Oceanographic Research Vessel Alguita

The ORV Blog has moved!

2010-06-09T10:44:00.001-07:00

The new ORV Blog has moved!

All the old ORV posts, and new posts can be found on Algalita's website at:

http://www.algalita.org/blog/?cat=6

Nearshore Sampling Aboard ORV Alguita

2010-05-15T20:06:00.000-07:00

May 15, 2010

A warm, overcast sky burns into a gentle breeze and sunshine making for a pleasant day of nearshore sampling aboard ORV Alguita. Our work and enjoyment of the ocean scene along the Long Beach coast is, as usual, too often interrupted with balloons. We follow a bundle of silver hearts and an inflated #1 as it drifts out of reach over the water. Facundo skillfully hooks the bundle just after it settles on the ocean surface. Closer inspection reveals this pollution was generated in celebration of a little girls first birthday. Another colorful bundle of balloons reads "Caring with a personal touch".

Thankfully our first otter trawl yields more fish than plastic (on the left Captain Moore pours the tub of specimens into a tank for further inspection). Later in the lab we will see if these fish have been including plastic in their diet. Above research crew member, Christiana, holds up a bit of plastic she untangled from the net along with these fish.

Above, our second otter trawl yields a familiar reminder of the confusion marine organisms can have when deciphering between plastic and prey (the infamous visual similarity between sea jellies and clear plastic).

We draw a second, less common comparison between a fragment of a moon snail egg collar (on the left above) and the fragment of plastic.

We also sampled the surface water just inside the break wall of the Long Beach Harbor using a manta trawl (above). On the left, Christiana and Emily are rinsing the sample from the cod end of the net into a bowl. Unfortunately, even a quick inspection of this sample reveals that it is largely composed of plastic. Christiana points out some of the smaller fragments floating in the collection bowl beside a plastic bag.

2010-02-14T19:12:00.000-08:00

Hello from aboard ORV Alguita in the Pacific Ocean! ORV stands for Oceanographic Research Vessel, and Alguita is the research vessel that has carried our research team to the most remote regions of the Pacific Ocean to study plastic pollution. Many of you have joined us on these voyages so I thought you would be interested to see what Alguita and crew are up to now.

There are over 4,000 miles of Ocean and North American Continent between us and the crew aboard Sea Dragon- but we are working together to answer many of the same questions about plastic pollution. Today our job aboard ORV Alguita is to investigate the connection between plastic pollution entering the ocean through our watershed and the marine food web in Southern California. We also had the opportunity to head a little way offshore to observe some of the debris flushed out to sea by the recent storms. (The pic to the left shows some of what we found.)

Marcus and Anna have explained that most of the plastic pollution that they are finding in remote areas of the ocean found its way into the ocean through watersheds. Plastic litter on land flows directly out to sea when it rains. Today we traveled to the mouths of three major rivers here in Southern California: The Los Angeles, San Gabriel and Santa Ana Rivers to see if the large quantities of plastics entering the oceans at the river mouths are also entering the food chain through the mouths of fish. (The pic to the left is of the mouth of the Santa Ana River.)

To find out if the fish at the river mouths have been eating the plastic debris as it flushes out to sea, the crew used an otter trawl to collect fish from the ocean floor. Here the crew is pulling in the net to see what they have caught. For those of you who have joined on past voyages you may recognize Captain Moore, Christiana (our ichthyologist) and Jeff- Facundo also joined in and helped everything run smoothly. Below on the left Christiana shows us two queenfish that she collected in the trawl. Unfortunately a few of the trawls contained almost as much plastic pollution as they did fish. On the right is an anchovy she caught in the trawl along with the plastic top of a soda cup, a piece of plastic packaging, and a black trash bag. The fish will be taken back to the laboratory where Gwen and Christiana will examine the contents of their stomachs.

Today we also had the opportunity to head a bit farther offshore to see how much plastic pollution the recent storms washed out to sea. It was very disappointing to find windrows thick with plastic pollution outside the harbor in the open ocean. We stopped briefly to scoop up what we could. It is interesting to see how similar plastic items congregate in the same location. We found one section of a windrow that was dominated by plastic straws of every color, shape and size- a "strawrow". Some are striped with a bend, others have spoons on one end for digging through a slurpee. As the straws bob amid loose bits of seaweed they look like the branching canopy of some mysterious underwater plastic forest.

A cormorant surfaces through the "strawrow" adorned with a clear straw- the reality of how we have littered this marine organism's home suddenly strikes deep. The straws are difficult to catch because they slip through the mesh of our nets- but after a few moments we already have a collection of 32 straws. Nearby we find a section of the windrow where plastic bottle caps have gathered.

Unfortunately today we were also reminded of how directly plastic pollution can harm wildlife. Several California sea lions were sunbathing on a buoy. As we passed by them Captain Moore noticed that one had plastic fishing line wrapped around her neck- a potentially deadly necklace. It was frustrating that we could do nothing for her- she is still strong and if we had approached her she would have slipped into the water and swam away. All I could do was take pictures and ask all of you to be very careful with your fishing line if you go fishing.

The variety of plastic pollution we encountered today was bewildering, but the strangest item was a balloon. Balloons unfortunately are an extremely common sight on the water, many people throw parties and release their balloons into the air (though I know none of you would do this). We saw balloons of all shapes and colors today but this one was different. We could see this bright pink balloon from quite a distance, when we got closer Captain Moore skillfully captured it with the boat hook. Pink, shiny and adorned with a picture of Hanna Montana the balloon read "Lets Rock." And sure enough hitting the balloon with the boat hook caused it to launch into song from a small speaker embedded inside.

For me, the day provided a continually changing perspective on our local marine ecosystems. Dolphins joined us to play in front of our bow, pelicans and terns dove from the air catching fish around the research vessel, harbor seals and sea lions basked in the sun barely opening their eyes as we passed- the diversity of marine life in this area is amazing! Similarly to Marcus and Anna's experience in the Atlantic, as we passed through windrows of plastic litter suddenly the serene ocean scene would give way to an uncomfortable reminder of our impacts on the ocean and how much work we have ahead of us.

Thank you all for joining us -Holly-

ORV Alguita on Good Morning America

2010-02-03T09:01:00.001-08:00

Captain Moore Gains Media Coverage while Lecturing on the East Coast

2010-01-10T07:31:00.000-08:00

Captain Moore spoke on Maine's Public Radio this week after being on Colbert Nation Tuesday 1/6/10 and presenting at the MERI Ocean Environment Lecture Series in Maine on 1/8/10.

The Captain has a full dance card while traveling up and down the east coast lecturing. He will be at it again on 1/11 at the Beacon Academy Lecture Series. On January 12th, he will present at the Marine Science Center at Northeastern University Nahant, Massachusetts. Last, but not least, the Captain will be at UNCWilmington presenting in the Lumina Theatre, Student Fisher Center on the university campus. A scientific poster session will pregame his lecture. All are free and open to the public so go and find yourself a seat!

If you can't make it, you could go to 5gyres.org and learn more about this issue. It's Algalita and Marcus Erikson's latest initiative. It's loaded with info and is a very cool site. Marcus and Anna - you rock!

Captain Moore Entertains While Schools Colbert on Plastic Pollution

2010-01-10T06:19:00.000-08:00

Captain Charlie Moore defended our oceans on Comedy Central and won. Great job Charlie. Thank you Stephen Colbert for letting Charlie loose!

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Charles Moore

www.colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

Economy

The Warm Welcome Home

2009-10-07T19:49:00.000-07:00

Thank you Algalita and friends for the warm welcome home. Marieta Francis and Jeanne Gallagher - you two were a sight for sore eyes. Along with many others including Jeff's parents, Kent and Kathy Ernst.

The last few miles in, I sat on the bow ready to video any sea lions or dolphins sightings so I could send a picture back to Vicki Rivenbark's class at Holly Tree School back in Wilmington, NC. The only thing we saw as we neared Alamitos Bay was plastic trash making its way out to sea as we headed in. Things like Styrofoam containers, chip bags, bottles, and even a soccerball accompanied by a bottle. But the most disturbing was actually witnessing a seagull pecking at a floating plastic bag. "It looked like we were back in the gyre." Lindsey turned to me and said, "This is where it all starts." Thank goodness the Algalita supporters where out there to distract us. It was all too overwhelming to see so much trash in its origin- from land. It played out like a scene in "The Twilight Zone." I, personally, felt like our trip out into the gyre was some kind of victory, only to return to business as usual. The jaded twist to the end of our journey.

It's going to take a lot more people, like Marieta, willing to lend a hand not letting plastic pollution go out to sea.

I do have a better ending to our last night together though. We left Avalon early Tuesday morning after a dinner the night before at the The Lobster Pot. The waiter asked us where we would like to sit and Lindsey, spying a table for six elevated by a handful of steps into the back of a sawed off boat, said "How about there?" We all looked at the stern nestled up against the wall, shrugged, and climbed the stairs. Why not, what was one more meal elbow to elbow enclosed by the sides of a boat.

Bonnie Monteleone over and out

ORV Alguita Arrives in Long Beach

2009-10-07T11:05:00.000-07:00

ORV Alguita and crew have returned safely to Long Beach, California after a successful research voyage. Thank you all for following along! In the photo below the crew receives their well deserved chocolate, chocolate cake.

Here are links to read more about Alguita's arrival in the News:

Day 29

2009-10-06T07:50:00.000-07:00

Noon Coordinates 32°47'42.48"N, 118°18'19.20"W

Day 29 Monday 10/5/09
When I woke for my last morning alone on the ORV Alguita, it was anything but. Gwen, who does the watch before me, decided to stay up with me due to the problems Lindsey and Jeff were having with the auto pilot. The wind kicked up to over 40 knots causing the auto pilot to fail. The only way to handle the situation was to change course, and if need be steer. There was no beating into the winds. It would also require a sail change from the genoa jib to the staysail, but the captain didn’t want to risk someone getting hurt or blown overboard by the assaulting winds so we traveled off course at 10 knots per hour getting nowhere fast. Bill, who comes on after my shift, was also up due to the outlandish banging under the ship. Few could sleep.

Gwen, who takes good care of this blogger, often times let me sleep in an extra 15 minutes. Today it was an hour. I didn’t change my watch when we sailed into the Pacific Daylight Saving Times yesterday so when I looked at my watch at 0345, I figured I was ahead of the game. It was actually 0445. Not letting on that I was late, nor did she try to wake me, Gwen had just started the tea pot on the stove for me.

Yesterday I was running late too, only that time it was because I was making my way out of the top bunk, a wave came and literally threw me. I fell out of my bunk 4” down landing on the top of my left toes (don’t ask). To add insult to injury I slammed into the side of Gwen’s bed, trashing my leg all in one full swoop. It took a minute for me to rub out the sting. The captain, who has something for everything, came out of his state room with some all natural salve that eases out bruises. It worked on my leg, but the middle toe on my left foot is perhaps broken. Ugg.

We rolled into Avalon, Catalina Island, with a circus show of several sea birds and sea lions. (they swam beside our boat as if so happy to see us!) 3,460 nautical miles later!!!

We walked around the island like drunken sailors though not having a drink. It’s called dock rock. Once on a boat for any length of time and then off, one feels the world rock when while off the boat! We met Faith in the restaurant we had dinner at tonight, a six year old Girl Scout who her and her older sister had accolades for the captain’s work on protecting the oceans. Great to meet both of you!!!

We’re rocking on the island and look forward to seeing everyone at the Algalita Headquarters tomorrow afternoon! Thank you Gwen, Cooper, Lindsey, Jeffy Pop and especially Captain Moore for an experience of a lifetime, but more importantly, allowing me to see the unseen, plastics accumulating in our defenseless ocean.

Hopefully I’ll see many of you tomorrow! Bonnie

SEE POST BELOW FOR DIRECTIONS TO THE PARTY!!!

COME CELEBRATE WITH US!!!

2009-10-05T15:12:00.000-07:00

WELCOME HOME PARTY
Tuesday October 6, 4pm- 6pm (Arrive as early as possible)
Location: AMRF Office
148 Marina Drive, Long Beach, CA 90803
Click here to view the location in Google Maps
Phone: (562) 598-4889

Come celebrate Oceanographic Research Vessel Alguita's return from her historic 10th Anniversary Expedition to "The Great Pacific Garbage Patch." This will be a great chance to congratulate Captain Moore and the crew, check out the research vessel, eat cake and celebrate!!! All you need to bring is enthusiasm, and comfortable shoes for walking on the dock. Try to arrive as early as possible!

Driving Directions to AMRF
Directions from southbound 405:

Exit Studebaker

Right onto Studebaker

Right onto 2nd St.

Left onto Marina Drive

After 2nd stop sign continue straight into Alamitos Bay Landing parking lot

We are located between Khoury's and Buster's Beachouse restaurants

Direction from northbound 405:

Exit Seal Beach Blvd.

Left onto Seal Beach Blvd.

Right onto Westminster Blvd. (turns into 2nd St.)

Left onto Marina Drive

Continue past second stop sign straight into Alamitos Bay Landing paking lot

We are located between Khoury's and Buster's Beachouse restaurant

Click here to view the location in Google Maps

Hope to see you there!!!!!!

Sincerely,

Holly Gray
vesselsupport@algalita.org
Research Vessel Support Coordinator
Algalita Marine Research Foundation

Day 28

2009-10-05T08:36:00.000-07:00

Noon Coordinates 30° 8'41.40"N, 121°39'11.94"W

Day 28 Sunday 10/04/09
We are winding down to our last 48 hours on the ship. The air is too cold to sit outside for more than a couple of minutes especially since the sun hasn’t shown its face for more than a few minutes each day. Strange to think a week ago we were melting from the heat. Lindsey went for a walk around the ship and was back in less than a minute. Stiff legged and arms out like a scarecrow she was soaked from head to toe. That didn’t stop the captain who put on his swim shorts and headed to the bow to take on the ocean spray head on. The water is a refreshing 65 a shade warmer than the air.

We have been pinched between the Tropical Storm Olaf (sp) below us and Gale winds above us. The sky wants to rid itself of the stainless steal clouds, but it is a losing battle for most of the day. Tonight they loosened up enough to give us our last sunset. Tomorrow night we will be in Avalon, Santa Catalina Island which will block the view of our final sunset set at sea.

The wind is up and the seas are down to a four, perfect conditions to be traveling an average of nine knots without the restless baseball bats banging below. When I say the wind is up, I’m talking straight up. According to the captain these winds are going to take us all the way in.

By dawn we will be traveling right past Cortes Bank which is about 100 miles off the California shore. This exclusive location has attracted the attention of surfers from around the world. It is said that Cortes Bank has the potential of making 150 foot waves due to a deep canyon that has one wall that stretches to just six feet below the surface creating a reef effect for the waves to curl on. It doesn’t happen all the time, but given the perfect conditions, the surf is up like no other in the world. Surfline’s Sean Collins, crew and surfers waited 10 years for the conditions to be perfect for them to go out and surf there. On 11/26/02, the conditions were ripe and they arrived to find 60 foot waves. Because the captain had the video “Making the Call” from the event, we were able to see it with our own eyes. Unbelievable! Chances are, we won’t see this phenomenon, but from what the captain says, it is a great place to fish for tuna. I’ll keep you posted if either materializes!

Remember to keep Tuesday afternoon open to stop down the Algalita headquarters to view our North Pacific Gyre loot! (email vesselsupport@algalita.org to find out the details)

More later,

Bonnie

Day 27

2009-10-04T11:43:00.000-07:00

Noon Position 30°19'29.82"N, 125°29'6.84"W

Day 27 Saturday 10/3/09
When the sky turns gray the vast ocean turns a dull shade of purple. Today it was purple all day. The sea state remains a treacherous six with the winds in the high 20s and the waves frothing at 10-12 foot peaks. The captain says they are trying to conform, but are still battling a confused state. We repeatedly see Everest-ridged waves whitecap then avalanche, cascading down near vertical slopes, leaving a temporary white stain in its trough. A sight I have yet to tire of. Sometimes the ship catches the wave in its throat causing the white froth to slam into our windshield. It reminds me of home in NY when the wind gets under a car hood full of snow and momentarily blanks the view. It’s a lot less scary on a boat!

The captain and Bill changed our sails again this morning, taking down the staysail and putting up the genoa jib. The reason why is because we are now catching the northerlies we’ve been desperately needing in order to connect to the north-westerlies that will get us to shore. Bill couldn’t dodge the froth that heaved over the bow, caught him in the back and nearly swept him off his feet. The 68 degree water, about the temperature of the air, felt even colder with the wind chill. The last time we changed the sails the captain had me working the winch table. I’d like to report that dyslexia translates well into the sailing world. I wittingly grabbed a sheet and it just happened to be the wrong sheet and didn’t go unnoticed by the captain. Darn dyslexia. The good news is we are now traveling at 10 knots and it’s looking up that we will port for the Tuesday afternoon welcome home. I’ll continue to keep you posted on the status.

Our on-board marine biologist Gwen Lattin received a special delivery today. A beautiful flying fish flew up on the bow in the night to volunteer itself to science. These fish are even more beautiful than I imagined. Even though I saw them when I was in the North Atlantic Gyre, out here I got to see one up close and personal.

Tonight’s dinner started last night with Jeff brining a plump chicken. It was ready this evening when Jeff plucked it out from the oven along with purple jams, and orange squash. Yep, we’re still eating fresh veggies with two days to the finish line. The captain slit the outrageously good jams in half then mashed them adding coconut sauce, it’s to die for!!!

We ended the night with a special treat. Jeff made homemade hot cocoa and then we shut off all the lights and with only a coalminer’s headlamp, the captain read us a short story from the book, The Bedtime Book of Sea Stories called “Three Skeleton Key” by George E. Toudouze. It doesn’t get much better than that!
More later, Bonnie

RESPONSE TO COMMENTS

Shawn, Thank you from all of us that you are spreading the word about Algalita's work. I have been lucky enough to go to the Garbage Patch to witness with my own eyes what Captain Moore has been seeing over the past 10 years. I will continue to bring peoples attention to the issue more than ever. Best to you, enjoy the beach for us. Best, Bonnie

Day 26

2009-10-02T20:13:00.000-07:00

Noon Coordinates 30° 8'33.78"N, 128° 7'8.22"W

Day 26 Friday 10/02/09
One of our favorite past-times (and there is a lot of time to pass) is watching albatrosses appear as if out of nowhere and escape our gaze the same way. Sometimes, albatross will adopt a ship to follow for a few hours. And, according to Carl Safina’s Book The Eye of the Albatross, an albatross followed a ship for 2,880 miles. Yesterday one came to visit while we were sitting out on the stern. We watched it as it appeared from the proverbial nowhere and headed straight for us. It's wings spread wide above the froth-tipped wake. We watched awe struck by the speed at which it came in without flapping its stealth shaped wings. I know I was personally hoping to have a pet bird for at least a day or two. But then it began to drop its landing gear, first one of its huge webbed feet and then the other as if walking on air. We started asking each other what we thought it was doing when it stopped moving toward us and hung suspended over a distinct distance from the boat. We then watched it dip its beak in the water, like dunking for apples. And then we knew what it was doing. We jumped to our feet and shouted, “No!” We had a fishing line out and the end of the line happened to be just below the albatross. Bill ran and grabbed the fishing pole and started reeling it in. The bird dove again. Bill reeled faster as I let out another “No.” The bird responded by flying up to the starboard side of the boat, preformed a few figure eights then went back to looking for the lure camouflaged hook. But it couldn’t be found, Bill had it all but reeled in. (phew) Fishing gear can catch birds as easily as they can fish so it was a good lesson in keeping an eye on our fishing lines. You never know when you’ll have a desperately hungry bird looking for a freebie.

We have quite the book exchange flying around here. Eye of the Albatross is a favorite , as well as Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin. The captain and Jeff swapped them via careful lobs across the room. Lindsey’s been flopping between reading Julie and Julia, by Julie Powell and Our Stolen Future, by Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski, and John Person Myers. Personally, I think she’s having trouble getting through Julie and Julia, it does seem to be inspiring her to cook though. She’s had Adelle Davis’ 1947 recipe book out a few times. We aren’t complaining! Another way the books are getting around is by falling off the bookshelves. It didn’t start happening until we hit these really high seas and now it happens on a regular bases. You might say, move them. Some have been moved, the others (that keep falling) are because someone thinks they’ve devised a way to make them stay. We’re always devising ways to try to keep things where they belong. It’s an ongoing part of living on a boat. The farthest I’ve gone, personally, is clipping myself to the side of the boat to videotape under the behest of Jeff. And I’m glad I listened. Yesterday, I wasn’t out on the bow two seconds when a huge wave came and nearly knocked me off my feet soaking me from head to toe. With the shot I took, I got a good shot of one enormous beautiful wave.

Today the ocean is more uniform, but the sea state is a good seven. Sails have been up since Monday and it looks like we will be sailing all the way home getting in for our welcome home on Tuesday at the Algalita Marine Research Foundation office. We’ll keep you posted and all are welcome to stop by, say hi and check out our finds.

More later,

Bonnie

NOTE: If you are interested in joining the arrival celebration in Long Beach you can RSVP to Holly ( vesselsupport@algalita.org ) and she will keep you up to date about the plan!

Congratulations!!!

2009-10-02T17:21:00.001-07:00

With only a few more days of the voyage left here is a link to post "Congratulations" messages to the crew!

Day 25 Jeffy Pop Popcorn

2009-10-02T12:21:00.000-07:00

Noon Coordinates 30°27'16.62"N, 130°57'31.86"W

Day 25
As of yesterday, we crossed over into another time zone - Pacific Standard Time - and are now only one hour behind California. The ocean continues to pound the bottom of the boat while rouge waves hit us from all sides. What to do? Make Jeffy Pop popcorn. Jeff is a maestro popcorn popper! (picture coming soon) He shakes the pot down while shimmying on his feet to maintain position in front of the stove. There is a whole lot more talent involved then it sounds. Here are a few positions I call “The Art of Staying Upright.” The tripod position is when I lean my forehead hard against the wall while drying off, putting lotion or a shirt. I use the back-stand to pull pants up, leaning the back against the wall provides excellent stability while both hands are working tight pants up and around (induced by all the delicious meals). The hip-hugger is a must while cooking. We all do this, lean our hips against the counter which allows both hands to be working. And then there is the bazooka shuffle used when the unforeseen force of a wave knocks us clear across the room in which case none of the above work. Jeff and the captain do it unconsciously graceful. The rest of us tend to fight it. Bill tried to fight it while doing dishes. He grabbed for the counter but his hands were wet, slipped off and down he went. A few times I tried to be cool and add a little leg dance to it which invariably led to Jeff asking, “Bonnie, what are you doing?” No more leg dance.

