Day 24....More trawling

July 3rd, 2009
29 38.39N, 162 26.35W
3256 Miles traveled

We continue to motor/sail North, not really sure why since the Dateline is west of us! But it is not my job to question the Captain….I am but a lowly deck hand and videographer on this adventure!

We have been collecting debris while we travel, if it is within our pole net's reach and we see it fast enough, we get the nets over the side and retrieve it. Captain Charlie is an expert at this technique, he has many more hours of practice than the rest of us. When going 7 knots, the debris passes pretty quickly and there is a finesse to this "dip and grab" type of collection!!!

We did manage to grab a large Styrofoam float, similar to the floats I have found on the beaches around Kahaku.

I still haven’t been able to grab my desired Hagfish trap.
To see what I am talking about go to "video logs", on the right hand side of this page and watch part 6 for the "hag trap" reference. Jeff swears to me I will get my chance since he has seen them out here on his other voyages! I would love to show where these traps on Kahuku's beaches come from…..at least prove they are out here discarded, floating around in the NSG (Northern Subtropical Gyre)!

I am soooo tired of catching mahi mahi…we caught our 11th fish today after pulling up the foam float. Apparently mahi mahi love to hang out under floating debris.

In fact when we saw the 1st ghost net Wednesday, there were quite a few mahi mahi seen under the net, but they scattered when we got in for our dive. Why can't it be an ahi or wahoo that like to hang out with garbage, we all need a dinner "change-up"!!!!!

I did have an interesting moment today, when Charlie noticed a fish had taken the bait on one of the fishing poles we had off the back of the boat, I step up to reel it in. I noticed all the line has been taken out and the moment I picked up the pole....the line snapped. I will never know what it was, a big ahi maybe, I can dream can't I?!?! But I now have a “one that got away" story!

We ran another 2 hour trawl in the evening and again I was disgusted. This trawl's result clearly showed that we are now getting into the Gyre. Still not the high concentration zone, but into where the plastic begins to dominate the samples. The amount of plastic I am seeing between the trawl results and the net collection is really starting to paint a vivid picture. Plastic can be found ANYWHERE in the Pacific Ocean. It may not be large pieces or even fragments barely visible to the naked eye! But it is here....everywhere.

We found a baby Octopus in the trawl along with several fish that, our "on board" Ichthyologist, Christiana could not initially identify. For all of you that have dove with me you know my fondness of these 8 legged creatures!

So based on the result of our last trawl (2 ft wide by 1 mile long surface sample of the Pacific), I don’t want to even imagine what we would find if we trawled with a 10 ft opening net as opposed to our 2 feet net. The thought is frightening. Why have we, mankind, let this plastic problem get so out of control? We must find a solution before it's too late....some days I feel it already is!!!!!