.”
Each time she and Hluben go, she said, there are others there hunting for treasure. But rarely is there ever anybody helping clean up the trash.
“We basically just go wanting to help clean up our environment, because there is a lot of trash after that event,” Crist said. “Hopefully, we can make a little dent in it.”
This year, Crist’s friend joined them. With masks, snorkels and fins on, and with mesh bags in hand, the trio collected 10 gallons of garbage.
“We went around just picking up all the trash that we could find,” Crist said.
Mostly, it was bottles and cans. But more than 10 pairs of sunglasses, about two dozen e-cigarettes and a cellphone made the cut, too. Beaded necklaces in an assortment of colors and a dollar bill topped the piles of trash. “I always like to call it treasure hunting, but as far as treasures go, there are not many to be found,” Crist said.
The amount of trash picked up the day after Boca Bash was typical, she said. Every year, she and Hluben pick up anywhere from two to three 5-gallon buckets of garbage left behind.
But this year, Lake Boca’s in the spotlight after a video posted online by a group known as Wavy Boats, showing a group of boaters dumping two cans full of trash into the ocean, went viral. The video, posted on April 29, has since been featured on national television news shows and in international media reports.
The two teens filmed dumping trash in the video uploaded by Wavy Boats have turned themselves in to authorities, a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokesperson said Friday. The Miami Herald reports they have been charged with felonies.
“The illegal dumping of trash in our marine environment is a serious crime, and we worked closely with the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office to determine appropriate charges,” FWC Chairman Rodney Barreto said.
“Callous disregard for Florida’s environment will not be tolerated.”
Crist is glad the video has gone viral. “It’s making a lot of people very aware,” she said. “And I hope that it makes people think twice again before they do something like this, because it does happen every year.”