So after three days of trying to play my 20 minute game and not spotting one thing in the ocean, I finally asked the captain why. The obvious answer was the sea state, but in the gyre, we were still seeing stuff in pretty rough seas. The better answer came from a simulation presentation on how trash works its way around the North Pacific done by Dr. Jim Ingraham. Due to the California current, the current carries debris from the states south of our current position and sends it toward the Philippines via the Equatorial current. The trash from Japan area comes via the Kuroshio Extension to the Oyashio Current. So we are in an area that plastic pollution is not so apt to be spread around. The captain assured me we’ll be seeing trash from the States as we get closer to shore.

Since I’ve mentioned our wonderful students in the continental US and Canada, I would also like to thank the participation of students at George Washington High in Guam! Great to hear from you and all of you, keep the questions rolling!

More later,
Bonnie

RESPONSE TO COMMENTS

-Hello Jean, We have not felt any of the tsunami as we are out of its boundaries thank goodness. But we have had some rough seas that are unassociated. Unfortunately, we had the maximum sea state for doing our sampling so even though our ratios appear to be much higher. We would have been pleased if the ocean was as calm as it was during 1999. We feel the ratio would have been even higher. The rough seas drive a lot of debris down deeper into the water column.
With 600 more miles to go, we should be back to Long Beach, California by Tuesday we hope! Best, Bonnie

-Hey C A Logan, Thank you for your support to help bring awareness to this issue. Facebook is a great place to get the word out! I asked Captain Moore and his answer is we need chemists to design plastics that are non-toxic, and government policy, like Germany, that mandates a cradle to cradle systems. Also, we need to restructure our planned obsolescence/growth based economy to a Steady-State economy. (check out www.steadystater.org) Another need is to create an “Ultra-Walmart” consortium to steer people who want to purchase plastic free products - A warehouse of options at affordable prices. Those are just a few off the top of our heads. Thanks Logan and let us know if you come up with any. Bonnie

Day 24

2009-10-01T08:13:00.000-07:00

Noon Position 31°22'15.12"N, 133°30'8.82"W

Day 24 Wednesday 9/30/09
It’s been a bit maddening to have to stay inside only to watch an occasional monster wave come up over the bow, cruise past our cabin porthole windows, on up another three feet to the galley windows and portholes and then slosh beyond the top of the boat out over the stern. Not that the spectacle doesn’t provoke some oos and ahhhs, but three days of this and I am so ready to get out on the bow to, at the very least, get some really great footage. Getting wet is a small price to pay for great footage. Given that information, you can probably visualize a certain someone with a harness and life vest with a waterproof camera in hand hanging from the starboard side. I didn’t get very far when I was beaten back by the spray. The lens covered in salty drops, I decided to continue shooting from inside. My friends will understand why there are water spots. We’ve gone three weeks with the sea state changing nearly every day, but the last three have consistently been the same - hanging around six to seven. Even though it isn’t raining from the sky, it’s raining from the bow. So we have left the boundaries of the said Garbage Patch without giving it much more than a last glance.

So what do we do? Read, write, fish, and eat. And the people aboard this boat know how to eat! You’d want them on your Iron Chef team. (Not me, I’m more comfortable jumping off the mainsail boom than I am making oatmeal.) The captain’s homemade hot cocoa alone is example enough. The captain’s recipe calls for Abuelita (a bar of Mexican chocolate), Scharffen Berger 99% cacao dark chocolate, milk and garnished with a vanilla stick. Amazing. As far as the fishing goes, the captain caught two Mahi Mahi this morning using squid that volunteered themselves for bait by jumping up on the bow in the middle of the night.

I got an encouraging email from my fellow plastic pollution warrior, Jennifer O’Keefe. The items discussed in the video confirms much of what Algalita Marine Research Foundation has been conveying. Your assignment is to read the message below and then go to the link, watch the video and tell me what you think!

An online video focusing on the science and politics of ocean trash published by the DC Bureau of the Public Education Center (http://www.dcbureau.org/) has recently been posted, highlighting an interview with the Dr. Holly Bamford, Director of the NOAA Marine Debris Program. The video and corresponding article, part of a series titled "Fish and Paint Chips," cover the issue of marine debris from a variety of different angles and interviews. The purpose of DCBureau.org is to provide bloggers, individual reporters, editors, news directors and others involved in all media platforms a new resource for stories, ideas and help. Recent research has the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) concerned that the huge quantities of metal, plastic, paint chips and other man-made debris floating at sea, hundreds and even thousands of miles from land, may be working their way into the American diet.

Now here are the links;
(NOAA Marine Debris Program highlighted in "Fish and Paint Chips" Series by DC Bureau.)

Fish and Paint Chips Part I: The Science of Trash

Fish and Paint Chips Part II: The Politics of Ocean Trash

Let us know your thoughts!
More later.
Bonnie

Day 23

2009-09-30T08:15:00.000-07:00

Noon Position 32°32'47.70"N, 135°57'23.52"W

Day 23 Tuesday 9/29/09
I’ve had a lot of students asking what kind of fish or sea animals do we see - Turtles? Sharks? Dolphins? Manatees? I did get to see some dolphins while scuba diving in Hawaii and saw several sea turtles while exploring Kamilo Bay with Noni and Ron Sanford, but not since then. We swam while dolphin fish, otherwise known as Mahi Mahi, circled below down too deep to photograph. One night, we decided to flash lights over the ocean looking for Myctophids. When light hits them just right, their oversized eyes reflect a florescent red and they’re glowing photophor studded bodies make them look like fireflies of the sea. What we didn’t realize is our lights gave a school of Mahi Mahi the home court advantage and we found ourselves witnessing a feeding frenzy. The little five inch or so long Myctophids, twisted and contorted, zoomed and darted like kids playing dodge ball. I saw one jump over the head of a three foot Mahi Mahi. There were flashing fish and flashing flashlights going in all directions. Next thing we saw were squid getting into or getting out of the way of this dog eat dog world. Blotches of ink plumed the blue lit water.

Since we are on our way back to California with seas ranging from 5 to 7, cruising at 10 plus knots, weaving in and out of squalls, we haven’t had a chance to see much of anything. But today the sky turned blue, the captain put a line out, Bill threw the compost out and Jeff reeled in a Mahi Mahi (see picture above.) It was close to 30 inches long! Gwen examines the digestive tract for plastics and then Jeff took over. We’ll have it for lunch tomorrow. Good stuff!

To keep myself busy I decided to finish a project I started involving a poster using the inside of a shopping bag. We have a group of students from River Ridge High School, Florida who take part in AMRF’s Ship-to-Shore Educational Program that Holly Gray facilitates. Thanks Holly, you’ve recruited a great group of kids from all over the country and Canada!!! Well River Ridge High has a group of students known as the Reef Rascals soon to change there name to SPLASH (Students Protecting Land and Sea Habitats) who are getting some press and they asked for a photo from the gang out here. This was a little dicey since we all needed to be in it and with the boat bounces around so much self portraits are tough. We decided to use my video camera. So we all got in position in front of the camera and then just stared at it like “now what.” Without a “cheese” or “smile” or someone to say “Ready?” it left us all hanging until the captain, being the director of operations, began to sing M.I.C. K.E.Y. M.O.U.S.E. This was the most coherent picture I could extract from the footage. Great footage though.
RESPONSE TO COMMENTS
Jason, Hey thanks for a good attempt at the answer. I’ll share it with the captain. And great to hear you’re spreading the word. You are going to love the new camera/underwater case! Tell Danielle, I’ve pulled out the hat and I love it. Best Bro! bon

Hey Barrelmaker, Thanks for sharing because there are many of us who have never seen this before. Amazing for sure to think they substituted shells for plastic since gosh knows they were not near a location to grab a shell or 10. Best, Bonnie

What is that strapped to the pallet? We wish we could have found out. Unfortunately, we were doing our last sample of the 10 year anniversary resampling and could not stop what we were doing to go get it. We all lament over not being able to find out. The way it was trapped down, it looked important! Best, Bonnie

Hi again Tim, Your idea is not a bag one and we’re confident it happens as you describe. The only thing is, we pulled out 20 buoys many from calm seas and none of them were fouled like what the captain has seen in the past. We’re hoping to hear from a biologist. If you know one . . . .Best, Bonnie

Day 22

2009-09-29T09:25:00.000-07:00

Noon Coordinates 35°12'19.92"N, 138°24'39.84"W

Day 22 Monday 9/28/09
In the darkness of the morning, we completed our last trawl of the re-sampling surveys. Yet another large item caught in our trawl, a rope 16 cm long accompanied a large quantity of plastic particulates. There isn’t any fishing going on out here due to its oligotrophic state and yet we find fishing gear daily. A notable difference in the trawls of 2009 compared to trawls of 1999 is the number of large items caught in the manta trawl.

We pulled the manta in at 0500 and let the sails out at 0800 after battening down the hatches, securing our collected items from the sea, removing bathing suits from the line, and repositioning the last of our fresh fruits and vegetables. The sky was blue long enough for the genoa and main sails to bloat with fall cool air and pull us down a few miles toward home and into a perpetual squall. When we started we were 1035 nm away from Long Beach, California, but because of the 30 knot winds we’re making good time traveling 120 nm by 2000 on free fuel.

This is the first day that I have spent the entire time inside. The bad part was not being able to survey the ocean from the deck and collect plastic items. Yesterday the captain pulled in a crate that looked like it a grocery store bread crate. A perfect example of how we are finding things in one piece out here more than other areas of the Pacific we have surveyed. With the sea state pushing seven, water fanning over the bow as we careened 10 foot slopes, it was too dangerous. Sitting on the back deck had its own host of hazards. Water would sometimes hit us from behind and lap over the sides of the ship. Lindsey was sitting out on the aft with Jeff when we heard her let out a little yelp. A wave so powerful rocked the ship hard, knocking her off her seat. So they moved back into the galley where we sat all together sharing stories and sipped tea. It’s the first time since the voyage started that we have had little to do but to hang out.

The ship has its’ own way of communicating. It lets out blasts of noises from underneath with whining lines and jerking booms on top. I mentioned how I like to listen to sounds and name them. The captain laughed when I called one “the office” - it sounds like a slamming file cabinet drawer. Then there are the “after burner” noise that rocket out of the back. Like an oversize wave squished between the two pontoons, when it reaches the back of the ship it explodes its way free. There is also the “rollercoaster” noise that sounds like the chain pulling cars up a huge incline. The captain had one too, he calls the Mike Tyson punch. They’re all going off right now as we fishtail around across the other side of the Garbage Patch heading east via the north east tradewinds. More later, Bonnie

RESPONSE TO COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS
Hi Tim, Sorry it took a bit to get back to you. We just got off a sampling marathon over the last three days. The locations we just sampled for the 10 year anniversary were in the central pressure cell of the Garbage Patch - 35o North 140o West but to be honest with you we don’t know where the edges are to truly know the center of the GP. We did figure the nautical miles of the area to be 557,000 NM square. I have to tell you, from what I’ve seen with my own eyes, the plastic particulates are everywhere. But as we approached the GP central pressure cell, the number of larger items increased considerably. We will have to wait for the results from the trawls to determine if it is true for the particulates, but just a visual inspection by the captain it appears to be much higher. Sorry about the glass float. It was serendipitous that you had asked about the glass buoys the same day we tried to track one down. I will try to post a picture after we get back. I don’t have the software with me to do it. Let me know if this helps or if you have any questions. Best, Bonnie over the ocean

Hey my friend, I’m so looking forward to sharing my adventure with the ladies. Save a seat for me! thank you for following my blog and for helping get to where I am today - sailing at 11 knots 1035 miles away from port. Love ya sis, bon

Hi Dael, That makes you and the captain! I would have never guest. I thought it odd that there were wires hanging out of a toilet seat! Thanks for following it’s the only way to create change - grassroots (from the bottom up!) Best, Bonnie

Day 21

2009-09-28T09:53:00.001-07:00

Noon Position 30° 0'31.50"N, 140° 6'2.46"W

Day 21 Sunday 9/27/09
Is this yours? I spied this from the galley window as it slid down a nine foot wave that dwarfed the size of this package. If you look closely, you can see it is strapped to a pallet which gives you an idea just how big it is. I’ve become keenly aware of debris floating after my 10 games of “How Long Can I Go without Seeing Plastic?” I had been outside most of the daylight hours even though a series of squalls kept me dodging for cover. One in particular, I watched as the silver veil of rain drew an exaggerated stiff line just after the horizon and then marched like locusts looming toward a cornfield (not that I’ve ever seen what that looks like.) I stood there for a good seven minutes watching it close in until I felt it on my face. Squalls rolled in and out throughout the day, but I was determined to stay out there in the cool damp air so that I could report my unscientific yet revealing results. I became so hyper-aware of the stuff that didn’t belong in the ocean that I couldn’t pass a window without looking out and shouting. “I see something!”

The 20 minute games took two people to play - one as an extra set of eyes to confirm the sightings and one to write down the time, dimensions, and color. We did not count anything we saw under an inch in size. After reviewing all 10 games, the longest we went without seeing a piece of plastic was . . . . . .7 minutes and 20 seconds. The average number of plastic pieces per 20 minutes was 15.9 pieces. The smallest pieces we saw were bottle caps (of which we saw a lot of and according to Big Sweep, bottle caps are the # 2 item found on the beach outside of cigarette butts.) The largest was a six foot trough with a rim like an old bathtub. One of the unique items was a blue man shaped bottle. Sorry Perry, it would have been a good one for you, but we couldn’t take anything out of the ocean because we were trawling.

Our trawls have been coming in with Texas-sized plastic fragments. Twice just today, we had to feed items back through the trawl because they were too big to fit through the codend. The captain said it was a rare occurrence to have large items end up in the trawls in previous years, it would happen, but very rarely. It has happened 9 out of the 11 trawls we’ve done for the re-sampling in the North Pacific Gyre. Items like a detergent bottle, a banana float, a handle and part of the top to a five gallon bucket, a good portion of a broken buoy, an Oral-B toothbrush, oyster spacers, and an umbrella handle just to name a few.

We have our 12th trawl tonight at 0130 and that will complete our 10 year anniversary re-sampling of the North Pacific Garbage Patch. We’ve had unusually rough seas throughout our sampling. The high pressure system that helps facilitate the accumulation has not been able to ward off the storms that have continued to hang around. The sea state has waned between four and six. These conditions usually don’t provide the best representation due to the fact that rough seas submerge many of the plastics. Yet, the captain and Gwen feel the quantities we are getting will surpass the samples of 1999. More later, Bonnie

Day 20 - Oh Buoy!

2009-09-27T13:40:00.000-07:00

Noon Position 33°29'47.58"N, 141° 0'2.58"W

Day 20 Saturday 9/26/09
Oh Buoy! A day doesn’t go by that we don’t see several plastic buoys and rope roll past the ship. Today was no exception. But a morning reflection about the 1999 voyage got the captain talking about his general observation of not only the mere number of buoys we are seeing since his 1999 voyage, but the changes he’s observed this time more so than any of the previous voyages. The change has been in the number of barnacles he is NOT seeing on the buoys and the amount of algae that is on them instead. The number in buoy count doesn’t surprise us. With the amount of fishing competing in our deep waters, commercial vessels that are floating factories able to go to far reaches of the ocean bringing with them fishing gear that local fisheries can’t afford to lose. What he doesn’t know the answer to is where are the barnacles going?

To further his point, the captain sat us down and showed us slide after slide of fouled buoys with strands of barnacles like this one that are several feet long. We haven’t found anything even close to the examples he showed us - a time lapse up until the winter of 2008. And it wasn’t just the buoys, bottles too! We haven’t found one fouled bottle with barnacles and we have a repository of bottles. Is it a natural occurrence that their abundance reduces during certain seasons? Are they knocked off in rough seas? We’re a curious bunch way out here 1050 miles from Google and we’d like to use one of our life lines and phone a friend. Anyone?

Day two of our re-sampling brought in a collectors item. The captain has been collecting umbrella handles over the past 2 or 3 years. His collection has grown to a whopping 50 +. All of them have come from various beaches, but most of them have come from Kamilo Bay, Hawaii. Today was a first. While emptying the codend of the manta trawl at 0400, out plopped an odd shaped, dark brown umbrella handle, along with half of a flex-handle tooth brush, two bottle caps, and two oyster spacers. The captain is confident the tooth brush and umbrella are from land-based sources because it’s futile to bring an umbrella out at sea and there are too many uses for a toothbrush on a boat. The other interesting finds with these trawls is that there have been a higher concentration of identifiable objects as well as items too big to put in our sample jars. That is not to say that there aren’t a lot of plastic particulates and loads of them. Other odd finds today were a children’s toy cup (olive green/Tupperware?), Popsicle stick, and a travel size detergent bottle.

I have a new game, it’s called, “How long can I go without seeing plastic” I’ll share with you more about it tomorrow. My goal is to have played it 10 times before I reveal my average.

More later.

Bonnie

Day 19

2009-09-26T09:25:00.001-07:00

Noon Position 34°45'35.10"N, 142° 2'49.56"W

Day 19 Friday September 25, 2009
Today we reached our destination into the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and began our 10 year anniversary sampling. The day started with a sea state of two/three which was doable for sampling. At 1155 the captain came over the loadspeaker announcing this monumental event and then had us hustle to the stern. Under gray skies and comfortable seas, the manta trawls went into the water at 1205 for an one hour and five minute swim.

Shortly after the manta launch, Gwen noticed a Japanese glass float drifting by. It was a gorgeous emerald green (not a color one sees a lot of out here, not even in plastic.) It looked to be about the size of a volleyball. These are a rare find and worth chasing after. Within minutes Jeff and Lindsey were heading off in the dinghy to find it with a hand held radio and GPS in hand. Within minutes they were completely out of sight and with every minute the sea state started to turn advancing to a sea state of four and looked like a giant washing machine on the "heavily soiled" wash cycle. It was a long 25 minutes before we could see them in the distance bouncing toward us. The emerald glass buoy lost its luster as the minutes passed. So when they returned without it, no one seemed to care.

The ocean has not calmed down since early afternoon and has progressed to a sea state of five. With 6-8 foot swells, 19 knot winds combined with the ship going at 6.5 knots, it’s much like driving fast down a hilly road. Sometimes the car catches some air and you can feel it in your stomach. My stomach has been flying around all day - one perpetual rollercoaster. Sometimes when we bounce low, water washes over the bow, up over my bed’s porthole window, rips passed the hatch and then back down again. It’s such a trip bouncing around in this capsule as the ocean does its thing out there.

Jeff’s dad has emailed a list of questions and I decided to incorporate them since there might be a few others who have similar questions. Now these are some questions in need of some answers.

1. Will you begin surveying Friday 9/25/09? Yes, we started at 1205 today at the coordinates set from the 1999 survey. The sea state was about a two at the time, but has jumped up to a five due to some squalls that seem to be following us.

2. How many days will you need to complete the survey? We are looking at four days to complete the 12 stations, but it is weather dependent. The forecast does look in our favor after today.

3. Are the winds still giving you free power or are you motor sailing? It’s been very patchy with the wind. We sailed three nights ago, but took them down in the morning. Charlie and I put up the Stay Sail yesterday at 0500, then put up the main at 0900 and then took them down in the late afternoon. With the tight survey schedule, we’ve been motoring at about 6.5 knots which is eating up some fuel. We did get to sail for a few hours while we trawled our first repeat sample survey though! But to truly answer your question, most of our sailing has been accompanied with a motor. Except for Tuesday night it was beautiful to sail through the silence of the night.

4. Your position report said you were back down to 33 degrees north. Is that a typo or did you swing south? Yes, we did some jockeying around trying to hit some algal bloom patches that Dave Foley had asked us to try to survey.

5. The January 2008 crossing from Hawaii was a little dicey regarding fuel consumption. How are you doing with your fuel consumption? Our fuel situation is still looking good, but being in the dull drums and having to hit locations at certain times may have us riding home on fumes.

6. I am getting the impression that the ORV Alguita is finding more trash with every mile over previous voyages. Is this the case? Today, I videoed the captain as he gave us his impression of this voyage, and he said this is nothing like what he witnessed in 1999, it is far worse. For one reason, every time we stop for a swim (and one time while we were in transit) our props and/or the ruder are fouled with derelict fishing/boating gear. Just this morning, the captain went under the boat after we retrieved a 3’x18”buoy, and found both props had rope around them. This was the second day in a row! Also, Jeff had to go under the boat two nights ago because the engine died and it was because of a huge ghost net. The captain fears that this area is becoming a navigational nightmare. Here’s another example, every time we put our fishing polls out, if they are out for more than an hour, one of them brings in a wad of rope. Another thing that is really concerning the captain is the quantity of stuff we are seeing float by. The trawls have been heavy with plastic, but to truly determine if it is more, we have to get the samples back to the lab.

7. Do you see evidence that the plastic pollution has increased in density on a per day at sea basis? I asked your son this question and he felt that the plastics are so patchy, it is difficult to say. I asked the same question to the captain and since he has been looking at this for 10 years, he felt that over the past 10 years this is the worst he’s seen it. Thanks Chief, keep’em coming.
More later.
Bonnie

Day 18

2009-09-25T09:26:00.000-07:00

Noon Position 31°54'51.46"N, 144°31'35.82"W

Day 18 Wednesday 9/24/09

I got “schooled” on anemones today. As sad as it may sound, I knew nothing of them other than what I saw in the animation “Finding Nemo.” With my childlike preoccupation, Jeff had to ask, “Haven’t you ever been in a tide pool before?” And then urged I go spend some time in one. You may wonder how the topic of anemones came up while out in the deep ocean, 100s, if not a 1000, miles from any tide pools or reef lines where anemones live. It has to do with yet another game I made up while trying to quantify or if nothing else, wrap my head around all this plastic I see daily floating by in all different shapes and sizes. Since the sea state was a two, it was good enough to get out on the bow and start hunting for plastics.

