Demonstrators planned to gather at Santa Monica beach Saturday as part of a worldwide protest against offshore oil drilling, according to the Surfrider Foundation. The local “Hands Across the Sand” event in the wake of the Gulf oil spill was expected to draw hundreds of people to the shore just north of Santa Monica Pier at noon.

It will be part of 650 such events worldwide. The clean-energy advocates behind the happening, including Surfrider, Heal the Bay, Sierra Club and more, state:

“In Santa Monica, hundreds of Southern Californians dressed in black to represent the tar balls that wash ashore, will link hands and draw a physical line in the sand to bring awareness to the dangers of offshore oil drilling.”

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