Tuesday 8 May 2012

Lost Soles



After category four hurricane Ivan hit the Cayman Islands in 2004, causing $18 billion worth of damage in total, the amount of shoes washed up upon the shore of the islands increased dramatically.

Having met and fallen in love on Grand Cayman, a 'crazy about recycling' couple Wolfgang Brocklebank and his fiance, Giovanna Inselmini made it their mission to draw people's attention to the need for a solution for ocean debris.



One day, on one of their favourite beaches near Mortiz on the East End of the island, the couple collected a staggering 333 shoes - in just four hours on a small 200-meter stretch of beach.

No two shoes were a perfect pair.

The couple selected a dead tree on the South Sound road,  just south of Seven Mile Beach to ensure as many tourists and locals as possible would see it. They began tacking shoes to the tree, in order to make their statement.

Soon, other people began leaving more and more odd, discarded shoes by the tree. Wolfgang and Giovanna decided to place a metal box at the base of the tree, with nails and a hammer, letting people carry on the new tradition. And so the Cayman Shoe Tree was born.


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