I made a hand drawn spreadsheet with categories of: color, item description, and then a series of columns for size increments i.e. 0-1 cm, 2-10 cm, and so forth. We started exactly at 1400 and intended to go for 30 minutes. Bill shouted out what he saw; I would write it down. Occasionally, he would try to pull them out. To keep it simple, we only counted and collected from the starboard side. If it were a competition between the white fragments and any other color/size, white fragments 0-1 cm would win hands down. With only nine minutes to go the captain pointed to a white piece roughly 3x5 inches small. Bill scooped it out of the water and when I pulled it out of the net, the white piece of plastic was covered with anemones which were covered with plastic. The captain was equally taken aback. An array of plastic particulates stuck to the anemones with a duck tape grip on the front and back of the plastic piece. Here we were with a total of 98 pieces that we counted in 26 minutes and this one piece of plastic looked to have an equal amount. So after a photo shoot, I started counting the number of pieces on each clumped mat of anemones. There were 14 clumps with a total of 131 pieces of plastic particulates attached to them, all clinging to a larger piece of plastic - 132!

Jeff told me that these critters cover themselves with rocks and shells to protect their soft jelly tissue against predators or from being scrubbed against rocky surfaces near shore. I found a book that described yet another detail, it said, “To prevent the fatal loss of water from body tissues during low tide, they [anemones] retract their tentacles and cover themselves with light-colored rocks and shells that tend to reflect, rather than absorb heat. Studies have shown that anemones have trouble maintaining fluids above 55 F. Gwen explained that the anemones use nematocysts as a way of attaching plastic to themselves and also added that they could be trying to feed on it, as well. So it was plastic that swept them out to sea and it was plastic in the ocean environment they found to cover themselves with.

Speaking of feeding, the captain treated us to yet another fanciful meal - a Chinese dish of Sweet and Sour Mahi Mahi - a 30” Mahi Mahi he and Bill wrestled in at 0900 this morning. Just in time before the seas jumped to a three and rock and rolled us until noon. The sails have been going up and down the past two days, but with less than 60 miles to the Garbage Patch, we’ll try anything to get there before our first scheduled 10 year anniversary trawl tomorrow at 1600.

More Later,
Bonnie

Day 17

2009-09-24T13:31:00.000-07:00

Noon Position 33°48'20.22"N, 146°56'6.06"W

Day 17 Wednesday 9/23/09
The moment my shift ended the clock had to be moved one hour forward leaving Bill with only one hour on watch. Our easterly travels led us into a different time zone. Not only has the clock moved fast forward but so has the volume of plastic pollution we are finding. We are 220 nm outside of the first sample sight inside the Garbage Patch and from what we’ve seen today, one has to wonder if the leviathan patch is growing at an alarming rate. Windrow after windrow of plastics strung across the water like strings of Christmas lights. Spaced just so far apart, the plastics rarely travel in tight packs, but in these conditions they’re strung along invisible lines. I know, we need to send a picture. It isn’t trivial to take a picture of this, but Jeff vows to get one that will illustrate just what we’re seeing. None of us have the equipment it will take to get a good shot, especially when it has to be reduced to 20 percent to send it from here. But we’re going to try.

Just from the port side this morning, I caught 13 good size objects within an hour and a half. That doesn’t include the stuff I missed and those just outside my reach (I counted 139 total). The smallest was a travel size aspirin bottle and my largest was . . .I’ll get to that later. First I want to tell you about the captain’s big find that rivaled mine. Yes, another 55 gallon drum with a square window cut out of the side of it (photo to left by Gwen Lattin) . Lindsey, Jeff, the captain and I snorkeled out to it to see what might be swimming under it. It was pretty barren compared to the last one that had tiers of fish teaming beneath it. After lugging it on board, the window worked well for the captain to catch the fish that swam inside.

The captain also caught a Mai Mai! Gwen preformed a necropsy and found a nice square piece of yellow plastic in its digestive system. Bill caught it all on video for the non-believers and a picture is being sent to AMRF if anyone wants to see it. It’s a bit gruesome for the blog. Gwen is also taking samples on fish that are associated with the plastics like a few that lived in the barrel. They will be analyzed for Persistant Organic Pollutants (POPs) when we return to the mainland.

We also collected two “super-size me” trawls. We rarely collect big items in our trawls, but today was an exception. Both the manta trawl and the folding manta had several large objects like a foot long wad of rope, roughly 4”x4” pieces of broken fragments, bottle caps, and one even had the entire bottle! The captain said these samples rival the most he’d ever seen in one trawl. It makes me fearful what it’s going to be like in the patch!

Now for my catch of the day - On the bow I made a little game for myself, to collect 10 things in an hour. (Remember my fiasco with the two corner piece. I was out to redeem myself.) Well I got stuck on number nine. There was a dry spell, not atypical of how plastic comes and goes in waves. I called on the ocean gods to send me something big and something soon because time was running out. It must have heard because it arrived shortly after. When I pulled it out, I thought to myself I'm glad the ocean has a sense of humor (see top photo by Jeff Ernst). The captain loved the find and proclaimed it to be one of the most unusual items pulled aboard Alguita! He explained to me that this particular seat is a Japanese invention. The seat is actually wired to serve as both a toilet seat and a bidet.

More later.
Bonnie

Day 16

2009-09-23T08:41:00.000-07:00

Noon Position 33 41.703N 149 36.926W

Day 16 Tuesday 9/22/09
Today is yet another travel day. It’s hard to believe that the latitudinal line we started from stretched across the Pacific and slid beneath the Baja Peninsula, nearly 1000 miles down from the US/Mexican border. The ocean temperature had been in the high seventies/low eighties, the air hot and slightly breezy. Over the past 1,440 nautical miles we’ve felt the hot air fade away as the winds picked up and the water cooled. Most of us are wearing long sleeves and pants. Jeff sports a cap when it gets below 80.o I’ll be breaking mine out that Danielle Andre made for me just before the cruise. Thanks Danielle, I’m going to need it! After we leave the Garbage Patch it’s going to be much cooler as we head back to Long Beach, California.

We have 414 more nautical miles to go to begin our sampling in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. We should be there in two days allowing us to start sampling on Friday September 26th. We will be re-sampling the precise locations AMRF sampled 10 years ago that led to Captain Moore’s first publication on plastic pollution. The sampling will take three solid days or more depending on conditions. The captain explained that it should be warmer in the Garbage Patch as the winds will die down along with the sea state due to this area typically being monopolized by a high pressure system. We look forward to getting back in the water to video and take some stills underwater as well as what we find on the surface.

In the meantime, the captain continues to entertain us with crazy awesome connoisseur concoctions. We had homemade limeade with lunch and since he was cleaning out the fridge, he decided to make smoothies out of random fruits on the verge of going to the dark-side. He added some soymilk for good measure and BAM, it shamed Smoothie King. Tonight he’s preparing Chicken Mole which I guess is chicken with a chocolate sauce along with a side of sweet candied squash dusted with cinnamon. I never had it, but he hasn’t let me down yet!

Since we are catching some perfect winds at 16 knots over a sea state of four, we don’t have the ability to maneuver to pick up plastics that float by so we’ve been counting. Just in buoys today alone, Jeff has seen a dozen and Gwen five. As I was asking her how many she counted she looked over my shoulder and said, “There’s one now!” And sure enough, there was a black one floating by our ship. I’m a neophyte yet and have only counted seven floating by in two days. Bill, the captain, and Lindsey say they lost count. On board, we’ve collected 17 so far. We could make our own totem pole of buoys with the number we have seen. Not that these are the only things we see out here, 100s of random things float by daily and that is just what we see.

“Corners,” I said in a trance-like state as I stared at the white corner of a crate or something similar that floated by. We see a lot of corners of objects. We guess it’s because corners are likely to be sturdier than the other parts. The captain pulled one out yesterday and entered on our data sheet along with many others that we’ve collected. Two days ago, I had a huge piece with two corners intact making a “U” shape. We were traveling at about five knots so when it came rapidly floating toward me, I squared myself to the bow. I concentrated on my timing watching it as it decided to float on the starboard side. It was coming around the pontoon when I made my move. Half of it went into the net, the other have wrapped around the pontoon - clung to it like a child around its mother’s leg. It was ridiculous. I had the net on one end of it, but was afraid to pull for fear it would go down the other side of the pontoon. I yelled to Bill who was filming at the time to come help. Just as he got there, it let go. I clawed at it as it floated past me and on it went. I hung my head. “Don’t worry,” Bill said, “there’ll be plenty more opportunities.”

More later.
Bonnie

RESPONSES TO COMMENTS

-Tim, We appreciate any attention you can draw to this issue and love the theme!!! Algalita appreciates the attention too. I bet those surfboards looked amazing! How cool of you to hand out the brochures- donations would be great. We lost our spinnaker the other night and not sure if it can be mended-we're all sick about it. We will be keeping a close eye out for bags and will let you know if we see any as well as collect them if we can. Best to you Tim and thanks again from the middle of the ocean, Bonnie

-Trina, You are welcome and keep sailing with us, we promise there will be a lot more pictures in store. Best, Bonnie

-Hi Kizzy in Canada, so glad you stumbled on our blog. You can contribute too by letting people know about the issue of marine debris and the great work that Captain Moore is doing on behalf of our oceans. Algalita Marine Research Foundation is a small group of volunteers and people committed to this issue so any kudos they receive is a huge reward. Best to you and come along with us for the rest of our journey blog style. Best, Bonnie

Day 15

2009-09-22T08:48:00.000-07:00

Noon Position 33°37'42.84"N, 152°28'43.80"W

Day 15 Monday 9/21/09
At the stroke of midnight last night, Lindsey was finishing up her 2200 to 2400 watch when all halyard broke loose. Actually, it was the spinnaker. Lindsey ran to Jeff’s berth, but he was already on it. He knew what it was just by the sound. “The sail tore!” The three of us in the other cabin were aroused by the commotion and the captain confirmed the urgency by chiming a bell. While Gwen took the helm, we all clambered in different directions grabbing clothes and slipping on life jackets then pressed on into the cool night air. The wind howled just like in the movies. The captain, Bill and I worked the lines down from the winch table on the aft while Lindsey and Jeff finished pulling the remains of the spinnaker on to the bow. The captain, Bill and I worked our way to the bow to find Lindsey and Jeff sitting on the spinnaker so it wouldn’t take off into the 30 knot winds. While Bill collected the lines from around the sides of the ship, I unlatched the head of the sail and secured the spinnaker halyard. I then took Jeff’s place so he could finish bringing in the lines. The boat rocked over large swells and dipped into cavernous water trenches. Water slammed from all directions in a confused state as the spinnaker laid wounded on the bow The beautiful and enormous sail that has carried us 300 miles just on the last run, blew out on one side and tore a 30’ hole down one side. We all worked in tandem to get the Main and the Stay Sails up and by 1 a.m. the drama was over.

We’ve average 8.5 knots since changing the sails. Alguita climbs over and rips through some 10’ plus swells without hesitation. The ocean sounds angry beneath us as if challenging the unfettered stability of this catamaran. The bumping and banging take turns every few seconds, some sounding like a Giant trying to fist holes in the bottom. Most the time we can block out the sounds, but the punchy ones usually get this novice sailor’s attention.
Inside the ship everything expresses itself. The dishes clank, the spices rattle, hanging towels pendulum, while the water bangs below. Even the sink has something to say, it gurgles and sometimes geysers. Lindsey laughed straight out loud the first time she saw it. A foot and a half geyser shot straight up out of the drain then straight back down. I didn’t dare tell her how I found out it did that. I discovered this unique phenomenon while standing over the sink. Later the captain said it was mostly sea water since the drain connects directly to the sea. It made me feel a little better than thinking last nights dishwater ended up on my face.

Traveling this fast via wind has such a different sensation. It’s like front wheel drive instead of rear wheel with the engines. The cat seems to flatten out over the water better. Even though we are traveling this fast, the squall that has been tailing us finally took the lead creating some fussy winds that forced us to add the genoa. Jeff, Lindsey and the captain managed to “get’er done,” while I videoed. Nice work crew!
More later.
Bonne

QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS
Q: If you could talk to elected officials about plastic pollution... what would
you say? -j

A: Hi Jennifer, Nice question, it generated a lot of conversation this morning with the captain. After talking a lot about people who have gone the legislative route and have been sorely disappointed, he didn’t hold out much hope for legislative action. He did say that there has been some headway in California with the “Leach Law” meaning bottle caps have to have a leach connecting them to the plastic rim around the spout. We need to keep being creative like this in presenting new ways to reduce the amount of trash on the ground and eventually out at sea. The long term answer is a Steady-State Economy System, not one based on a Grwth Economy System. This means we only produce what we need and reuse what we have. I miss you J and keep talking to me. Thanks for getting the video to BIOS. Any word from Maureen? Best, Bon

-Hi Dave Cooper, This is Bonnie the Blogger and Charlie and Jeff are happy to from you. (and Vince too) Bill Cooper, from UC Irvine says to say hello to a fellow barrel-maker and the rest of us always enjoy hearing from well- wishers. Keep sailing along with us. Best, Bonnie

Day 14

2009-09-21T10:38:00.000-07:00

Noon Position 33°37'5.94"N, 155°48'44.52"W

Day 14 Sunday 9/20/09

I finally got the rest of the story about the Explorer’s club flag. The Explorers Club started in 1905 and is a prestigious group to belong to with such members as Thor Heyerdahl, Don Walsh, and Sylvia Earl. In order to be a member you had to have two sponsors. Charlie was approached by Don Walsh to consider becoming a member when Charlie took a ship-of-opportunity with the Explorers Club cruise to Japan in 2004. Charlie went on the ship so that he could study the plastic accumulation in Japanese waters. While collecting data, Don Walsh, who was on the cruise, became very interested in what Charlie was doing and asked that he present his research to the Explorers Club members that were on the ship. Don Walsh offered to sponsor him and shortly after Sylvia Earl became the other sponsor. After filling out an application to carry their flag on his next expedition, Charlie received a letter stating he was selected. Charlie chose to carry Flag # 134 because of the unique history it had. This same flag in the picture was carried in 1948 in the 3rd Danish Central Asia Expedition, the 1987 Yangtze River Expedition by Joel S. Fogel, and the 1998 Illi Tiki Explorations Manteno Voyage by John Haslett. Other Explorers Club flags have gone on the Apollo 8 and Apollo 13 flights. It is an honor to have been selected to carry the flag and well deserved I might add. To learn more about the Explorers Club go to http://www.explorers.org/

Let's talk about the weather. I never knew that stars could be bright enough to cast a reflection across the ocean water given it was dark enough. I witnessed this around 3am Friday morning. With the moon cycle near complete, the stars reigned. At first I thought maybe it was an airplane headlamp coming straight toward our starboard side, but then I noticed another one on our port side. I couldn’t believe how low the stars hung and yet a few so bright as to leave a string of pearl lights caught on tips of waves that pointed to Alguita. That would not be the case Saturday nor this morning... Our five day run of sunshine and calm, windless weather ended yesterday morning. The clouds had worked they’re way across the tapestry of stars, making it a black, moonless early morn.

According to the captain, we have a low coming out from Siberia that is heading toward the Gulf of Alaska. We are sailing on the rim of this system which has produced some nice free energy. We’ve been averaging about 8 knots an hour since yesterday at 1000. We’ve traveled 260.7 shortly after I came on my 1600-1800 watch. As of 1630 today, we had another 708 miles to go to get to our first waypoint in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. We are nestled between the low and the high convergence zone so we can see it raining off our port side, but we haven’t got but a few drops of rain. It’s such a great ride.

We were traveling twice as fast last night and with a sea state of five, we were catching some air. Well I was anyway. My berth is a top bunk (see picture), closest to the bow starboard side and when I laid down last night my head literally levitated off pillow. With my muscle relaxed, I feel my body moving around effortlessly to the rhythm of the ship. Not that I’m going to fall out of bed, but the motion is like being on a water bed with a couple of small children jumping on it. Along with the boat being pushed around by waves and wind, the speed bumps were more like car wrecks. I laid here wondering how this boat could take such repeated pounding. I might have been thinking about it too much last night.

Because we’re in transit, not a lot of collection going on. We’re moving too fast, not to mention we are several days behind schedule and will not be getting back until October 1 at the earliest. With the captain not tending to sampling, he’s been cooking up a storm. Last night we had oven roasted lamb with purple sweet potatoes, and to top it off we had cheese cake for dessert. Tonight, he put together an Indian dish, which included his own curry, rice, lentils and fried bananas. Bill called it ”Charlie’s spice bazaar in the middle of the Pacific.” With all the great food we’ve been enjoying, Lindsey is missing her running and before dinner she did laps around the boat - 23 of them!

More later.
Bonnie

Day 12

2009-09-19T09:36:00.000-07:00

Noon Coordinates 32°14'12.18"N, 159°24'5.82"W

Day 12 Friday 9/18/09
Yesterday I left you hanging with a picture of all of us, but Jeff, (sorry Jeff) holding up a flag as the seaplane went by. It was a pretty amazing feat to get the picture, but we did it. The flag is an interesting piece to our voyage and I really want to do it justice. It is from the Explorers Club and Captain Moore earned the honor of having it with us on this voyage. The plan was to sit him down and get an interview both about the significance of the flag and how he came to being honored with one. Well, as it happens out here 700 miles from Hawaii and even further from any continent, nothing is planned and everything is subject to change. And due to the happenstance of today I’ll have to get back to you about the flag.

It all started just after my watch and the sun had a few inches above the horizon when I noticed a large piece of debris float by. Within minutes, there was yet another. And then I noticed the Captain pulling in the largest buoys we’ve seen this far. I went to the bow with my net to see if I could catch some of the plastic particulates that were floating by. After catching a few, I could see a stream of plastic particulates much larger than I had been seeing from the bow before off the port side of the ship. Here are just a few of the items: a milk jug ring, a piece of a black plastic bag, a yellow rope, large round chunk of Styrofoam, a buoy, a white plastic rim to something much larger, and a gray tube that I actually caught, but it was to big for my net and fell out along with all the pieces I had collected. All my collection went back into the ocean. I was so bummed, I decided to go back to bed.

What I was seeing is called a windrow and with the sea state being a one, the wind and current created convergent and divergent zones. The plastic would come in waves literally. Where there was a convergence zone, there would be a row of plastics. Where there was a divergence zone, there would not be any. This explains why I was seeing these rows of plastics. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t like a conveyor belt of mass quantities of plastics, but it was visibly noticeable where these windrows were because of the rows of plastics that were floating past the bow.

So while I was napping, the crew was out on the deck having a field day with all the stuff they were collecting. I could hear them outside my hatch window every other minute yelling, “Look over here. . . .here’s one . . . hand me the net.” About an hour past when they all came running in to get their bathing suits on. Lindsey came in to tell me Jeff spotted one of the largest ghost nets the Captain had ever seen. We dove in and there were literally hundreds of fish swimming in it, around it, and under it. It was beautiful seeing them dashing around.

Two gray chubs came right up to me like Walmart greeters as I swam toward the ghostnet. One was flashing his tail in my mask and the other started nibbling on my mask. I tried to swim away but they followed me where ever I went. I felt like Ursula with her two eels swimming at her side. The feisty one nibbled on my neck. I had to pop my head out of the water to get him to back off.

The fun ended after about an hour when we pulled it out of the water and the captain started chopping it up so we could find a place to store it. We could really see just how huge it was on the deck. The captain guessed it to weight between 150-200 lbs. Now that’s the catch of the day.

More later.

Bonnie

RESPONSE TO COMMENTS
Kim, Hey, happy belated birthday! And thank you so much for following the blog. It’s been a chance of a lifetime and what a great way to share the adventure and bring awareness to a huge problem all at the same time. Hugs to Mark and the kids. Keep reading and throw a question my way if you have any. Love, Aunt Bonnie

How nice of you to honor the blog Linda. We’ll have to check out your post when we get back since no internet other than email. Tell Joel we said hi. He’s a great guy. You should be proud.

Gosh you’re a good guesser. Thanks James we’re hang in there!

Day 11- The Visit

2009-09-18T07:42:00.000-07:00

Noon Coordinates 30°47'42.00"N, 158°41'3.12"W

Day 11 Thursday 9/17/09 The Visit
We had a little problem this morning while making freshwater out of saltwater and I was in the middle of it. It’s called desalinated water and I have to admit, you can’t tell. In fact, it’s good. The problem wasn’t the water, it was me. When Gwen left me on duty she told me we were making water and to keep an eye on it. We were trying to get both the port and the starboard tanks full before all 12 guests arrived. I checked it every 15 minutes. At about 0515 I knew they were full, but didn’t know exactly how to turn it off. I went down in the engine room and stared at all the controls, but nothing made any sense so I woke up the next person scheduled to be on watch. He told me not to worry about it and that the captain would be up to take care of it. My gut was saying go wake the captain, but my head was saying, let him sleep, he was up from 0200-0400. I should have listened to my gut. The tank overfilled. Not a way to start the morning. After getting the water situation under control, the captain went out on the dinghy looking for plastic accumulation areas. He was gone a long time and when he came back, he had a boat load full of stuff. There was barely room for him in to sit.

So back to the guests. The GreenLandOceanBlue film crew attempted to interview Captain Moore while out in the North Pacific Gyre today. Michael Prickett, the producer, scheduled the meeting to take place more than 550 miles off Hawaii’s shores via a Billabong owned seaplane. The captain changed into his uniform shortly after we got the call from the plane saying they were minutes away. I grabbed my waterproof camera jumped into the dinghy with Jeff and we rode off to find a good front row seat to film the seaplane coming in.

We could hear it before we could see it and then it busted through a small patch of clouds and headed right toward us. It’s a crazy moment being in the middle of the ocean on a little dinghy with a double prop seaplane heading right at you. The pilot zoomed over our heads then passed low in front of the ORV Alguita. The Surfrider, AMRF, and Pr o Esteros flags that the Captain and Bill put out waved over the bow. The ship looked great from a distance especially since I hadn’t been off of it except to swim. Jeff carted me around like Miss Daisy as the plane tried to land in a few different places. But after one attempt that caused the seaplane to bounce three times across the water before it found air and speed to climb back up, they aborted the mission. The pilot came over the radio saying they were unable to land due to the confused nature of seas producing large swells with only five knot winds. The captain said he understood and saw the rough ride they had with the attempt to land. And the pilot came back, “You should have seen what it looked like from here. It could have ended badly.”

