Image by Frank Carini. United States. The seed that became a nonprofit ocean advocacy group was planted on a cold January day in 2006, when Dave McLaughlin was told he couldn’t park on a particular road near Salve Regina University and the Cliff Walk. He and a friend had been surfing at a popular Newport, R.I., spot at the end of Ruggles Avenue. It was a busy day in that section of the city, famous for The Breakers and other Gilded Age monuments, as three events were taking place, including one at Salve Regina University, so the surfers had to park two blocks away on Shepard Avenue.