Day 25....You can't get it all, its everywhere!

July 4, 2009
Position: 31 27.19N, 164 07.75W
3403 mile traveled

Today has been a day of "reflection"....the water’s shimmering surface due to no wind and in my memories of the amount of debris and plastic back on my 1st voyage in the summer of 2002. To see how fast and how much worst the problem has grown in seven years is astounding!

We have been virtually becalmed all day on this sea of glass, maybe 3 knot wind. So we have been motoring, on course, to our destination sample area. Only diverting when spotted debris warrants a temporary change of direction to go pick up whatever may be floating in the blue abyss. Believe me we had plenty of opportunities to change course. There was a 5 minute time span where we found 4 plastic fishing floats, numerous plastic bottles, rope and other smaller fragments.

All in all today we scooped up 12 plastic floats and about 2 dozen other odd pieces of plastic debris. I can’t even begin to count how many pieces we saw but were too small for the pole nets or too far out of reach off the boat. No matter how hard we try,
we just couldn’t seem to make a dent in the problem, being just one boat, it feels impossible! But with every piece we gather it's one less to break down, adding to pollution of our Ocean!

One of the other very critical elements to understanding this issue is the "visual" aspect. Many people want to see a picture or wonder why we don't see it on "Google Earth" or by satellite photos…it doesn't really "look" or work that way. Now remember we are not even in what they call the high concentration zone yet, but what we can see from the deck's edge within visual range of 30 ft maybe and 3 feet off the water, small to medium size fragments drifting by. At a rate of 10 pieces per minute, according to Nicole who measured the rate today and that was only from one side of the boat. Not counting the large floats, containers, nets, ropes and the many other types of debris that can be seen from "further" away.
When I went and sit up on the boom to get a higher vantage point for spotting bigger pieces, the first thing I noticed was I could no longer see the small fragments. So if you are on the deck of 300 ft ship like a tanker, you will not even see the real problem. Hence all the nay-sayer!!! This is a problem that needs to be addressed "up-close and personal"!!!


Along with our pole nets we have also been trawling. Our manta trawls today were the highest plastic concentration we have seen yet on this trip…and in my case the heaviest I have ever seen! Even when we were in the middle of the "trash vortex" in the Gyre during the 2002 voyage and today we are still way outside of what is considered the "Center".

Each picture is from a separate 2 hour trawls covering 1 meter wide by 6 miles long. The white, green, red, and light blue are plastic bits. The dark blue is jellies and the brown is assorted plankton organisms. From my perspective and what I saw before.....this problem has expanded 100 times in the seven years since I first saw the plastic. Very disheartening, we must put a stop to this!

I want to leave you with something beautiful, July 4th's sunset. A reminder of why we must fight to save our Oceans
........Our Planet!!!!