But all was not lost. The captain asked if the pilot he would check for any debris sightings. After making several laps around the area, the pilot came back on the radio to report they saw not one but two huge wind-rows of plastic debris. He started rattling off things they could recognize from above including a coat hanger. On his last lap around, the pilot preformed an air drop. The packaged contained something the captain had asked him to bring for a badly needed part for a generator- Thank you!

There is one more cool part of the story. It has to do with something in the first picture.

More tomorrow.

Bonnie

Day 10

2009-09-17T08:38:00.000-07:00

Noon Position 30°46'22.26"N, 158°51'4.26"W

Blog 10 Wednesday 9/16/09
Last night, we sent a picture of stuff Captain Moore pulled out of the ocean while riding around on the dinghy. The fish he caught in the picture were actually inside the plastic pollution while others were living on it. Here is what you can see in the picture (even though there were many more):

2 trigger fish
2 Hawaiian sergeants
2 different crabs
2 fire worms (polychaetes)
2 Goose neck barnacles (that you can see)
Pretty impressive catch I’d say!

Yesterday’s blog hinted toward a lull in action as we waited to hear if our guests were coming. It looks like it’s a go so here it is. We have a production company flying out to this location via a Billabong seaplane. We don’t know who the cast members are yet, but we do know some main players are Captain Moore and some plastic pollution. Mike Prickett is producing the film. They’ll be snorkeling and interviewing and we’ll all be talking trash as we run PowerPoints and share the mission of AMRF. We’re pretty stoked!

Even though ORV Alguita hasn’t done much but go around in circles for 48 plus hours, we are getting quite the well-rounded perspective on sea animal and human transportation. This morning on my watch, we had not one but two more ships pass by. One was only 3.5 miles away which is something like a near miss. No worries, the captain watched over things to insure we didn’t have some unexpected visitors. Three ships in less than 12 hours - pretty exciting considering we haven’t seen any marine vessels in eight days!

Speaking of marine vessels, here’s a fish with its own (see photo above.) Bill took me out on the dinghy so I could practice videotaping dinghy style for tomorrows big seaplane landing when we noticed a large plastic dish-looking object about 18” around. We drove over to it and found not only a trigger fish lying on its side in the dish, but also a Hawaiian sergeant. We aren’t sure if the fish were sunning or stuck. Compliments of ocean plastic, we aren’t the only ones with flotation devices.

We stopped seeing the red-footed boobies. They only travel so far North and for the past five nights we haven’t seen a hide nor feather of them. But interestingly enough, we have started to see black-footed albatross (photo above.) They are a magnificent bird that can fly a 1000 miles foraging for food and if the wind conditions are right, they only need to flap their wings a few times. Their nine foot wing span and unique wing design may have a lot to do with it. Check out this black-footed albatross as it gets a running start while launching itself through the air. Seaplanes and albatross - what fantastic opportunities we are getting to witness out here over 550 miles from land.

They aren’t the only things that can fly. Check out Lindsey getting ready to launch off of the mainsail beam to plunge 9 meters down and me showing her how its done. Good times.
More later.
Bonnie

Day 9

2009-09-16T09:22:00.000-07:00

Noon Position 30°43'58.02"N, 158°57'52.98"W

Blog 9 Tuesday 9/15/09
First, I have a correction. The sea anchor is closer to 24 feet in diameter. And I have to admit, it’s been a little bit of a preoccupation for a couple of reasons. One reason is, we are drifting trying to keep a location as best we can for the past two days so there hasn’t been a lot going on. I went out on the bow today and watched the sea anchor swim deep below the surface. (The water is that clear!) Because it has several lines that connect to the bridle and then two lines that connect it to the front of the ship (one on the starboard side another on the port side), it looks much like a huge jelly fish. The lines emulate tentacles as the parachute fills wide with water then squeezes inward and repeats the motion. I had no idea such a simple concept could hold back the 25 plus ton RV Alguita from traveling faster than a knot. Pretty cool.

The other reason why I’m trying to keep myself busy is because we’re waiting on visitors. Remember I mentioned there was a reason for holding our position. Well, one was to try the experiment that didn’t bode well and the other is, we are waiting on a special visit. They were supposed to arrive tomorrow, but due to ocean conditions it’s been delayed. Right now the sea state is working back down from a five this morning to a three. We need it to be closer to a one to make it happen. It’s all very exciting and I’ll keep you posted as the potential event unfolds.

We did have an unexpected ship sighting that was about six miles away. “Research vessel Alguita to Antonis a Gelicousis can you read me on channel 16 over?” Captain Moore sent over the airways. And after several attempts a voice came back with either a French or Asian accent, we couldn’t decide. The voice came back requesting us to change the channel to 12 so we could talk. We explained that we were doing research and were anchored making it difficult to change positions. The Captain asked where they departed from, and the voice said, “Los Angles,” then the Captain inquired about their destination, and the voice replied, “Singapore.” Each Captain wished safe travels and then it was over. Check out this picture Jeff Ernest took of it when it was six miles away. It looks like a ghost ship.

We’ve been cleaning the place up for visitors. I cleaned windows and the bathroom. Gwen vacuumed, and Bill got rid of some food supplies that didn’t make it. It’s a team sport! The Captain made the day more interesting by going out on the dingy looking for plastics. Since the sea state is still rough and we aren’t really traveling vary far, we aren’t seeing the swath of Open Ocean like we had in previous days. Not long after he left, he was back again with plastic gadgets from the sea. “Any one lose a toilet brush? How about some caulking?” Look at all the animals that live in or on the plastic pollution the Captain found, can you count them? (see the photo at the beginning of the blog)

More later.

Bonnie

Day 8

2009-09-15T07:56:00.000-07:00

Noon Coordinates: 30°50'57.96"N, 159° 1'9.24"W

Monday 9/14/09 -The Experiment

We’ve been trying to hold a position since last night. That is, as best we can with a sea anchor. Since it’s too deep to have an anchor reach the bottom, we use a sea anchor. How a sea anchor works is it has a 10’ diameter circular opening at the front end but only a 2’ diameter circular opening on the back end. It works like an underwater parachute, slowing the boat down as it drags it through the water. So we’re moving but usually under one knot.

Since AMRF started, Captain Moore has wanted to try an experiment, but there’s never been enough time. We found a couple of days to try it. So last night, with a sea state of one, we tied nine buoys together with the huge freighter rope that we retrieved and made an island of plastic that was tethered to the ship. The idea was to see how long it took for marine life to take refuge under it and to also see what types of fish it would attract.

We woke to a sea state of three and by 1000, the sea state jumped to a six. Constant whitecaps frothed with 10’ swells that took our experiment and twisted into a bunch of knots. Before any of the buoys could be torn away by the force, we had to get them out. Not trivial. It took all of us - using the winch to lift it enough to untangle it while hanging over the railing looked much like riding a mechanical bull. Sometimes a knife was needed. Using a knife when the ship is riding up the side of one swell while being rock sideways by another and then slapped back down is a scary thought. I was happy to run the winch or carry the untethered buoys to the back of the ship. With the wind up at 25 knots and the waves crashing against Alguita, it was difficult to hear. It took unspoken cooperation of all of us - each watching the actions of the others so as to know when you could step in, reading each moment knowing that this was a serious situation and we all depended on each other. Here was a perfect example of how the ocean can change and present a situation that will require all hands on deck. And here, on the ocean, creates many opportunities to work for the common good.

Before the ocean decided to turn on us this morning, the Captain and Lindsey took the dingy out so Lindsey could get some pictures of Alguita as well as look for some big pieces of plastics to bring in since the ship was anchored. But because the sea state was much rougher than the day before, they weren’t finding much of anything. They did find some tangled up, photo-degraded rope, but it was down too deep for them to retrieve by hand. Here’s why, when the surface is rough, the plastics cannot float as easily on the surface making them impossible to see. This highlights another issue with determining just how much plastic is out here. What we have been trawling for and the items we have been collecting only express what we are finding on the surface when it is relatively calm.

After our buoy ordeal, the Captain thought it best to bring the dingy on deck. Here’s where Jeff, who Marcus and Ana call "Boat Monkey", lived up to his nickname. Remember the sea state is a six and the dingy is not only rockin’ and rollin’, but its getting slapped full of water every couple of waves. Without a second thought, Jeff jumped from the stern into the dingy. He fought to keep his balance as he bailed with one hand, pulled in oars that were on they’re way out, and ducked the line from the ship that came close to clothes-lining him a few times. As soon as he got most of the water out a huge swell came and nearly knocked him out as the rouge wave rolled in. He rode it through like a rodeo with the rope flying, his hands flailing as his ride bucked several feet in the air. Amazing balance and coordination! Shortly after the dingy rested on the stern, the Captain declared the remainder of the day a Rest Day.

Day 7

2009-09-14T08:52:00.000-07:00

Noon Position 31° 8'52.14"N, 159°54'2.28"W

Day 7, Sunday 9/13/09
Within an hour of setting our fishing poles last evening, we caught a five footer. Not a fish, but plastic fishing rope. Over the past 10 years, AMRF has been finding more and more plastic pollution, like the polymer rope, on the end of their fishing lines when out in the Pacific. The fishing was over by dark with only the plastic catch to show for it, but we did catch some wind that crept up to 16 knots yesterday. It peaked at 1800 hours, but then steadily dropped off. This segues into my morning watch. I promise not to bring up my morning watch again for awhile, but this is important.

Orion, who was at the aft of the ship yesterday morning, was now back on my starboard side which means we changed directions again. The reason why we’ve been jockeying around is to get into a specific location. I will tell you more about that tomorrow. Anyway, I hadn’t worked my shift but 20 minutes when the captain showed up. What brought him to the bridge was the wind slapping time against the near listless sails. I had pointed the ship five degrees into the wind portside after Gwen had added 10 degrees just before my shift started. But it was mute; the sails had to come down. I stepped out into the early morning air and the ocean was like a lake. Sea state one - the ocean was like an antique glass pane with subtle ripples. The night so quiet the only thing I could hear was whining rope lines and the occasional slamming sails. But after letting down the genoa and main sails, they were gone too.

Because it was so calm, it made for a great day to trawl and so we did starting at 0500. We are not in the Garbage Patch yet, but today you might have thought we were. We were running two trawls at a time and each time the trawls came in with ample of plastics particles that rivaled the natural organisms that should be there. We ran three sets of two running trawls, each for one hour. Here are two of the samples we collected;

After receiving a request to try to take a picture of the plastic bits floating past the ship, I decided an easier way might be to catch the pieces because taking a picture would be extremely difficult with the ship moving and the pieces randomly floating across a 25’ wide bow. Using a small net, not much bigger than my hand, I set the timer for 10 minutes and started plucking. It was not trivial and the first five minutes there was a huge learning curve. To an onlooker, it must have looked like a possessed pole. It had more control than I did. But by the time I was finished, I collected 22 pieces of plastic fragments! But the ones I missed were easily 10 fold than what I caught. (See first picture.)

As I had mentioned earlier, we are on a mission to get to a location so by 1300 hours we were cruising at close to 10 knots engine power. Most of us sat on the bow enjoying the perfect 80o weather with blue skies and speed-bump-free waters while looking for plastics. If it came by the ship close enough, we would try to scoop it out. All kinds of stuff floated by that were too far for our nets to reach - buoys, bottles, crates, Styrofoam chunks, fishing gear, jugs, and large broken fragments. After several attempts, Bill decided to give it up until he saw a blue 10 gallon bucket labeled corrosive coming right for us. He patiently waited for it gently flow into his net and then gave it a yank.. That’s when we realized it was heavy because it almost pulled him over the rail.

But the mother load of plastic catching today was a 55 gallon drum made out of plastic. This one required the A frame. But before we took it out, Lindsey, Jeff, the captain and I jumped in. We snorkeled with the fish that were both under it and inside of it. The captain and Jeff stayed in to lasso the drum and guide it in while Gwen steered the boat, Lindsey and Bill managed the line and I ran the winch. Once it was finally on deck, we all got a laugh when we realized nine fish were still inside of it.
More later, Bonnie

Day 6

2009-09-12T21:20:00.000-07:00

Noon Coordinates: 29°52'15.12"N, 160°19'9.60"W

Day 6 9/12/09
Each of us take (2) two hour shifts captaining Alguita each day. Mine run from 0400-0600 and again from1600 to 1800 hours. I’m not a morning person but I look forward to my 4-6 am shift to watch the sunrise from the captain’s chair. Above it is a hatch that we poke our heads through to watch the weather and check the sails (if they’re up) as well as look for any on-coming traffic or debris. We haven’t seen another boat or heard (or seen) any air traffic in five days. We are completely alone out here on the 159th parallel. The only things showing up on the radar are some thunderheads. I pop out the hatch to make sure then feel the rain on my face. The chance of running into debris is much higher. On the last leg, Alguita had two mishaps with derelict nets that got stuck in the props. Because this debris, called Ghost Nets, float close to the surface, but don’t always break it, they are difficult to see even when standing looking over the bow. In the dark it’s even more of a challenge. None the less, standing on the captain’s chair and watching the sun come up to greet moon is a pretty rare sight - in my world anyway.

For the past couple of days we traveled over the Musicians Sea Mountains - without even changing altitude! One of them we passed over named, Brahms Mountain, is over two miles high and we still cleared it by a mile. So the sea floor was actually three miles below us. Others in this mountain range are called Schubert, Handel, and Mozart to name a few.

With Jeff still sleeping, the Captain decided to put up some sails. That meant I was going to have to step-up to the plate to help put up the Stay Sail and the Main. Not having any sailing experience I’ve been the weak link and am confident if we were a reality show I would have been voted off the boat the second day. But Lindsey, Bill, the captain and I put it up like pros. Shortly after, I was standing by the captain’s chair and the Captain bent down to pick up a red plastic handle to a drawer that was mysteriously on the floor. He handed it to me and made a comment that it was the Handle Award because I’m finally getting a handle on how to sail! No one knows where the handle came from but I had to admit it was fitting. I am starting to get it finally. And we are now traveling at about 6 knots on free fuel.

We had a lot of rain most of the day today with a sea state of four. Water rushed over the bow as Alguita made its way up one wave and down another. Waves slammed under the haul with a loud boom. Scuba Drew calls them water bombs, I call them speed bumps - coming from Wilmington, NC the speed bump capital of the world I know what they sound like on the bottom of a car.

Bad weather doesn’t stop a young salt like Jeff. He put a couple of fishing lines out and within a few minutes caught a 27 standard length Mahi Mahi. It was too small to eat (really?) so Gwen had to prepare it for sampling in her lab later. Off to see if we caught any more fish.
More later.

Bonnie

Day 5

2009-09-12T13:34:00.000-07:00

Noon Coordinates: 28° 3'40.26"N, 160°18'52.80"W

Day 5, 9-11-09
Today we’re heading due north toward an area that appears to have a bloom of algae according David Foley, NOAA. Algae (phytoplankton) are primary producers. Using CO2 from the atmosphere and ocean, along with chlorophyll, they harvest energy from the sun. Primary production is defined as the utilization of CO2 and O2 to produce cellular bio-mass and energy. An algal bloom results from numerous conditions, but fundamentally from the increase in the limiting nutrients which stimulate algal growth. This results in an increase of chlorophyll that can be detected by remote sensing satellites. So when the conditions favor an algal bloom, the hypothesis is there will be an accumulation of plastic marine pollution as well. We’re going to test that hypothesis and should be on location in two days.

Our wind situation has gotten worse over the past two days. As the barometric pressure goes up the wind goes down. Today we started at 1017 and by 5 pm, the barometric pressure was 1022. The sea state has gone from a 3 to a 1 since this morning which means it now has only slight ripples and is almost glassy. It’s a magical sight to watch the ocean change its terrain from high rolling waves to a near motionless field of blue. Over the past five days I’ve likened it to driving across country. Some places have steep hills and valleys and some are flat meadows and fields. None the less, it is anything but boring out here. We’ve traveled 489 miles since we left the Harbor Monday afternoon, stopping only a few times to trawl and to swim and we’re not tired of it yet. Everyday presents another opportunity to witness the quantities of plastic that are in very remote locations of the North Pacific Gyre. We haven’t seen land since Monday and yet everyday we pull out large items. Today it was four buoys, three plastic bottles, a rope, big piece of a bag and a plastic Korean milk crate with fish swimming under, around and through it. Lindsey and Bill had a chance to jump in and take underwater shots of it. I stayed out after being stung by a Portuguese Man of War that wrapped its tentacle around my neck, across my back and down my arm. Not fun.

Today we also had three trawls going simultaneously. It looked like a race to see which trawl could haul in the most plastic. All three were winners as they all collected more plastic than we imagined, especially since we’re outside the Garbage Patch. While the trawls worked there magic on the back deck, a few of us were doing timed plastic sightings. It goes like this. We get the coordinates, set our stop watch for 10 minutes and begin to count with a clicker-counter the plastic pieces that float by. The pieces have to be as distinctive as possible to be counted as plastic (i.e. odd shapes and colors.) It’s disheartening to hear the clicker in rapid fire as photo-degraded pieces of plastic float past the RV Alguita. In fact, in 10 minutes we counted 147 pieces. Pristine water that should be untarnished is peppered with plastics.

More soon!
Bonnie

Day 4

2009-09-11T07:37:00.001-07:00

Noon Position: 27°17'55.80"N, 159°10'21.12"W

My shift watch ended at 6am, just after Orion left the night sky and brought in the Morning Star with the sun in tow. With barely a word Charlie crept out on to the bow while Bill popped up out of his berth to relieve me. Charlie called out to come take a look. He had plucked a Portuguese Man of War out of the water and its tentacle wrapped across the entire front of the ship. Close to 25 feet! The body of it was not much bigger than the tip of my thumb. It felt like a high grade spider web. It had an elastic stretch to it and didn’t break as easily as we thought it might have.

It wasn’t long after that he had to trade his cup size net for a fishing size one because the derelict buoys started rolling. Within 45 minutes we had collected four of them. Two were unmarked and the others were clearly from Japan and China. Retrieving them is not trivial when maneuvering a 50’ boat with a sail up.

Soon after, Charlie started cutting up fruit for a huge salad and cooking mushroom, onion, and spinach omelets. Out on deck, Jeff spied a block of styrene then Lindsey spotted a chunk of insulation. (We aren’t even close to the Garbage Patch yet!) Charlie continued to cook with a flipper in one hand and a net in the other. By noon we had 10 large objects recovered. Well, nine of them, the tenth one was a 20’ x 8” around rope with smaller lines interwoven. All of it was made of plastic. Charlie suggested we get our underwater cameras and check out the schools of fish that were hanging around below it. Like a little kid, I tripped over myself to get my snorkel gear. Lindsey and I were first in the water followed by Charlie and Jeff. Schools of fish near 100 thick swam in a confused state as we clicked away. Below us were five dolphin fish swimming in unison in the dancing shards of sunlight as a barracuda swam around us 20 yards away. When we finally pulled the rope out we took with it one 6 lbs. trigger fish that Charlie speared and then cooked for dinner. Mmm, mmm, good!

-Bonnie-

Day 1 & 2

2009-09-09T07:18:00.000-07:00

Noon Position: 23° 5'9.60"N, 159°20'18.00"W

Anchor up and underway! Captain Moore, Gwen Lattin, and Jeff Ernst had their hands full trying to get two novice sailors, Lindsey Hoshaw and myself, up to speed in a matter of hours before we set sail yesterday(click here to read more about the crew members on this voyage.) They competed with our last minute emails, personal blogs and our Twitter accounts. Lindsey has been getting me up to speed on how to use some of the apps on my iPhone and showed me how to upload my Twitter account via my phone. Somehow I managed to get into a community network based on the name of my account “The Plastic Ocean.” Dan Norberg who commented on Lindsey’s “Garbage Girl” account saying “Capt. Moore is a hero” also contacted me inviting me to join the groups that are talking about “plastic pollution.” I joined and watched with awe as a map of the US appeared. Slowly, but continuously, names of groups concerned about the issue of plastics in our oceans popped up. There were over 100 of them. I’m talking about people from the coasts to people in the mid-west, groups from the lower part of the country to people up near Canada. I was blown away and couldn’t help but to show Charlie the names of groups that popped up on my screen. I explained to him what it was and how people all over the country have created organizations most likely based on the AMRF research and outreach on the North Pacific Garbage Patch over the past 12 years. AMRF because of your work people are getting it. There is still much work to do, but the hope is here.

Okay now back to what happened on the ship. We seriously rode off into the sunset with sails filled with fair winds. As the sky darkened and the moon took over we had a visitor. A Red Footed Booby settled on our railing and stayed there like a hood ornament until 6am. I know because I was on watch from 2am to 6am and he helped keep me awake.

Mahalo!

Bonnie Monteleone

RESPONSE TO COMMENTS
-Jennifer, my fellow trashound and partner in crime- thanks for all your support!
-Balloons though festive are a menace to the environment so thank you for your efforts to educate. Way to get those boys on the right track. They are part of the solution.
-Sr. Chief, we got each others back and will keep the positions coming. Aloha
-Thanks for recruiting viewers Tim. It’s all about awareness! Surfrider Foundation has been a leader in helping young people understand their role in reducing plastic pollution. Mahalo
Each drop of the ocean is important so keep the drops coming with respect to educating people on the problems with balloons. Thank you for your efforts and by all means we’d appreciate the link!
-Azura Skye, thank you for your comment and letting us know our efforts are working. It’s contagious and we are confident you will infect another person and on it goes to create change. Best to you Azura and stay tuned!
-Great question Rob! Mary Donahue and Dave Foley collaborated on a published paper “2007 Remote sensing reveals links among the endangered Hawaiian Monk Seal, marine debris, and El Nino. Marine Mammal Science, 23(2):468-473.” Thanks Rob W. Thanks
-Herb, we’re off to a great start finding wind to carry us over 100 nm. in 30 hours. Thanks for the well wishing and please keep in touch.

