Tourist ‘disgusting’ over dirty find at beach oasis
A tourist visiting Bali, Indonesia, said she was “disgusted” by the amount of garbage floating in the ocean waters, where many vacationers spend their days snorkeling and swimming.
“I was disgusted,” Sara Walsh, 25, of Massachusetts, told SWNS News.
“It felt disgusting to jump into the water. I stayed in for maybe 30 seconds,” Walsh added.
Walsh owns a sustainable swimwear company and visited the Indonesian island for a business trip to the factory where her swimwear line is made.
Bali is a resort island known for its surfing and volcanoes and is home to thousands of Hindu temples.
Walsh told the outlet that she was visiting Bali with her 21-year-old brother Shane in April and was on a boat snorkeling when they encountered the floating debris.
“This was our first stop on the snorkeling trip. They took us to an area where you could see manta rays,” Walsh said.
“The sea surface was obviously covered with garbage and plastic. But the tour guides didn’t seem to see a problem with that and automatically started getting people in the water.”
Walsh told SWNS that most vacationers and tourists jumped off the boat to go swimming and snorkeling, but “they got back on the boat very quickly because the water was so gross.”
The entrepreneur told Fox News Digital Thursday that she founded her swimwear brand Siren Swim Co. “with a mission to help clean up the oceans.” All of our suits are made from recycled plastic.”
“I decided to set up a factory in Bali because I had heard how bad the sea pollution was there, but actually seeing it with my own eyes was horrifying. I took the video in the hope that it could raise awareness and persuade more people to take action to clean up our oceans,” she added in a comment emailed to Fox News Digital.
Walsh described that other snorkeling hotspots that guides took the group to weren’t as devastated, but emphasized that “it’s really awful that we’re the cause of all this garbage in our oceans.”
“I especially feel for the animals in the sea that all our garbage is exposed to,” she told SWNS.
