The "Saving Sea Life" Story

Artistic Mural by David Dunleavy in Stone Harbor, New Jersey

It was an ordinary day.  Heading toward Stone Harbor, New Jersey on CR-657.  Passed under the Garden State Parkway and know we will soon smell the salty air.  Just before we passed over the final bridge heading toward 96th Street I noticed something new on the wall of a marina to my left.  There, covering the top thirty feet of the hundred foot long cement block wall was one of the neatest murals of sealife I have ever seen.  

Photo taken from the book "Stone Harbor - One Hundred
Years of The Seashore At Its Best" showing David at work.

The two beautiful marlin stretching across the wall, swimming with the greenish dolphin fish is remark- able.  But what is most impressive is the fact that it was painted in such large scale of the side of a giant marina.  A day or two later, while relaxing with my family in a rental unit in Stone Harbor, I was reading a coffee-table book titled "Stone Harbor - One Hundred Years Of The Seashore At Its Best."  As I was leafing through the colorful book, there was a photo of David Dunleavy painting the mural on the wall of the marina.  Seems David is a renowned mural painter who has used his skills to help save the sea life along the New Jersey coast.  David has painted both the marina painting as well as another wall on the side of the Harbor Square Mall.  This painting is  a 22 foot by 175 foot mural which features two humpback whales and a sea turtle.  The book was printed a year ago and as of that date he had painted 62 murals throughout the world.  

Humpback whales as seen on the wall of the Harbor Square Mall.

Exotic places such as the Bahamas, Islamorada and Australia feature paintings from this talented artist.  David began his career in mural painting because of the movie Jaws.  His older brother had taken him to see the movie and instead of being scared to death, he became fascinated with sharks.  He eventually took to scuba diving and realized he could use his artist skills to help save the destruction of our sea life.  Working on murals the size that David tackles doesn't allow for working in grids.  He has to accomplish his work free-hand with the use of a bucket lift.  The photo shown in the coffee-table book has David working on the marlin with the use of a paint gun.  Unbleievable!  David contributes a portion of his fee for his work to Shark Savers which is an organization dedicated to improving the image of the shark.  A real talent is putting his talent to work to help save sea life.  Those who travel to Stone Harbor in the future will get to witness the skills and talent of this great artist.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.