Preparing for Departure- 10 Retrospective Research Voyage

2009-09-07T15:39:00.000-07:00

Today, September 7, Oceanographic Research Vessel Alguita is scheduled to depart on a 10 year retrospective voyage to study plastic pollution in the Pacific Ocean! This voyage from Hawaii to California will include an opportunity for the research team to re-sample the original 1999 plastic debris sampling locations. This 10-year time span will provide further information about the rate of growth and seasonal changes in plastic density in this remote region of the North Pacific Ocean. The data from the 1999 trip will be significantly strengthened by a summer sampling of the same transects during this ten year anniversary of the Algalita Marine Research Foundations first research voyage to the "garbage patch". The levels of plastic can then be compared to the levels found ten years ago, and related to our model predictions, allowing for a determination of growth during that period.
To learn more about how the ORV Alguita research team studies plastic pollution in the Pacific Ocean visit the link below!
http://algalita.org/Maps_Home.html
To learn more about the research crew and how they got involved in working aboard and Oceanographic Research Vessel visit this link:
http://orvalguita.googlepages.com/meetthecrew!

Plastic "confetti" on Kamilo Beach

2009-09-07T13:20:00.000-07:00

New crew members Bonnie Monteleone and Dr. Cooper make observations of plastic debris from the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre washed up on Kamilo Beach in Hawaii. Thank you to Noni and Ron for the tour!

Description of plastic marine debris in the Atlantic

2009-09-06T21:33:00.000-07:00

New crew members Dr. Cooper and Bonnie Monteleone have recently been on a voyage studying plastic marine debris in the Atlantic Ocean. Dr. Cooper discusses observations from their voyage with Captain Moore and Pierre Omidyar (the founder of eBay) in this video.

Day 52 Land Ho!!!

2009-07-31T15:38:00.000-07:00

July 31st 9am Coordinates: 21 15.57N, 158 04.07W

Land Ho!

We made it-51 days and 6,890 miles logged! We’re about an hour into landfall and were welcomed by the warm, still sunshine of the islands. The morning has been a bit hectic-we pulled into Ko’olina Harbor on the southwest side of Oahu with an hour and a half to spare before Christiana’s flight to the mainland. We are in the process of fueling up now and then we’ll motor our way 15 miles or so eastward to Kewalo Basin, where the Alguita will be slipped for the next several weeks as she is prepared for the 2nd leg of the voyage-the 10 year resample of our 1999 sample locations on a course from Oahu back to Long Beach.

The next few days will be spent decompressing and taking care of business. Drew will be heading back to the North Shore with his wife, Jaime, while the rest of us stick to the Honolulu area. We will be attending the Hawai’i Conservation Conference open house at ING Café on Saturday August 1st, hosting a potluck with the help of Surfrider aboard the Alguita on Sunday the 2nd (hopefully the boat will be sufficiently aired out from the 7 weeks of sea-funk-mold, mildew, and the wonderful aromas associated with 6 people in close quarters) and topping it off with a “open boat” on Monday the 3rd from 10am-12pm giving the public and press a chance to share in our research.

Update on the missile hot zone: Pheonix 1 wasn’t lying. Out on the back deck, eating cheesecake and watching our last sunset of the trip together, Christiana looked through a gap in the cloudy sky and said as a bit of an afterthought, “Wow, that looks a lot like a missile trail….” And sure enough it was. Off the port stern, there was a distinct missile trail heading to into the west. We were happy to be far enough from the launch to see the action and not feel it.

Thanks to everyone who has been following along on our journey! It’s been a unique and powerful experience for us all. Stayed tuned for a couple blog posts during the next week or so: there will be more pictures (they’ll be a lot cheaper to post and in much higher resolution now that we’re back on land) and personal accounts from the Captain and each of the crew members on our 7-week adventure.

Aloha from the Oahu,
Nicole

Day 50

2009-07-30T08:32:00.000-07:00

Noon Position 26 28.30N 159 41.22W

7/29
We are 245 miles out from Oahu and speeding along at 9.1 knots over the ground with 21 knots of wind. We are definitely in the trades now. This afternoon we passed back into the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of the U.S. and spotted Frigate Birds, both of which are a reminder that we are getting close to land again.

The day was a pretty standard transit upwind-other than being informed that were in an area which will become a missile hot zone by 5:30 pm tomorrow, the 30th. Jeff was on watch and was getting a crackling and inaudible transmission on the VHF radio. Apparently that inaudible crackle was the military trying to get in touch with us, so they decided to step it up a notch and swoop down over the bow of the Alguita in their plane. This got our attention. With the plane in closer range the transmission came in clear. The plane, which hailed us under the call sign Pheonix 1, informed us that in 24 hours the military was going to be testing missiles-right over the waters we were in. Pheonix 1 stated that as long as we maintained course (we were on a bearing of 140 or so) we’d be out of the way in time. A couple hours later Phoenix 1 made contact again, suggesting that we keep our course as easterly as possible in order to be clear out of the way by tomorrow evening. Needless to say, we are keeping out of the way.

The other excitement of the day was a product of beating into the weather. All the hatches have to stay closed since the foredeck is getting doused by waves--so the cabin is a little stuffy. Christiana gave into the stuffy heat earlier in the day (as we all have at some point) and opened up one of the hatches in the starboard cabin during a lull in splash, only to get her bunk drenched by an unexpected wave. Lesson learned. The hatch remained closed until, again someone couldn’t stand the mugginess of the cabin and re-opened up the hatch. This time the inevitable flood of water drenched Drew’s bunk-sleeping bag and all.

Our ETA is now sometime during mid-morning on the 31st, although this is still subject to the whims of the weather. We have put aside some time on Monday the 3rd, from 10am-12pm, to invite the public and the media to stop by our slip in Honolulu’s Kewalo Basin to check out what we have collected during our 7 weeks at sea. Hope to see some of our Oahu friends there.

Day 48

2009-07-28T09:23:00.000-07:00

Noon Coordinates: 31°37'12.00"N 158°35'60.00"W

July 27
We are motor sailing along at 6 knots on a course is 176, heading almost straight south towards Oahu with only 568 lovely miles to go. We've logged 6200 miles on the trip so far. Without our days broken up by trawling or stopping to dive a large piece of debris they’re all kind of starting to run together.

We hit winds of a steady 25 to 30 knots over the weekend….with gusts up to 40 and 50 knots! AS Jeff’s father pointed out to us, during this period we made the most headway in 24 hrs than we have in any of the past several voyages he has tracked!

It was a bit of a rough ride, beating into weather most of the time. At that point we were flying along at 8-12 knots with the weather hitting us at our beam. These conditions made for a noisy couple days. “Water bombs” were going off left and right. “Water bomb” is the term Drew has been using to describe the jarring “BOOM” that happens when the Alguita slaps down onto a swell. Walking around the vessel was quite a task during this weather. You don’t so much get the option of choosing where you are going as being forced to land somewhere by the yawing and slapping of the boat. The galley transforms from a place to prepare the food, to a passageway full of counters and random objects to brace yourself on your rocky journey to, well…the other side of the boat. Heavy weather also meant that the bilge alarm was going off again. There’s a hole somewhere that let’s water invade the port hull when the weather picks up (we thought we fixed it in Hawai’Ii, but apparently not). So what this means is that someone gets to pump out 5 gallons of mucky bilge water every 12 hours or so-which I must say is a small price to pay to keep the boat afloat.

The night shift on the 25th (Saturday) was particularly hairy-this was the night we saw gusts of 50 knots. The auto-pilot went out on Joel’s shift around 10pm and then morning team had to hand steer the vessel because the auto-pilot wouldn’t correct the course adequately.

The way Captain puts it, the Alguita is kind of like an albatross. When there is enough wind an albatross barely has to flap its wings-saving its energy and gliding along on the gusts. Only when the weather is calm will you see an albatross flap. Likewise, when there is enough wind the Alguita glides along, powered by sails and no energy is being spent. But when the wind dies, the boat has to flap its wings and so we turn on the engines.

Plans for our arrival in Oahu are in the works. It’s a little difficult to get things set up when our ETA is, well, a little fuzzy to say the least. We are hoping to arrive by the 30th. So far our plan is to get into the harbor at Kewalo Basin, take a day to clean-up the vessel a bit, and then invite the public and press to take a look at the debris we’ve found. There are also opportunities for us to present our research in a more formal setting. With the help of some of our Oahu based friends from Surfrider and Roz Savage’s support team we should be able to get something good going on the island.

If you live on the island and want to come by and say hi or have any ideas for a reception please contact Holly Gray at vesselsupport@algalita.org and she can put you in touch with us!
To all of our family, friends, and supporters thanks for continuing to follow the blog! It’s been refreshing to get the supportive and insightful comments from home.
On the home stretch,
Nicole

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Day 45- Living on Liquid

2009-07-24T12:58:00.000-07:00

Noon Coordinates: 35°11'24.00"N 164°39'0.00"W
As we return to Honolulu and near the completion of our historic 6,000 mile voyage through the plastic soup to the International Dateline, I should tell you something about the extraordinary vessel that made all this scientific sampling of ocean plastic pollution possible. My “Little Kelp Plant” Alguita was not built on an assembly line. She was the product of a lifetime of sailing experience, years of research into vessel design, and collaboration among experts from the other side of the world. Her virtue is that she is the smallest, most economical vessel that can carry a crew of 6 in relative comfort while monitoring vast areas of the central North Pacific Ocean. You see, living on a liquid is different from living on solid ground. First off, you have to live in a container. Innumerable containers for this purpose have been designed over the years, but for sailing ability, interior space and providing a stable platform for research, I believe the catamaran tops the list.

Oceanographic Research Vessel Alguita, Is 25 feet wide and 50 feet long, her two aluminum hulls set wide apart to provide stability. The underwing that attaches the two hulls together also serves as the floor or her ample bridge and galley. In a car, the noise of the tires rolling over the road can be made nearly inaudible to the occupants, but there is no way in a small boat, despite insulation throughout, to silence the whoosing of ocean waves being thrown out by the hulls. Additionally, the low slung underwing is only about 18” above the water surface, so that the whooshing is punctuated by waves confined between the hulls hitting it with a bang that feels like a car crashing over a tree stump. In moderate to heavy seas, we get frequent reminders that the particular liquid we are living on is not compressible. But what a sailor she is, with her main and genoa on a beam reach, she can easily do half the wind speed, and with her spinnaker set downwind, she sails along smartly.

We have gotten the winds we wanted for our sail back to Honolulu, with a gigantic cyclonic low smashing the high that creates the gyre, and are currently whooshing along on a beam reach at 9-11 knots in a blustery 25-35 knot gale. Free fuel (wind), free energy (a kilowatt of solar panels), and free water made from seawater by a solar powered reverse osmosis system. With conditions like this, our range, like that of the albatross, is truly unlimited. Our most recent voyage was a lot like that of the foraging mother albatross, Amelia, in Carl Safina’s lovely book, Eye of the Albatross - leaving the Northwest Hawaiian Islands we passed through the Musicians Seamounts, reached the International Dateline, headed due north to the subarctic frontal zone, grabbed the westerlies there and headed back down to the islands. Alguita has provided hot water for showers, cold water to drink, fresh food to eat (we still have squash, eggs, onions, cabbage, garlic, yams, leeks, and a small watermelon and a pineapple), frozen food to thaw, a propane stove to cook on and an oven to bake in. We have done day and night dives and refilled scuba tanks with our electric air compressor. We have accessed our extensive spare parts locker to replace a failed water pump, used our many tools for numerous repairs, including a tap and die set to reset a stripped bolt on the port engine, and repaired many lines and sails with our marlinspike seamanship skills. We even patched a leak in the underwing, which gets impacted by debris like heavy fishing floats smashing into it as they pass between the hulls. So our container is an amazingly versatile and functional one, not only for living safely and economically on liquid, but for studying its unknown, but important qualities. Thanks to the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, we have been able to keep Alguita involved in research important to marine conservation for the past 15 years.

Whooosh - woops, there’s another treestump, bang thump, but hey, for 10 free knots of boat speed its worth it!

Captain Charles Moore
1000 miles north of Honolulu

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Check out the voyage in Google Maps!!!

2009-07-23T16:46:00.000-07:00

View ORV Alguita Voyage Summer2009.kml in a larger map

Day 43- Balloon

2009-07-23T07:31:00.000-07:00

Noon position: 39°18'31.80"N 170°23'19.20"W
5400 miles into the trip, 8knots over the ground, 20 knots of wind

Captain has been on a cooking spree the past few days: a curried lentil and squash soup one night, green chili beef and bean stew the next, and hamburgers tonight. These tasty meals followed by relentless snacking (Jeff is the king of killer snack plate composition) have made for a sluggish crew the past few days. Well, sluggish in between the sail changes and boat chores. No trawling can be done in this sea state (we learned our lesson on the first leg with the broken Manta, plus our priority is making good time to Honolulu) and the weather hasn’t exactly created the most welcoming deck conditions (it’s rainy, and windy, and cold). Drew has still being doing his morning debris watch which involves tracking the minutes to his first debris sighting of the morning. He clocked a record 10 minutes the other day. That was the longest period of time he’s had to wait to spot debris after walking out on deck.

Needless to say, we have a lot of time to reflect on what we are finding out here. The other day we pulled up a balloon out of the water. It was the knotted end of a bold turquoise balloon attached to some sort of plastic clip. There was no fouling and it appears to be fairly recently deposited. It would have taken years for the balloon to make its way out here via ocean currents. Perhaps it caught some wind off of Japan while it was still inflated or maybe it was released off of a cruise ship passing through the Pacific.

This is the second balloon fragment of the trip. Towards the beginning of the voyage we pulled in a balloon ribbon on one of our fishing lines. As Captain Moore has pointed out several times-balloons are key examples of a frivolous use of plastic. They are mass produced and are now a celebratory staple of sorts at birthday parties, graduation ceremonies, school dances-the list goes on. I remember arches of hundreds of balloons created for high school pep rallys and football games. After the events, sometimes the balloons would get popped and other times they’d been ceremoniously released into the sky.

I was recently a part of a team from CSU, Long Beach’s Environmental Science and Policy Department that was focused on trash accumulation and categorization at the Colorado Lagoon. The Colorado Lagoon is remnant of the historical Los Cerritos Wetlands Complex which is one of the few (although highly degraded) remaining wetlands in Southern California. Balloons, or fragments thereof, surfaced several times in our transects. They are polluting the most remote parts of the world (the middle of the Pacific Ocean) as well as our terrestrial ecosystems.

Anyway, the point is we have stopped questioning some of the cultural practices that contribute to our excessive waste stream. When looking at the practice of celebratory balloons from a rational point of view, it’s a waste of resources and a ridiculous use for a material that is known for its long life span. Balloons are used once, typically on the scale of hours at a time. Why use an everlasting material for this sort of practice? Furthermore why release this material ceremoniously into the environment. Balloons aren’t even close to being the dominant source of waste in the NPSG, but they serve as an allegory for the effect our normalized actions can have on the bigger picture.

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Day 42

2009-07-22T15:10:00.001-07:00

Noon position: 40°50'29.98"N 173°19'55.80"W

We are 5,200 miles into our journey and back in the western hemisphere, starting to make our way south with a heading of 115. Our speed over ground (SOG) is 7.6 knots and we’re getting winds out of the west at 20-25 knots. These are the winds we want to see-the Captain and crew are anxious to make it to Honolulu. We all have prior commitments that have been put in jeopardy by the weather conditions.

The winds started really picking up yesterday evening, jumping from 6-8 knots in the AM to 20-25 in the PM as we headed north. We took advantage of the situation by sailing downwind with the lovely, yet hard to please, spinnaker. For a while the winds were hovering around 30 knots, throwing large rolling swells at us which compromised the accuracy of the autopilot system. We were flirting with a disastrous collapse of the spinnaker and it became necessary to steer by hand. Drew was first in line for the job and Captain came in to relieve him after an hour. Christiana and I were watching his technique (how much to turn the rudder to compensate for the swells, when to overcorrect, when to make small adjustments, etc.) when we looked up to the sudden, violent collapse of the sail.

The crew donned life vests and rushed to the foredeck to fish the sail out of the water. The damage to the sail was pretty severe. On top of a second broken spinnaker halyard there is now a huge tear running up from the foot of the sail. We lost the most efficient sail for the current weather conditions-which lowered the morale a bit. Of course, we still have other sail options and have been making do with various combinations of the Genoa jib, Stays’l, and mainsail. Part of our issue is that the nature of the area in which we have been sampling is a high pressure zone. High pressure zones are characterized by light winds. We needed to spend the fuel to motor through these calms to in order to even run the Manta trawls. The past several days have been working towards an escape from these conditions, using sail power and not trying not to use the ever dwindling fuel supply. Our plan of escape: sailing north. This may seem a bit illogical since our destination is way south of us, but there just so happens to be a rhyme to our reason. Here’s Joel on the subject:

“Since we are a sailing vessel and we must sail to get home, we need to find where the favorable winds are. The wind and currents in the North Pacific Ocean are dominated by the large gyre at its center. The wind in the California Current flows from north to south and is the eastern edge of the gyre, the Trade Winds blowing toward the west and southwest make the southern boundary, the Kurshio current flows south to north off the east coast of Asia makes the western edge of the gyre while the westerlies blow back toward the West Coast of North America and make the northern boundary of the gyre. (note: keep in mind that winds are named for the direction they originate from. Thus westerlies come from the west, easterlies from the east etc.). All together they make a giant clockwise circular current and wind system with high atmospheric pressure and calmer variable winds at the center known as the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. It is one of five major gyres in the world’s oceans. There are three in the northern hemisphere (The North Pacific, North Atlantic, and the Indian Ocean) which spin clockwise. In the southern hemisphere the South Atlantic, South Pacific and Indian oceans spin counter clockwise.

The most direct course home would have been to motor into the trade winds in the southern part of the gyre, but since we need to sail to get home we must go north and find the westerlies which blow to the east. Once we go far enough east we will make a right hand turn and will have to pass again through the center of the high pressure system which is blocking our path to Hawai’i. The light and variable winds from the gyre will eventually hook us up with the trade winds and we can use them to hastily return us to Oahu.”

The Corilolis Effect is the driving force behind the current and wind systems Joel described above. In the most basic sense, the Coriolis Effect is a result of the west to east rotation of the earth. This means that air flow is affected by this motion. For example, an object on a trajectory directly from the North Pole directly south would be deflected to east. In the southern hemisphere, an object traveling from the South Pole northward would be deflected to the west. Air pushes water to create surface currents, thus the deflection I just mentioned from high pressure systems, combined with boundaries created by earth’s landmasses encourage the dominant currents, like those described by Joel to maintain their clockwise (northern hemisphere) and counterclockwise (southern hemisphere) rotations.

Furthermore there are several convection cells of air resulting from the combination of the rotation of the earth and the differential heating of the earth. So the sun hits different parts of the earth at different angles. The more direct the angle of sun exposure, the more that surface will be heated. This is why it is so hot along the equator, where the sun hits directly for much of the year, and so cold towards the poles where there is little direct sun exposure. This differential heating results in the rising and sinking of air. Cool air sinks, warm air rises. So as air is sinking and rising (on the macroscale) as well as being subject to the Corilolis force dominate wind patterns, such as the Tradewinds (named for the reliability of the winds for trade) are established.

On another note, reports from the wildlife front: Christiana dissected two fish today-a large flying fish (we think it’s Hirundichthys albimaculatus based on the key we have on board) and the first tuna of the trip (it was an Albacore). No plastic to report in either of them.

Two nights ago we were visited by a half dozen friendly Leach’s Petrels. Well not so much friendly as they were attracted to our running lights. It’s a dangerous situation for the birds to be hovering so close to the moving vessel, there are far too many lines and hard surfaces for them to maneuver around. But it’s also not an option for us to shut off our running lights-that would put us in a lot of danger. The story ending happily though-none of the birds were hurt and we were entertained by their spastic flapping and their almost monkey-like chirps.

We are still finding debris, although it is significantly sparser. The areas we are transiting through at the moment are thought to be contributing waters and not accumulation zones of debris. Visual observations from the crew confirm this theory-although the waters have been quite choppy which makes anything but the large and prominent debris very difficult to spot. Bottom line, we still encounter debris after a few minute stint on deck and we have yet to pull in a trawl (we’ve done 42 so far) without plastic fragments.
From the Pacific,
Nicole

Day 39- A dolphin encounter unlike any other!

2009-07-21T08:38:00.000-07:00

Noon position: 39° 8'11.98"N 179°59'47.76"E

July 18, 2009
As a SCUBA instructor for Surf and Sea in Haleiwa Oahu, I do get periodic times to swim with Hawaii’s favorite spinner dolphin, I have even had the opportunity to see bottlenose dolphin. Be it all of these encounters were wonderful and exciting in their own right, nothing prepared me for what I experienced last night.

After my usual 2 am wakeup call from Jeff to begin my night watch on another night of motoring through a windless calm at about 4 knots, I noticed an unusual glow coming from the water off of the stern of the boat. I quickly realized that the green column of water trailing the boat for about 100 ft was the bioluminescence resulting from the port engine propeller. Bioluminescence is the glowing green light emitted by a reaction within certain planktonic organisms, when their surrounding water is disturbed. Unless you are on a boat at night in plankton rich water, the next best way to see an example of bioluminescence is to swim, snorkel or dive at night, then turn off your lights and move your hand back and forth through the water. You should see some tiny green swirling lights around your hand. The more plankton in the water, the more lights emitted.

Well the waters out here are so rich with plankton, that when Jeff told me I should see the bioluminescence from the bow, I was astounded at what I saw. The catamaran left 2 bright glowing green waves and green swirling lines that followed the bow wake pattern. All the while, bright green bursts could be seen as larger sources of bioluminescence were triggered by the pressure wave in the water. The sound waves of the engine would trigger the reaction in the larger pelagic planktonic organisms deeper and further ahead of the boat, so they would “light up” as we approached. The waveless, windless night combined with a vantage point less than 3 feet from the water’s surface made this a once in a lifetime occasion for me.

I decided to take my camera and a cushion to lie on and see if I could capture this incredible visual spectacle on videotape. Well as any digital videographer can tell you…yeah right! Although the Sony SR11 donated by Reef Photo, is great for the underwater video application, there is no consumer camera with that capability to record what I was seeing.

After 10 minutes of just gazing at this phenomenon, I was suddenly startled as 2 large green streaks shot from beneath the boat, between the hulls and splashed to the surface right in front of me, then split to either side of the boat. Three more streaks shot in from port side and I could see clearly through the water that unmistakable shape...Dolphin!

The only way I could describe it was the dance of the sugar plum fairies out of the movie Fantasia, only with dolphin making the trails. I could watch them go deep and the green glow would get dim and then get brighter and brighter as they got close to the surface again...then splash they would break the surface. The shape was created by the glowing green bioluminescence generated as the graceful swimming machine moved through the water.

It was like watching an animated movie with special effects…it was surreal!!!! I could clearly see the details of each animal as it swam under my nose just out of arms reach. Tails, fins, body, were all clearly visible with the green outline through the clear calm water. Within seconds I had 10 to 12 dolphin doing what dolphins do….playing in the wake of a boat. The dolphin kept shooting in from the sides, darting up from the deep, two or three at a time, swirling in front of my face, each with its own green silhouette and ocean meteor trail extending at times, up to 20ft behind each powerful tail.

For only the second time in my life, my breath was actually taken away. I sat for what must have been 5 minutes in complete amazement by the visual ballet being performed just for me. With tears building up, I thought this is not fair that my wife Jamie couldn’t be here to experience this with me, this is just one of those times you want to share with loved ones. I then thought, maybe I should wake the crew.

Well Christiana was first to show up and the dolphin continued the show. At one point we saw a big green ball rise from deep beneath the boat only to explode into 5 individual silhouette trails dancing apart, then coming back together as the graceful sea mammals continued their dance while trails from flying fish scattered about. Nicole and Charlie finally got up in time to see the show before the dolphin went on their way, but Joel and Jeff didn’t leave their bunks…oh well, their loss. We think they were the same pod of common dolphin that came by after the sun came up.

One of the things that crossed my mind while watching this light show that was taking place, was the question of what it must look like from underwater and the realization that, dolphin have good eyes so they get to see this all the time from under water. Just another reason why I believe when it comes to rank on the life ladder, we are several rungs below the dolphin, they are just designed too perfect…they don’t need technology to create their own light show.

This will rank as one of the greatest experiences of my lifetime! It’s just sad to think they have to swim through all that plastic that I see during the day.

Writing and photography by crew member Drew Wheeler (Thanks Drew!!!! )You can learn more about his underwater videography at http://www.scubadrewvideo.com/ and follow his account of the voyage on his blog at http://trashvoyage.com/

Day 38

2009-07-18T07:54:00.000-07:00

Noon position: 37°30'18.00"N 179°12'18.00"E Photo: ScubaDrew videoworks

Today was gloomy-starting and ending with rain, although it was kind of nice to get a break from the strong sunshine. Since we are motoring at such a slow speed anyway, anywhere from 2 to a whopping 4 knots, we decided we weren’t loosing much headway by throwing out a manta trawl this afternoon-and yes, there was plastic. Based on reports from Drew about the density of debris particles flowing by the boat we expected to see a lot more plastic in the trawl. It seems that by the time we set up and deployed the Manta trawl we had already passed through the denser band of debris.

We pulled in the third industrial grade white plastic bag today, although this one was a smaller piece and did not have the blue Japanese characters. Based on the fouling level and the identical nature of the plastic material we are pretty sure it’s a member of the same bunch. That makes three within four days.

Strange event of the day: an attack by a wooden spool stuffed with beer packaging. Drew spotted something “really big” dead ahead of us from his debris gazing spot on the foredeck. I popped up through the hatch with some binoculars and discovered that is was a large wooden spool for wire (about 3.5 ft tall and 3 feet in diameter). We approached it with the boat in idle forward and tried to hook it from the front. The cagey little spool evaded the debris wranglers and ended up bouncing off the port hull. Oops. No harm done thankfully.

Captain dove of the aft deck and into the water to attach a line to the spool before it got away. We hoisted it up on deck with the gantry to find two Baltica brand 6-pack beer packages (it’s a Chilean beer) stuffed inside along with a couple stowaway crabs. Upon closer inspection we could tell this was relatively recently deposited debris (based on the lack of fouling and perfectly intact structure) and Captain estimated it was likely jettisoned within a 100mile radius of our position (37 33.84N, 179 13.25E).

The spool was wooden with metal odds and ends, so it will all eventually degrade into basic elements and it is relatively inert. An object of that size is however a significant threat to ocean going vessels-as we experienced firsthand today. According to MARPOL Annex V (the International Agreement on Maritime Pollution) placard displayed on aboard the vessel (a legal requirement on boats over 25 feet long), plastic is the only material regulated over 25 nautical miles off of land. While plastic is banned from being dumped from vessels throughout the entire ocean as it should be, it seems to be a bit of an oversight to allow large and hazardous debris to be dumped at any location. Even some place as remote as the middle of the gyre is still periodically traversed and things deposited out here will eventually find their way south toward the higher traffic waters near the Hawaiian Islands. MARPOL is up for reauthorization soon, and given that the information on our placard is correct, this might be an issue worth looking into.

Wildlife report: Captain and Drew spotted two Fin Whales, a cow and calf, this morning and there were some more spouts spotted later in the day. Backtracking to critters from the night dive: I completely neglected to mention that we spotted a Hyperiid amphipod (Phornima sedentaria). Why is this exciting and what is it? These critters are crazy zooplankton commandos that commandeer the body of salps to make a salp suit. Just before we dove Christiana was telling us the alien from the movie “Alien” (the creepy little thing that bursts from the stomach cavities of the crew) was designed after the Hyperiid amphipod. Look up a picture-you’ll see why.
From the gyre,
Nicole

Day 36 & 37

2009-07-17T09:24:00.000-07:00

Noon Position (Day 37): 36° 3'19.80"N 179°36'5.40"E(Nudibranch- awesome photo by Jeff Ernst!!!)

Yesteday, Day 36, was the day of black water-we did a black water tank cleaning and had the opportunity for the first “black water dive” of the trip (aka: night dive, thankfully not some sort of foul operation involving the boat’s waste water). The starboard cabin crew (Drew , Christiana, and myself) have the wonderful opportunity of living right above the black water tank. Most of the time the cabin/tank relationship isn’t an issue. When it’s starts to get full however, our cabin takes on a VERY pungent seweresque fragrance. Over the course of the trip it’s started to be more persistent, so we decided to battle the stench front of our cabin with a mouthwateringly scented Cherry tank cleaner (yes, it’s inert-no harm to the ocean). Lack of tank stank equals a happy crew.

We set out 4 trawls throughout yesterday, still finding plastic in all of them, although in varying densities. We are starting to bring up some different and interesting critters in our trawls. A couple days ago one trawl was filled with Nudibranchs -adorable little guys.
Still logging disturbing amounts of debris throughout the day, although under sail it becomes much harder for us to maneuver to retrieve them. We found a replicate debris item yesterday, a white industrial plastic bag (similar to a trash compactor bag) with blue Japanese characters. The first one we logged was on the 14th and was lightly fouled with fish eggs and bryozoans. The bag from yesterday was also fouled with a few barnacles and some bryozoans. This got us to thinking about the source-a container spill or a waste lost from the same vessel perhaps.

The day progressed into the semblance of a delicious Thanksgiving in July feast-mashed yams with glazed walnuts, grilled chicken, and cranberry sauce with some other random dishes thrown in. We had been waiting for perfect night dive conditions, which decided to come around as we were heavy bellied after our meal. But we couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

Joel, Drew, Christiana and myself dove on tanks while Jeff free dove with the Sea Dawg-an awesome underwater scooter. Captain stayed on board, monitoring the divers. Being 40 or so feet underwater, surrounded by bioluminescent creatures, 3,100 miles out from Long Beach, with a couple miles between us and the bottom was surreal. At one point Joel, Christiana, and I huddled together, shut off our lights, and let ourselves get a full dose of the bioluminescence. It was like floating in a bed of stars-very serene and surreal. By waving our hands through the water or kicking our fins, we could light up a swath of critters-enough to clearly see each other in the pitch black water (with some help of Drew’s camera lights). We surfaced to a vibrant night sky with a perfect view of the Milky Way. We are a lucky bunch to have the opportunity to be out here. Although the subject of research is a little grim, there are many positive angles to our situation like diving in a place where no other humans have likely ever set foot (or boat?) We are able to stargaze, free of urban light pollution. Jupiter drifts low across the night sky and we’ve come to notice that it has its own “moonbeam” on the ocean’s surface--pretty cool!.

(taken during the night dive by ScubaDrew Videoworks)

We woke a tired yet content crew from the night excursions. The trawl was put out some today and Drew and Joel worked on educational footage for their grant with Kahuku School. Given that we have been working diligently to collect data, it time to focus on a timely return. The priority is being shifted toward making it home. We are crossing our fingers that we will pick up some stronger winds as we head north a bit and then end up in the easterlies which will deliver us to Hawai’i.

From the Pacific, Nicole

Day 35- We’ve reached the Dateline!!

2009-07-15T07:57:00.000-07:00

Noon Position: 34° 0'36.00"N 179°53'34.80"W

We’ve reached the Dateline!! Finally, 35 days out of Long Beach and 4,441 nautical miles into this mission and we’ve reached our goal, the International Dateline. This latitude line is both 180˚ E and 180˚ W and is a brand new line of sampling to add to the databank! Our transition into the eastern hemisphere (and into tomorrow) was quite the picturesque “after school special” moment. The sun was shining and the ocean was glassy. A pod of Striped Dolphins was performing starboard of the vessel and an albatross or two was flying about. The crew was gathered on deck as Captain watched our position from the helm, counting down our approach to the Dateline over the hailer. We crossed, and yes, at that moment, the dolphins decided to up their performance to some aerial moves. Captain joined us on deck and we relished in the moment of achieving our goal for a bit-the conversion tending towards the usual, marine debris.

Before we reached the Dateline, we had a strange run in. Around 9am, I was directed from the debris spotters on deck (Captain and Drew) to turn hard starboard so we could fetch an obscure piece of debris in the distance. As Captain was dipping down the net to retrieve it he realized that it was far from marine debris-it was a sea turtle (it's been difficult for us to ID it as it passed by so quickly, but it's either a Hawksbill or a Green). The presence of this guy highlighted the reason marine debris is such a tremendous issue; the juvenile turtle was feeding in an area where we had been fishing out debris all morning, introducing the possibility of plastic ingestion. We have documented the tangle of debris and zooplankton that surrounds us (see photo below). It is easy to imagine how the plastic fragments could be inadvertently scooped up-and marine debris ingestion in sea turtles has been recorded. We got some footage of the turtle (it has a large white mass growing off its shell) and Drew jumped in to get a better underwater angle on our reptilian friend, but he caught onto us and took off into the blue abyss.

So now that we are at the Dateline we are doing what we came here to do-sample, sample, sample. Manta sample #29 was the pioneering trawl--the first of the Dateline series, and the first Algalita sample in the eastern hemisphere. Refreshingly, we pulled up only 3 plastic fragments in the trawl (at least from what we could see with the naked eye). Manta sample #30, deployed a ½ hour after #29, produced a ridiculous amount of plankton. The sample was backfilled out of the cod-end and up into the sock of the net. It took up a 3 gallon bucket (for reference, the average sample we pull out is about a 1/2 liter or so). It wasn’t feasible for us to save the whole thing (we are running low on formalin to preserve the organics in the samples) so we rededicated portions to the education sample stock. Manta sample #33, the last of the day, ran for a half hour and produced an astounding amount of plastic. A stark contrast to Manta #29 deployed 3 hours (roughly 9 nautical miles) prior. As I stated yesterday, the trash accumulation zone is patchy and tremendously dynamic.

Before the trawling and Dateline crossing, we spent some time discussing our protocol for debris documentation in order to maximize the value of the data gathered on future voyages. Our focus has been on researching the small scale debris pulled in from the trawls and we are still learning how to best approach the documentation of the larger debris we are encountering. The whole protocol discussion process inevitably ended up delving into the Alguita, which turned us on to Jeff’s old oceanography book he contributed, which then lead to the ultimate quiz session. We passed quite a bit of time picking random oceanography terms and testing each other on our marine realm vocab. Oh the ways you entertain yourself at sea; spending time learning new and obscure knots, playing chess (the Jeff-Joel chess score: Joel up, 26-20. These boys are chess machines.), exercising, cooking, snacking, reading, looking in fish (if you’re Christiana), repairing boat parts, expanding your language repertoire (Greek, Spanish, and Japanese have all been dabbled in), seeing how many bird shots you can get with your telephoto lens (if you’re Jeff)……the list goes on.

We are chugging along at 3 knots with the main and Genoa up, banking on some more wind to come our way as we head north. We will continue sampling along the Dateline for the next 300 miles, up to 40N and then head east after we pick up the westerlies to start our return to Hawai’i.

From the International Dateline,
Nicole

Thank you to ScubaDrew Videoworks and AMRF for the pictures!!!!

Day 34

2009-07-14T08:05:00.000-07:00

Noon position: 34°15'39.60"N 177°44'31.20"W

7/13/09
80 miles out from the Dateline and the seas are thick with debris and plankton. We did two 10 minute debris counts today, the morning one yielding 37 pieces and an afternoon one 87 pieces. I realized today that the Alguita has sampled as far as the 170th parallel on previous voyages, and we are now at 179W which means the past several days have involved sampling in previously un-sampled waters-exciting!

We typically set out Manta trawls for a period of 1 to 2 hours, but yesterday we could only set the trawls for 15 minutes because the plankton was so dense that it quickly clogged the cod end of the net. While these trawls were delivering high amounts of plankton, the amount of small plastic debris was keeping pace. Within yesterday’s series of 15 minute trawls (we did 4 in total) we noticed a gradient in plastic density. There was a marked difference in the plastic level observed in the first trawl, which was heavy in plastic, and the last of the series, which was pretty light in plastic content. This was covering a distance of roughly 2 nautical miles which just goes to show how dynamic the debris accumulation is throughout the gyre.

The education trawl was pulled up wounded from some sort of underwater battle. There was blood pooling in the end of the net and holes ripped in the mesh. Apparently something tasty was trapped inside of the net which something else wanted to eat to bad enough to tear through it. Several chains of baseball stitches later and the net was back in action.

This morning Charlie and Drew got in the water while the rest of the crew was fast asleep to dive a buoy they had captured. As the Captain de-barnacled the debris underwater he became the new refuge for the fleeing crab. Later in the morning we spotted a second buoy with a thriving ecosystem-juvenile Rainbow Runners, crabs, gooseneck barnacles, so we decided to dive it. The bad part about diving in dense plankton zones-the jellies. We were all getting stung left and right by these mesmerizing, yet painful critters.

Later in the afternoon we encountered the most bizarre debris of the day; a laundry basket filled with fish. It’s not every day a basket full of fish comes floating your way while you’re in the middle of nowhere. Tiny Rainbow Runners and a few Pilot Fish were stuck inside the basket (at least until the seas got rough enough to throw them out). When we pulled it out of the water we found coral growing on the bottom. A few of the fish were preserved for lab work up and the rest of them were analyzed on board for plastic content, thankfully with no plastic to report.It’s been glassy calm the entire day, shifting from a perfectly sunny morning to a gloomy, rainy afternoon, and ending with a stunningly starry night. As characteristic of the gyre, the winds are light and variable. We’ve been running through a flurry of sail changes trying o maximize the wind.

Thanks to Jeff’s mom Kathe for the awesome “Friendship Soup” recipe which we enjoyed the other night!

From the thick of it, Nicole

Day 32

2009-07-12T13:14:00.001-07:00

Noon Coordinates: 34°14'27.60"N 174°18'25.20"W
Styrofoam is a copyrighted term for a Dow Chemical insulation material. The generic term for the spongy white cups and take out containers we are all familiar with is expanded polystyrene. Photos of waterborne trash accumulations from urban centers invariably show large quantities of expanded polystyrene containers. When polystyrene - think clear CD cases that crack - is expanded, gas is dispersed into the melted polymer creating innumerable channels and bubbles in the material. This makes it a good insulator for hot beverages and food, and gives it a texture that is easy to handle. It also makes it float, since plain polystyrene is heavier than water. Dr. Anthony Andrady, Algalita Marine Research Foundation’s lead polymer scientist, conducted experiments with different types of plastic in the ocean and on land to determine how they lose flexibility, become brittle, and break down into fragments. He found that all plastics except one, expanded polystyrene, broke down faster on land than in the ocean. For most plastics, heat absorption was the key to rapid embrittlement, and the cooler ocean environment acted as a heat sink, slowing the process. But with expanded polystyrene, the increased access of seawater into the pores of the plastic accelerated breakdown more than the increased heating on land. Dr. Andrady found that expanded polystyrene was the only common plastic to break down faster in the marine environment. When I sampled the Eastern Garbage Patch, halfway between San Francisco and Hawaii in 1999, I only found about 10% of the particles in our trawls were expanded polystyrene. These most probably originated in debris from Asia following the debris highway created by the Kurashio current’s easterly extension. Now that we are nearly two-thirds of the way to Japan, we would expect to see more expanded polystyrene and to see it in a less degraded state. This is indeed what we are finding, little bits, medium sized pieces and big blocks.

As we approach our goal, the International Dateline, (we are now at 175 West Longitude, only 5 meridians to go), we also are seeing more Asian PET drinking water and soda bottles. Since the caps are made of Polypropylene, not PET and degrade faster, when the caps crack, the bottles fill with water and sink, so we don’t find as many of them in the Eastern Garbage Patch. The Asian origin of the debris is corroborated by markings on much of what we are finding. A Taiwanese fishing float stating “Yung Plastic Industry, Republic of China,” a Japanese Coca Cola bottle, a thin piece of plastic film with Chinese Characters and a Japanese survey stake. All of this debris creates an amazing habitat for a great variety of free-floating larvae looking for a place to settle on and grow. According to David Barnes, of the British Antarctic Survey, plastic debris at the surface of the ocean has at least doubled the mass of the organisms living there. Not only are new species showing up on plastic transported to coastal environments where they have never been before, species that normally live in coastal habitats can be found associated with debris in the deep ocean. This is analogous to the introduction of European weeds and pests into the New World, species that displaced and decimated the natives. It has been speculated that this mixing of biota could result in a reduction of species diversity in the ocean by half.

From Captain Charles Moore, sailing toward the dateline aboard ORV Alguita.

Day 31

2009-07-11T10:24:00.001-07:00

Noon Position: 34°38'13.20"N 172°53'25.80"W

Today was our rest day (although we did set out education trawls and dive for debris still :) Here are a couple pics. One is the cod end of the trawl underwater, the other is a sunset with debris we have collected on deck.

Day 30

2009-07-10T08:34:00.000-07:00

Noon position: 35° 3'54.00"N 171°37'40.80"W

It’s been super calm, and we’ve been taking advantage of these conditions to do some continuous trawling. We are bringing in our third trawl of the day-they have all been thick with plastic. Among some of today’s debris finds: a black plastic bag fragment, bottle caps, and an oil bottle which weaseled its way into the Manta trawl. Notable wildlife find of the day: a Hatchetfish (Captain found this little deep water fish while putting around in the dingy, at the surface-quite a ways from home). I did another fragment count today off the bow: 48 pieces of plastic floated past in 10 minutes. About half the frequency I recorded on July 4th, but still pretty astounding.

While the afternoon trawls were out, we had a string of exciting events. Jeff and Drew jumped in the water with some dive propulsion vehicles (aka underwater scooters) in order to get some more underwater footage of our trawling procedures. Once in the water, they spotted a pair of Mahi and Joel decided to dive in and take advantage of the opportunity to collect a research specimen. After a gypsy call emerging from Drew’s snorkel, Joel was pointed in the direction of the fish. He speared the bull. The big guy was especially feisty and tried to bite Joel’s groin several times. Luckily he was wearing a wetsuit and Mahi don’t have especially fierce teeth. This was Mahi number 13 and at 40lbs he was the biggest we have pulled in so far. After a struggle, we got the fish up on deck and Christiana was able to do her thing. Here is what the resident fish nerd had to say about the findings from her dissection:

“I did not find any plastic in the Mahi’s stomach, but I did find some really interesting creatures. There was a cornucopia of parts that I was able to put together--like a forensic puzzle. I felt like a scientist on CSI: Pacific Gyre. There were parasites, squid beaks and mantles, fish jaw bones and skulls, a crab carapace and claw remnants, and a completely intact lanternfish (Family: Myctophidae). This was an amazing discovery for me because it shows that Mahi feed directly on laternfish. From my research on the laternfish collected from the 2007-2008 gyre voyage, I found that these particular fish had ingested a ridiculous amount of plastic. What we found today is a full circle; humans have created this mess in the ocean and we are now stuck consuming it. I really hope that our efforts out here get people more motivated to prevent this problem from getting worse.”

While it is a significant opportunity to be able to catch this fish for research, there are mixed feelings about the catch and dissection process. Drew recounts his sentiments after getting the opportunity to film the Mahi underwater, “I was a visitor in his domain. He was a majestic and proud. It was sad he had to give his life up for science because he was such a beautiful fish.” Bottom line, the crew of this vessel respects and appreciates the creatures of the ocean-but it has become our burden to dissect and document them in order to wake up the general public to the repercussions of our actions.

After we processed the fish, Captain, Christiana and I went on an expedition this afternoon. Since conditions were so calm, we decided it was high time to take the dingy out. It was bizarre to watch our home for the past several weeks disappear behind us, but at the same time it was nice to escape from the boat for a bit. We cruised along looking for debris, which is a little harder to spot from the low vantage point of the dingy. After a few minutes we ran into a float-which from a distance looked like a large Japanese glass float. It turned out to be a standard buoy. It was a 300mm float made by Yung Plastic Industries Co. in Taiwan. There was a huge population of barnacles layering the lines attached to the buoy and a decent sized community of juvenile Rainbow Runners taking refuge under the debris. We had some time to jump in the water and film the synthetic habitat while we were waiting for the Alguita to catch up with us. Getting the buoy back onto the vessel required a bit of muscle-there were about 100 pounds or so of barnacles attached.

The evening has been spent doing some standard boat housekeeping-hosing decks, cleaning the debris (barnacle shucking needs to happen to help keep the stink down, which ends up wafting into the starboard cabin), sorting out old produce, etc. We are 399 miles out from our desired sampling location and near the 4000 logged mile mark for the trip! Winds are still low and variable at around 5 knots. We have been making a plethora of sail changes the past several days, trying to exploit the few decent bursts of wind we are afforded. The spinnaker is up for now and she requires tons of attention in these light winds to keep her filling. She does a sort of belly dance which is graceful on a large scale.

Day 28

2009-07-08T13:19:00.000-07:00

Noon coordinates: 34°22'55.20"N 169°12'14.40"W

July 7th, 2009

Once everyone was up and about this morning, Captain decided it was time to take down the main and put the spinnaker back up. The chute is our best shot at making a decent speed toward our sampling destination. We are running too low on fuel to continue compensating for the weak winds by motor sailing.

As we were prepping to drop the main halyard we discovered the line was jammed in the jammer-not good news. It turned out the repair job from yesterday was more of a problem than a solution; the repaired sheath was the jamming culprit. So, Joel foolishly (in his own words) volunteered to go to the top of the mast and replace the main halyard with the backup halyard. This required hoisting him up 50 feet or so in the boatswain’s chair. Immediately after getting up the mast he spotted a ghost net, which we were unfortunately too preoccupied to retrieve-safety first... Unfortunately for the already motion sensitive Joel, the sway of the vessel is amplified atop the mast. He got seasick and the unsuspecting Captain and I to got doused from above with Joel’s breakfast. One flying hammer later (good thing we had hard hats) and the switch was complete. Joel charged through his bout of seasickness and got the job done, earning the crewmember platinum star for the day.

We were spotting debris left and right, so after the halyard business we put out the Manta and an education trawl. While the Manta trawl samples will be analyzed back at the lab, the education samples will be used for outreach purposes. In fact, Algalita Educators Marcus Eriksen and Anna Cummins just wrapped up a 3 month education tour of the west coast of the U.S. They cycled down the coast stopping along the way to pass out education samples to educators, legislators, and community.

Interesting trash find of the day: a Japanese honey bear bottle and ½ a trash can lid. Wildlife citing of the day: a close encounter with a Black Foot Albatross. And by close, I mean close. We stopped for a swim in the late afternoon. While netting and documenting debris with cameras and video equipment, we managed to spark the curiosity of part of our albatross fan club (they are still following the Alguita). She landed right next to us and proceeded to ham it up for the camera. She was tagged, however she didn’t sit still quite long enough for us to get the information off of her band.

Early evening sent Jeff up the mast to finish the halyard repair process. Thankfully, he made it up and down the mast without any event to speak of. Our day ended with the accomplishment of what we had set out to do much earlier in the morning-raise the spinnaker.

We are making headway, although not much, toward our goal sampling zone. From the amount of debris we are bringing on board, it seems as though we are in the thick of the plastic soup at the moment. Every survey over the water surface unveils the presence of some sort of debris-small fragment or otherwise. At this point we have logged over 110 larger pieces of debris, and have yet to bring in one Manta trawl that was free of plastic. The past several trawls have been especially disturbing, blanketed with a layer of floating plastic particles.

From the thick of it,
Nicole

RESPONSE TO COMMENTS

Hi Jamie,
We have quite a bit of space to stow debris. Joel, Drew, Jeff, and the Captain rigged a cargo net onto the salon roof from one of the several ghost nets we picked up . We’ve stuffed the cargo net with the smaller debris we have collected (plastic bottles, buoys, bucket lids and such). The fragmented bits are being stored in bags, labeled with the collection date. There is plenty of deck space and material to rig debris storage. So until we run out of creative ways to stow it, we will keep bring the debris on board. (Check out the picture above!)

Day 27

2009-07-07T08:07:00.001-07:00

Noon Position: 33°33'18.00"N 167° 1'40.80"W

July, 6th 2009
Not much to report about today. We were making great headway this morning with the spinnaker up, 10 knots or so. In order to keep the spinnaker flying, we would have had to continue heading due north-which was not conducive to reaching our sample area. So, we took down the kite and put up the main and Genoa. During the sail change we discovered that the spinnaker halyard had chaffed all the way through the sheath and down into the core a bit. Captain and Jeff spent a couple hours making an eye splice for the shakel that attaches to the head of the sail. The spare spinnaker halyard will be used in future when we are on a beam reach as its pulley doesn’t come from inside the mast and chafe the halyard when pulled to the side.

We gained some vessel groupies today, 2 to 3 Black-Footed Albatross and a Laysan who dropped by a few times. They’ve been swooping and gliding around the Alguita all day, teasing Drew by flying out of sight we he decided to bring his camera out on deck. The “Albies”, as we’ve taken to calling them, were still around as the sun was setting this evening. You can see the wing of the albatros barely skimming the water in the photo.

The Captain and crew are all doing well. Jeff and Joel are neck and neck in a never-ending chess tournament. Drew found a large green glass Japanese fishing float, as I mentioned yesterday, and is now close to being on cloud nine. We just need to get him on a few more dives so he can breathe some “compressed air” as he likes to say.

The seas are starting to get a little rougher, no more glassy, sea state 1 conditions. This makes it more difficult to spot debris (swells and whitecaps get in the way) but way more interesting to maneuver around the boat. It’s almost like a dance-trying to stay balanced while getting from place to place.

It’s been raining on and off today as we’ve passed in and out of squalls. It’s the first day we’ve seen in quite a while without constant sunshine. We are 596 miles from our sample area and should reach it by the 10th, giving us plenty of time to sample before we need to return to Honolulu.

Day 25 and 26

2009-07-06T13:10:00.000-07:00

Noon Coordinates (Day 26) 32°43'40.80"N 165°12'7.20"W

We are back in Vallela territory again. As we headed further south on part 1 of the trip, we stopped seeing the little guys blanketing the ocean surface. We saw a pod of common dolphins yesterday, playfully swimming off the port bow of the the Alguita. The sun was just beginning to set, which created quite the picturesque moment. The moon is pretty close to full now and we've taken to watching the path of luminescence it creates on the calm ocean surface. We are roughly 650miles from our destination of 35n and 180W, and cruising along at a speed of 7knots with our friend, the new and improved Spinnaker, flying off the starboard bow. The southerly winds finally found us!

Some unwelcome and unexpected guests had stowed away and finally surfaced yesterday....maggots. Chrisitana opend the fridge and was soon overcome by her well known gag reflex (she can disect fish no problem, but put some maggots or some rotten food in front of her and she's done for!). The little guys started jumping ship--out of the fridge and into the crevices of the carpet. Somehow, the two of us who were most put off by the little critters ended up with the task of getting the maggot situation under control...

Now let's talk trash. The weekend was jam-packed with chasing down and wrangling debris and dissecting fish, constantly reminding us of the burden mankind has put on this vast and precious ecosystem. People argue that a handful of plastic surfacing out of 1 manta trawl is no big deal. I wonder if these people understand the vastness of the ocean. We've managed to infect, if you will, the largest and most remote part of the world. As I am writing now I watched a small banana float zip past the vessel. Our waste has metastasized, no longer a problem infecting just our immediate surroundings and filling up landfills (which is bad enough) but the debris is now in the circulatory system of our planet. Would you argue that it's "just a handful of cancer cells" permeating your body?
-Nicole-

Drew's account of 4th:

"we have been virtually becalmed all day…maybe 3 knot wind, so we have been motoring on course only diverting when 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 one 5 minute section where we found 4 plastic fishing floats along with numerous plastic bottles, rope and 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 did see but were too small for the pole nets and or too far out of reach off the boat. No matter how hard we tried, we just couldn’t pick up all the trash we see…it is impossible!

One of the other very critical elements to understanding this issue is the visual aspect. Many people want to see a picture…well that is almost impossible. Only at decks edge, 3 feet off the water can you see the small fragments drifting by, at a rate of 10pcs/minute, according to Nicole who measured that today, and that is only on one side of the boat, within visual range…30 ft maybe. Most of those fragments are too small to be caught with the hand nets.

Then when I went up to sit 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, you will not even see the real problem. I tried to film the small bits, but I don’t know how well it came out.

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 and we are still way outside of the center of the trash vortex. The pictures are from 2 ea. 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, this problem has expanded 100 times in the seven years since I first saw the plastic. What will I see next…"

Captain Moore's account

" Our voyage to the International Dateline to assess plastic debris levels is now in full swing. After 4 days of chasing non-existent tradewinds, we have finally found them up at 33 north lat, 165 west lon, and are sailing happily under our beautiful red and green spinnaker. The motoring was punctuated by two instances of prop fouling by ghostnets (lost or abandoned fishing gear) which had to be cut and unwound from the propellers - a difficult job, especially at night. The calm weather, while forcing us to use half our fuel supply, also afforded excellent sampling conditions for plastic trash. The crew was shocked by the amount floating by (which they often netted) and the amount pulled up by our manta trawl. On Independence Day alone, we recorded 34 large objects netted, including a dozen fishing floats, a hairbrush, a Japanese survey stake (definitely not from a ship), and a PET bottle of Mitsoya Cider. That does not include the many smaller bits we scooped up and didn’t record in our “collected debris log.” I can imagine young people on voyages in the not so distant past, when the ocean was teeming with life, excitedly netting up fish and other sea creatures in abundance. I see the same excitement in my young volunteer crew shouting and netting up debris in an ocean teeming with trash. Of course, our longest handled net can only reach out about ten feet from the boat, so we see many, many more pieces floating by than we can collect. In fact, Nicole did a stopwatch survey from the starboard bow and counted 217 pieces of plastic in 20 minutes or a little more than 10 pieces per minute. We are well and truly in the Subtropical Convergence Zone, as described by the NOAA Marine Debris Program, a band several hundred kilometers in width centered around 30 degrees north latitude, and stretching from far offshore California to far offshore Japan. One of our goals is to see how levels of plastic pollution fluctuate within this area. We have another species to add to our list of fish that have ingested plastic particles. I netted up a fishing float with a long tail of rope heavy with barnacles and a 9” Chub (nenue in Hawaiian) came up with the float. Chubs, genus Kyphosidae, have extremely long digestive tracts and “use bacterial fermentation to extract maximum nutrition from their diet of seaweed.” (Guide to Hawaiian Reef Fishes, by Hoover) Christiana was surprised to find on dissection, pelagic crabs in the stomach. Apparently, when you have to live off the ecosystem created by plastic debris, your vegetarian preferences may have to be compromised. In addition, she found two small plastic fragments along with the real food.

Drew spotted the first glass fishing float of the trip and we were able to grab it for his collection. He got a similar large green glass float on the 2002 gyre voyage." (See picture to the left of Jeff with the glass float)

Day 24

2009-07-04T09:10:00.000-07:00

Noon Position: 29°19'12.00"N 162° 3'25.20"W

We are heading north in search of winds, without much luck still. The nice thing about heading north-each day the sun seems to set a little later. Who can complain about more daylight?
This morning we deployed the 11th Manta trawl of the trip. This sample contained far more plastic than any of the past 10. We are deploying another trawl this evening in order to capture the mesopelagic fish which feed on the surface at night. We also are discussing doing early morning trawls (around 4 am or so) in order to catch these fish after they had fed. This may yield a more accurate plastic ingestion count, since we might be able catch the fish before they pass any plastic they ingested. In addition it would be interesting to see if there is a difference in the quantity of plastic pulled up after marine organisms have been feeding throughout the night.

The afternoon was spent watching for debris off the foredeck. Along with several fragments of plastic, we found a large polystyrene buoy, under which a school of Mahi Mahi had taken residence. After disturbing the shelter of the fish, they scattered frantically-right into one of the lines we had trailing behind the boat. Christiana worked up the fish and found a possible plastic particle in its stomach which has been preserved for on shore lab analysis. She also noticed that this female had completely hydrated gonads. This means she was ready to spawn, but the odd thing is that Mahi typically spawn in the springtime. She was the 11th Mahi we have caught so far (and we have still only pulled in one male!) She was also heaviest and the longest (jackpot!).

RESPONSE TO COMMENTS

Theresa,
We do have a rough running count of the larger pieces of debris we have collected so far-approximately 45 or so. We have spotted much more than this, but this was all we were able to get our hands on (much of the time, the debris is too far for us to net from the boat or we are in transit and cannot slow down or maneuver in time to catch it). And this is also including the plastic we have accumulated from the trawls-these are the tiny fragments which we will not be able to quantify and classify until we get them back to the lab. And not to worry-more will be heard from the resident fish nerd!

Day 23 Attack of the Ghost Net!

2009-07-03T08:39:00.000-07:00

Noon position: 26°39'39.60"N 161°20'20.40"W

Before dawn this morning the vessel was attacked…by a ghost net. Judging from the color, level of fouling, and mesh size it seems that the net which lodged itself around our propellers this morning might be a piece of the same ghost net we caught yesterday afternoon (although we can’t say for sure). The force of the propeller rotating at 2400 revolutions per minute wound the net so tight around the drive shaft that it thrust the motor forward on its mounts one full inch and started a horrible grinding of metal on metal with the alternator hitting the belt guard. At first we thought the motor had thrown a rod, but Joel saw where the impact was and the Captain removed the belt guard and the motor ran OK in neutral, but stalled when put in gear. This is pretty much diagnostic for a wrap of debris around the propeller. Lucky for us, Drew and the Captain got lights and knives and were able (after an hour or so of sawing) to cut off the intruding net and its now residing on deck with the rest of our collected debris.

Many vessels are not so lucky though. It has been estimated that 6.6 billion Yen/yr (almost 70 million US dollars) is spent on damages to Japanese fishing vessels under 1000 gross tons because of marine debris related incidents(Takehama,1990). In 2005 the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found that marine debris caused 269 boating accidents and $3 million in property damage.

We are now motoring along (still) over the Pacific Seamounts, specifically Sibelius, Haydn, Ravel Seamounts which are named after famous musicians. We are now relaxing, watching a gorgeous Pacific sunset and waiting for cornbread to come out of the oven.

All the best from the Captain and crew.

--Nicole

Day 22-The Biggest Debris Day so Far

2009-07-02T12:27:00.000-07:00

Noon Coordinates: 22°54'21.60"N 160°34'30.00"W

Surveying the ocean from the foredeck, Captain Moore called to me during my morning watch, “we are passing through a plankton bloom”, and sure enough I could see what was a planktonic version of the yellow brick road: a dense winding, river-like bloom of yellow-orange plankton drifting across the ocean surface(see photo above.) From his experience Captain knew that these dense windrows (long streaks on the ocean surface a few meters wide) are often tantamount to a dense oceanic stream of trash. Sure enough, he took a net to the bow and scooped up several pieces of debris within the first 20min or so. And so began our day of chasing debris through windrows.

After two hours of tracking and scooping debris from the deck, we decided it was high time to get into the water and observe the trash in situ. As we coasted into a particularly dense zone of the windrow and shut off the engines, we encountered our first ghost net (an abandoned fishing net which coalesces into a destructive mass that smothers marine life from coral reefs to the Hawaiian Monk seal).

We were able to get the net on deck after filming the marine life that decided to find shelter under this traveling debris mass. We found the all too typical ingredients of the plastic soup-bottles from cleaning and personal care products, buoys, fragments of plastic bags and hard plastics, and even a menacing hook from a long-line fishing operation which was tangled in the ghost net. It’s sobering to realize that the items are found with such regularity within the NPSG that I am able to describe them as “typical ingredients.”

Fouling organisms were abundant within the debris -crabs, barnacles, bryozans, and bristleworms. Of particular note was a crab with barnacles growing from its head (we are still not sure of the crab species we are finding, but we have seen them swimming separate from the debris). We also netted a juvenile and adult Frogfish (Sargasso Frogfish we believe), which was an unusual find for us.

The crew is all in good spirits and working in full gear to document the debris state of the Pacific. We are motoring along (winds are barely puffing at a sad 5 knotts or less).

Day 21- Back at sea!

2009-07-01T08:11:00.000-07:00

Noon Coordinates 21°49'15.60"N 157°48'21.60"W

It’s our first full day back at sea since our pit stop at Kewalo Basin in Honolulu. The sail and the Manta trawl are fixed-up and ready for action. We were able to get the Manta repaired by the end of the day on Friday, but we had to stick around until Monday afternoon to wait for the spinnaker to be repaired. In the meantime we enjoyed our weekend milling about Oahu, playing in the surf, and taking care of random boat chores.

It was refreshing to see what a great job Oahu is doing to phase out single use plastic items! The fuel dock at Ala Wai Harbor provides only “potato-ware” and paper bags in their convenience store. The crew made our way up to the North Shore and found several local places in Halewia town (like Kono’s and the Coffee Gallery) using compostable versions of” disposable” utensils and cups and even sustainable to-go packaging made by forward thinking companies like Styrophobia. Many of the local business are part of a coalition of called Plastic Free Hale’wia and have vowed to keep one time use plastics out of their business practices. Even the extravagant Turtle Bay Resort jumped on the Styrophobia bandwagon!

While compostable bags and utensils are a HUGE step in the right directions, in order get the full potential out of these alternatives they need to be composted. Eventually a commercial composting facility will need to be introduced on the island to handle a large scale switch to compostables. I got the chance to speak with the founders of TR33s (a North Shore based sustainability consulting firm working with Joel’s environmental non-profit Sea of Change) who pointed out that until enough businesses carry compostable products it will not be profitable for a large scale composting facility to come to the island. And on the flipside, many businesses feel it is pointless to carry compostables if there is no facility to take care of the breakdown process. It’s a bit of a catch-22, but thankfully the switch is moving along.

We spent the day traveling north past Kuai and Ni’ihhau, making our way through the Kaulakahi Channel which runs between them. The Captain was hoping the winds would allow us to travel a north-west route running up the western border of the main Hawaiian Islands so we could sample along the chain in order to see if there was a progression in debris density along the islands. But once again the winds are proving to be a little too weak to fully power our sails in the direction we want to go, and we have been relying on the motor more than we hoped. So plans have changed and we are taking a route more directly for the time being. Our goal is still to make it out to the International Dateline, at about 28 or 29 degrees north, west of Kure Atoll to sample outside of the boundaries of Papahanaumokuākea Marine National Monument.

We deployed the manta tonight test out the repairs and just completed two hour evening trawl-producing a plastic film fragment, numerous shapes and sizes of small hard plastic fragments, and several different species of fish (a total of 64 fish)! Click on the picture of the sample to the left to look closely through the contents.

On another note, congratulations to Joel and SCUBADrew who have received a grant from Hawaii Community Foundation to present the results of the voyage to Kahuku High School on Oahu. In addition to sharing our research they will teach the students to monitor the beaches around Kahuku point for marine debris. Kahuku beaches are the most heavily plagued by marine debris wash-up on the island.

Aloha from the CApt. and crew!

Day 16

2009-06-26T12:45:00.001-07:00

Noon Position : 21°36'21.60"N 156°56'9.60"W

6/25/09

We are about 65miles from Oahu, and will be pulling into the fuel dock Ala Wai Habor and then we will dock at Kewalo Basin. The night watch team is geared up to be extra attentive as we approach the thick boat traffic surrounding the islands.

We caught our first male Mahi today, making that Mahi number 10 of the trip. We found 2 puffer fish in its stomach, and no plastic upon initial analyses.

We had a 7^th crewmember for the last half of the day…a stubborn and economical Booby. He(or she) decided to not fly back to Hawai’i, but to catch a ride aboard the Alguita. He positioned himself atop the gantry for a while preening and scoping for flying fish. After a few hours, the back deck became soiled with Booby droppings and Jeff decided it was time to encourage the bird to fly off. And it did…to the bow of the boat where he stood his ground for another ½ hour or so. After some more encouragement to get on his way, he flew up and perched atop the boom and proceeded to soil the mainsail.

Our time in Honolulu will be monopolized with the many errands we need to handle, so you’ll hear from us again on Monday or so when the whirlwind of tasks (and some decompresson time) is over.

Family and friends, we are back in cell phone range so give us a call! Aloha from the Islands, Nicole

Tamara, Thanks for passing on the stuff from Sarah and congrats on the award! We’ll do what we can to get you some plastic/seawater samples for you!!

Day 15

2009-06-25T12:34:00.000-07:00

Noon Position: 22°40'37.20"N 153° 3'3.60"W

Day 15 began with sunshine, a sail change, and a blue water expedition. After breakfast, the crew rallied to take down the sails in preparation for a blue water expedition. Here is the Captain’s account of the morning:

“This morning, the trades fell to under 15 knots, and we broke with the routine to make a sail change. Since the mainsail, Genoa Jib and Stays'l all had to come down before putting up the Spinnaker, I like to use the opportunity of becoming dead in the water with no sails up to deploy our sea anchor and practice our blue water diving technique so that we will be ready when we get to the heavy debris accumulation zone north of the islands. This was the first dive in the outer waters of the Gyre for "Scuba Drew" Wheeler, a veteran of our 2002 Gyre voyage. As we were tanking up for our dive, I saw a dish soap bottle astern that had been afloat for some time. I jumped in with mask and snorkel and saw that birds had pecked a few quarter size holes in this bottle, the shape of your smaller Joy or Dawn bottle, and inside was a condominium for a colony of sea life, including crabs and fish. After filming this, a larger school of fish around a black plastic bag's tangled remains, and retrieving a handful of miscellaneous ropes and line balls and other plastic fragments floating by, Drew remarked that this collection of trash in a few minutes was as bad as it was in the center of the accumulation zone 7 years earlier on his 2002 trip, an area over 600 miles to the north of our current position. We are regularly reminded of the speed at which the plastic pollution of our ocean is increasing.”

The concentration of debris we found subsurface really was astounding. The open ocean is a diffusely populated area. You can swim along for a significant amount of time without encountering life. It was troubling to find that I was encountering life and debris (and this is just the large, easily visible debris, not counting the plastic fragments we collect during trawls) at essentially the same rate. We collected 10 separate pieces of debris in less than an hour…and as Capt. Moore state above, we aren’t even in the concentration zone.

“Although the official accumulation zone of the North Pacific shown on NOAA maps is rather long and narrow, the debris there has to "accumulate" from somewhere, and that somewhere is everywhere else. More and more stuff is out here, everywhere we look, every time we are underwater. What will eventually happen to all this seaborne plastic waste? We know it is constantly becoming more brittle and breaking into smaller pieces. Will it, in this way, eventually all be eaten by some sea creature? Increasingly, my answer is tending toward "yes, all of it will be eaten.”

After our dive, we catalogued and preserved the debris and accompanying fouling organisms as necessary and enjoyed a lunch of tomato soup and grilled cheese before we set out to bring in the sea anchor and raise the spinnaker. Thankfully the “emotional sail” was hoisted and set without issue (at that point anyway…), and we were left with a free afternoon during which Mahi number 8 (a female) was caught and dissected around 6pm. Of course, tissue samples were saved for POPs analysis. Right as dinner was being served Mahi number 9 bit the hook. This was the first gravid female we’ve encountered so far. Once again a female, which got the crew thinking about all the research that’s being done on the feminization of fish as a result of toxins that can be found accumulated on plastics, since all the Mahi we’ve caught so far have been female.

The end of the evening brought a bit of catastrophe, although no one was hurt and the situation was handled well. The spinnaker was flying peacefully, we suddenly she started flapping around like mad. The Captain called out that we lost the port tack (a line running from the bottom, edge of the sail). After some hustle to bring in the sail, we realized the eye of the sail (the reinforced hole through which the line attaches) was ripped right off. From what we can tell, it was just a case of standard wear and tear, and should be easily fixed by a professional sailmaker.

We are 220 miles out from Honolulu! We are all excited to get a chance to decompress on land for a bit, although there are quite a few tasks to handle during our short stay. For one, we need to get the Manta trawl welded and in working condition for our next round of sampling. And after this evening we have a spinnaker to repair as well…

A big aloha from the Capt. and crew at the cutting edge of marine debris research,
Nicole

RESPONSE TO COMMENTS

Tamara,
Good to hear from you! Hope all is well on the East Coast. The only plastics we are intending to collect for POPs analysis are those from within the gut of a fish. There are two scenarios here: 1) Christiana dissects the stomach and searches for plastic immediately after we catch the fish. If plastic is found, then it is labeled and frozen along with the liver and muscle tissue (in a separate vial). Situation 2) The entire stomach is saved for later content analysis. Christiana has been using this protocol when the stomach is too full, or otherwise unfit, to be analyzed in the field. In this case, any plastic present would be frozen in situ, inside the stomach.
The other plastic we are collecting, via manta trawl is fixed in formalin and those collected by individuals via net or hand are only fixed in part (we are saving portions with accompanying fouling organisms for a doctoral student at SCRIPPS). The rest of the individually collected samples are just being stored in a container on the foredeck. Captain Moore said he would be more than happy to work with Sarah if she wants some plastic for POPs analysis. How much, which size class, etc… Let us know and we will freeze what we can for her.
Take care!
Nicole

Day 14- More Mahi

2009-06-24T07:21:00.000-07:00

Noon Coordinates 23° 5'52.80"N 150°11'42.00"W

July 23, 2009
Our resident Ichthyologist, Christiana Boerger’s, account of the day:

Today we hooked 3 Mahi Mahi! This puts our total fish catch up to 7. Mahi Mahi (Coryphaena hippurus) are also referred to as Dorado or Dolphinfish. They put up a great fight when you reel them in, actually jumping out of the water. Before we filet the fish, I dissect them to look for plastic in their stomach and save samples of tissue to analyze for POPs (persistent organic pollutants) later in the lab.

The dissections were particularly interesting today! I go through some simple steps to get the samples I need. First, I record the time and location of where the fish were caught. Then I take some simple measurements, standard length (the length from the tip of the closed mouth to the end of the caudal peduncle) and weight. Mahi are sexually dimorphic, which means you are able to tell the difference between male and female just by looking at them, without cutting them open to look at their gonads (sexual organs) like most bony fish. Males have a blunt, squarish head, while the females have a more feminine, roundish head. So far all of the fish we have caught have been females.

Next comes the fun part for me, opening them up! I carefully take scissors and cut from their natural opening (anus) to the bone located in between the pelvic fins. I poke around a bit and then carefully cut out the liver and place in on a piece of tin foil which will be frozen until it can be looked at back at a lab for toxin analysis. I check out the gonads to reconfirm the sex of the fish. None of them have had developed eggs yet. Next I remove the stomach. I make a cut at the top of the esophagus and completely take it out of the fish. I make another cut to open up the stomach completely to take a look around. The last thing I do is take a muscle tissue sample of each of the fish, which is frozen along with the liver.

No plastic in the stomachs today, however, in the first Mahi, there were 3 whole fish in its stomach. I identified them to be some sort of puffer fish, and Drew’s best guess was that they were Striped Bellied Puffers. You could still feel the spikes on the skin and see their very distinct mouth. Because the digestion process had already begun in the first fish, the insides of the pufferfish were not identifiable. The second Mahi had a less digested pufferfish. I was actually able to pull out the stomach of this pufferfish and found its last meal to be crustaceans (probably crabs, due to the high amount of exoskeletons found). I found some more bones in Mahi #2’s stomach, which I identified to be from a flying fish, due to its super long pectoral fins. The third Mahi had an empty stomach, except for a couple different types of parasites which were still moving around.

We have caught some small flying fish in some of our trawling nets and I am very interested to see if I will find any plastic in their stomach’s, seeing as I now know they are a part of the Mahi’s diet. So exciting from a research perspective!! Needless to say, we’ve got Mahi for days, and Joel has made some Mahi jerky (which is tied up on the stern and should be ready in a couple days), Jeff made some Mahi poke, (a mixture of raw fish, cabage, ginger, onions, chilli, and lemon juice), and the Captain is also preparing us dinner tonight of what else, but Mahi sushi rolls and sashimi!!

I’m hoping we catch even more fish tomorrow, especially since we are getting closer to the islands and I look forward to seeing what other species we will catch. The weather has been beautiful today and we should hopefully be in Honolulu sometime Thursday night or Friday morning. Thanks to all my friends and family reading the blog and sending emails! I miss you all so much!

The Alguita Fish Nerd,
Christiana

Day 13- Plastic in a mahi mahi

2009-06-23T13:31:00.000-07:00

Noon position 23°45'54.00"N 147°26'38.40"W

June 22, 2009
Last night the late hours of the sampling marathon brought along some chaos. It all started with a lost cod end (the end piece of the net on the Manta trawl, where the debris and plankton are collected) and escalated from there…

To start with, conditions were a little rough. We were operating three different sampling devices (the Manta, the Bongo nets, and the small square net) with a sea state 5/6…..at night. Although the conditions were less than ideal, we all shared the Captain’s sentiments…..”if we’re not willing to do this, then who will?” We are outside of the area that any government entity is obligated to care about. So we pushed away the urge to sleep and plowed on with the sampling.

At 8:20pm, we pulled in the Manta trawl only to find that the whole two hours of sampling was fruitless. The sea freed the cod end of the net, and took our data along with it. No doubt a small disappointment, but we moved right along, put another cod end on and put the trawl back out. We pulled in the next trawl at about 10:30pm. This one produced several small fish, including Myctophids, a couple flying fish, and a saury, which was exactly what we were looking for-fish to analyze for plastic ingestion.

We had a system set up, Christiana and I processed the samples (removed them from the net, labeled them, and fixed them in formalin) while the Captain, Drew, Jeff, and Joel retrieved and deployed the sampling devices. As the Manta was being redeployed from its 10:30 retrieval, Christiana and I heard some commotion among the deployment team and the phrase “…the wing is broken!” At that point there was a mad scramble to bring in the Manta. One of the control lines was rendered useless and the guys had to get creative with boat hooks in order to save the wounded Manta trawl. Once on deck the extent of the damage was visible; one wing snapped and the other one was a bit warped as well. One of the attachment hooks for the line broke off as well, but perhaps most significantly the j-bar holding the satellite was warped from the unbalanced force of the Manta trawl. At this point we were all wondering how things went so wrong, and how we were going to keep sampling. We were right in the thick of the plankton accumulation zone testing in for the hypothesized concentration of debris…it would be a shame to let this opportunity pass.

As it turned out, several factors had compounded in the failure of the Manta trawl. First off, our spotlight decided to die mid-deployment. As the battery was being switched out, the crew was unable to evaluate the deployment of the trawl, which requires a balance of tension between two lines. Hopefully repairs can be made once we arrive in Hawai'i.

Bottom line, everyone was okay. We decided to improvise, using the small square net as a surface trawl, which we found out was torn from its frame during its last run. After some repairs, the net was deployed and for the rest of the late night/early morning sampling the crew was split into shifts: the Captain, Jeff, and myself and Christiana, Joel, and Drew.

The square net does not perform anywhere near as well as the Manta. So this morning brought a new trawling design. We kept the Bongo nets at the surface to imitate the Manta.

Chrisitana and Jeff each reeled in a mahi mahi today, one right after the other. The fish served a double purpose, science and sustenance. Before we filleted the fish, Christiana took muscle and liver samples of each of the fish and looked in their stomachs. Fish number 3, the mahi mahi that Jeff reeled in, contained what the Captain confirmed via microscope as none other than a piece of plastic film. This now makes 8 species of fish in which we have identified with plastic in their gut.

The last set of trawls came in at 5pm. Overall we were able to run 11 Bongo trawls (3 of which imitated the Manta), 6 regular Manta trawls, and 6 trawls with the small square net. It was a productive, though hectic, sampling marathon. Although the samples have yet to be thoroughly analyzed, we were able to spot differing densities of plastic within and outside of the boundaries of the plankton (and possibly debris) accumulation zone. At the end of a long stint of sampling and a significant find of plastic in a common food fish, the Captain prepared one of his specialties chili rellenos accompanied by rice, beans, fresh guacamole, and fresh salsa. It was a perfect end to a productive day. We are now en route to Hawai’I with aboiut 400 miles to go.

Stay tuned for more updates and be sure to check out the Scientific American website in the “60 second science blog”, where Drew ‘s weekly account of our voyage is posted.

Comments and Questions

2009-06-22T15:26:00.000-07:00

Please feel free to post comments and questions for the ship's crew under the comments section of the blog. We love to hear about your experiences with plastic marine debris, your concerns and your interest in the topic! We will do our best to answer your questions whenever we have an opportunity to do so!

Click here to send a comment or question to the ship's crew!

Day 11

2009-06-22T14:29:00.000-07:00

Noon coordinates (Day 11) 24°25'8.40"N 143° 0'7.20"W

Saturday, Day 10 began with a sail change. We had been making fantastic speed with the spinnaker, a steady 10 knots with the occasional burst up to 13 or 14. But the higher the wind speed climbed the harrier it became to keep the spinnaker up. On top of the danger associated with flying the spinnaker in high winds, the speed we were making would have put us in our sample area at some sort ungodly predawn hour. So we took down the spinni (which was a pretty intense situation, you have to grab the sail like crazy to keep it from falling overboard and getting stuck in the prop) and raised the main and the stays’l, which slowed us down to 7 knots or so.

Midday presented several of us with the opportunity sit up on the foredeck and catch some rays. In between flipping pages we’d take in the sights of the gyre, sometimes Albatross and flying fish, other times flotsam such as lotion bottles (see pic above).

Many of our days have had food themes, arising from the need to use up the fresh food before it turns. As it goes, one certain vegetable decides to turn all at once. A few days back, it was day of the beets. We had more boiled and still have more pickled beets than you can imagine. Then we had day of the tomatoes, which included decided to stuff and baking the tomatoes with cheese, parsley, onion, and garlic. And Saturday proved to be day of the carrot. Our carrot supply was threatening to make a mass exodus from the world of edible food, so we tried to use them all up. The Captain whipped up a lovely pineapple carrot salad and the rest of the carrots were steamed and topped of with some cumin and garlic salt.

Saturday afternoon brought an unexpected encounter with a Black-footed Albatross. We on the back deck watching the lovely bird catch puffs of air and soar around us. Billy, as we named her, landed in the water and as an afterthought Christiana mentioned how terrible it would be if the Billy were to get caught in one of the fishing lines dragging from the stern of the boat, and much to our dismay a split second later, she did. Here’s ScubaDrew’s account of the bizarre event:

“We did have a bit of craziness on deck today, when we accidentally snagged an Albatross with one of our trolling fishing lures. I was filming the graceful bird swooping over the waves when it landed right in the path of one of our fishing rigs. Well, before we knew it the poor bird was snagged and being dragged across the ocean, unable to regain control.
With some quick thinking, we reeled the bird up to the boat where Joel took control of this very awkward animal. He has spent time in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands so he has had experience in handling Albatross. The good news is the line was the only thing snagging the wing--not the hook. So with a freed wing and some feathers in need of a little primping, we let her go back onto the big blue and watched as she stretched her wings out and prepared for flight a flight back home…only 1000 miles away. Amazing birds they are…fly thousands of miles to feed in the open ocean.”

Our encounter with Billy was a harsh reminder for us all; we leave our footprint where ever we go. It is important for us to be acutely aware of our actions to keep from inadvertently harming earth’s flora and fauna.

Today, with roughly 1900 miles under our belt, we reached the outskirts of the accumulation zone we’ve been aiming for. The early morning was spent fine tuning the Bongo nets and Manta trawl for 24 straight hours of sampling over a 80 nautical mile transect. Why the continuous sampling? Well Dr. Nikolai Maximenko, with the School of Ocean and Earth Science Technology (SOEST) in Hawai’i is interested in meso-scale variations across this predicted accumulation zone. Basically, he wants to see if a debris gradient can be established from the boundary to the actual accumulation zone. So, as I mentioned before we are sampling, within, and outside the boundaries. We are running trawls for 2 hours, collecting the samples, and then redeploying them.

By 10am all hands were on deck and the sampling marathon began. It’s going to be a long, yet fruitfull night. With a sea state ranging from 5-6 on the Beaufort scale, conditions have not been ideal for sampling, but we are working through it. The swells are the largest we’ve seen all trip. They are awe inducing, especially when they are positioned to crash right over the deck.

Coming from a first timer to the gyre, the samples we collect are truly astounding. In one regard it is amazing to have the opportunity to get up close and personal with planktonic organisms we catch while trawling. Today we caught several Portuguese Man- of -Wars, which are mesmerizing little critters. On the flip side, it is disturbing to watch chunks of debris spill out of the nets. It is bizarre and unsettling to find the detritus of our haphazard consumer lifestyle in one of the most remote parts of the world.

From the cutting edge of marine debris research,
Nicole

Day 10

2009-06-20T08:53:00.000-07:00

Today's noon position: 24°25'8.40"N 139°18'0.00"W
Friday 19, 2009

Day 10. Yet another day in transit, which means that we haven’t been able to sample. We are making a beeline for the suspected accumulation zone (see image), and we can’t afford to spare the time it would take us to sample en route. Sampling while underway requires slowing the boat down to a speed in the range of 1.5-3 knots, and if we want to have the time to accomplish all of our research goals we can’t afford to travel at those low speeds.

Developments on the route front--at this point we have decided to extend this leg of the voyage in order to accommodate our original sampling goals at 35N along the International Dateline. The crew has decided we are all willing to do what it takes and spend a bit of extra time in order to gather the data we originally set out for.

Days in transit can seem a little slow, but they also provide time to take care of some of the other important stuff (like route finding and sampling protocol for the potential accumulation zone we will be investigating). Capt. Moore spent part of the day working out those details for the study site, for which our ETA is Sunday. He has decided to sample on a transect through this zone, making sure to trawl within the zone and on the outskirts of the zone, both before we enter it and after we exit it. We will also deploy the sea anchor at some point within the potential accumulation zone to allow us to survey the area while diving.

These travel days also provide us with ample time to decompress between watches. Several of us are set up on a semi-regular workout routine (including jump roping, hula hooping, mat exercises and yoga-all of which are exponentially more difficult while underway!) We’ve also have had plenty of time to catch up on reading in the past couple of days. The Alguita has quite the cornucopia of reading material on board-everything from Vonnegut to Jared Diamond to scientific peer-reviewed papers to cheesey surf romance novels . Keeping with the spirit of the ocean, some of the books about epic maritime sagas are getting passed around, like “Fastnet Force 10” which Drew plowed through in one day. Joel and Jeff have been glued to the chess board, and we have all been working a bit in the kitchen to try and use up all of the fresh produce that is turning. We recently decided to utilize the espresso maker, which has been a treat for those of us with an early watch.

Today’s wildlife citing: a juvenile flying fish has made its way on deck, and that’s about it. Other than a minor electrical issue with our generator, there are no problems to report. Just smooth sailing and a happy (although more than ready for some sampling action) crew.
From the PAcific, Nicole Chatterson, Vessel Blogger

REPLIES TO COMMENTS

Congratulations Marcus and Anna on both your wedding and the near completion of your epic education ride from Canada to Mexico along the Pacific Coast. Your efforts to bring Algalita's startling findings to the public regarding plastic pollution in the ocean are without precedent. The JUNKride's ultra low carbon "tire prints" embody the ideals of the entire environmental movement. You've set a steller example for everyone and shown that combining work with zero carbon emissions is possible; not only possible but fun. Tha Captain and crew of ORV Alguita salute you as we sail along with our zero carbon "hull prints" through the great North Pacifuc Subtropical Gyre

Day 8 and 9

2009-06-19T08:14:00.000-07:00

Noon Coordinates Day 9: 24° 1'22.80"N 135°56'60.00"W

Flying kites, flying squid, flying fish, and a pirate ship (well not really)… We’ve been sailing downwind with the spinnaker (or in sailing terms, flying the kite) for the past two days. Downwind sailing is wonderfully calm (even in 20 knot winds) and the spinnaker is a mesmerizing sail to watch as it billows in the wind. It really is like a giant kite.

We raised the spinnaker on Wednesday morning. Captain warned us that it is often called “the emotional sail” because it’s a fairly involved sail to raise, which can lead to a bit of crew tension. However, with all hands on deck and clear direction from the Captain it went up smoothly. Since it’s is such a tricky sail to maintain (It takes a lot of tweaking to keep the sail happy), we’ve switched back to paired watches.

On Wednesday morning we had a couple visitors on board the ship. Two flying squids made their way on deck. In the afternoon Christiana dissected them to see if they had eaten any plastic. The little guys were plastic free.

Today while reading on deck, several of the crew spotted flying fish. The vast expanse of water is no doubt a beautiful setting, but it really makes any sign of life especially exciting. After the flying fish sighting, the boat was full of excitement when a blurb popped up on the radar. The blurb turned out to be a large, rusty and fairly shabby looking vessel passing right through our course. It was great to see a sign of human life other than ourselves, but also a little strange to imagine that two vessels can come so close to each other in such a vast expanse of ocean. Of course our active imaginations let us entertain the idea that our fellow mariners were pirates,... Alas the boat fell off our radar without any crazy pirate antics.

We are still on course to the destination provided to us by NOAA as a possible accumulation zone. We are roughly 540nM away and the ETA is three days. We are all excited to see what this area has to offer us in terms of better understanding how marine debris accumulated within the North Pacific Gyre.

We are all in good spirits. The Captain and crew send our love and hellos to everyone back home. Thanks for following the blog and keep the comments coming!

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Day 7!

2009-06-16T22:38:00.001-07:00

Noon position: 23°36'14.40"N 130°19'48.00"W

Hello from the Capt. and crew!
We are still headed for Hawai’I, but have added a slight detour to the northwest of our route. Dave Foley, an oceanographer with NOAA, has predicted an accumulation zone not too far out of our way and we are headed there to investigate. You may be wondering, “where is he getting the idea that marine debris might be accumulating in this area?” Well, Dave has put together the Debris Estimation Likelihood Index (DELI) based off of chlorophyll levels. Essentially high levels of chlorophyll correlate to high levels of plankton. Plankton rides the ocean currents, as does marine debris. So it is hypothesized that where the currents have caused an accumulation of plankton, there might also be an accumulation of debris.

We deployed the third Manta trawl of the trip this afternoon. The trawl produced lots of juvenile sawrys, some more of the purple gastropods which Capt. Moore has identified as Janthina janthina, and to our disgust, but not to our surprise, several plastic fragments and some plastic line.

After trawling we practiced how to heave-to, which is a way to set the sails that effectively stops the boat from moving forward. This is an important tool to have under our belt in the case of an emergency. Since we were already stopped from the heave-to drill, the Captain, Christiana, Drew and Jeff decided to take a dip in the ocean. Capt. Moore searched for trash while Drew captured underwater footage of the debris gathering. They pulled up a piece of a plastic shopping bag, a newspaper packing band, and some plastic fragments. This is what happens when throwaway consumerism meets the open ocean.

The winds are starting to pick up and the seas are beginning to get a little feistier. Some of us are reapplying our scopolamine patches, and others have sea legs (and stomachs) just as sturdy as ever. The day ended with a valuable lesson (at least for me): don’t leave the hatches open. As you can imagine, hatches and active seas don’t mix very well. I experienced this first hand today as a large wave swept over the deck and down the hatch located DIRECTLY above my head. Needless to say, I was jostled from my pre-watch nap with seawater to the face and left with a pile of wet sheets.

We are cruising along at a speed of 9.0knotts and climbing; the fastest we’ve seen yet…and we are achieving it without the help of our engines!

Day 6- First manta trawl!

2009-06-15T22:58:00.001-07:00

Noon position: 24°52'40.80"N 128° 9'57.60"W

It’s Day six and we are officially 2/5 of the way to Hawai’i. Day six has been a day of firsts-- the first plastic trawl of the trip, our first fish catch (a Mahi Mahi!) and the first day of seriously tending to the “vessel garden” (aka sifting through the funky produce).

Let’s start with the trawls. While the winds have been against us in terms of maintaining our original course, they have put us in an area of the Pacific which had never been sampled……until today! See the map below or Click here, to view more maps of our previous sampling areas. We deployed the first Manta trawl, a device that captures surface debris in a fine mesh net, at 9am. This process was akin to riding a bike for the Captain and veteran crew Drew, Joel and Jeff, and a learning experience for the newbies (Christiana and myself).

After an hour of towing the trawl we pulled it in to find a strikingly low amount of plastic. Among the plastic identified was some line, a few hard plastic fragments, and a piece of a clear plastic label on which we could decipher the letter “d”. Among the life identified in the sample was a button valella, some copepods, a juvenile Pacific saury, and tiny gastropods with gorgeous purple shells. (See image of sample at top.)

The evening brought on trawl number two. This trawl gave us the opportunity to experiment with a tethered underwater camera, which Joel was able to rig to record the underwater flow into the Manta trawl. This was a significant in that it confirmed the integrity of our surface sampling methods. We ran the evening trawl for an hour as well, finding results similar to the morning trawl--very little plastic.

Obviously the low quantity of plastic present in samples is good news, but it does highlight a key point. Throughout fifteen years of sampling, we have yet to bring in a trawl completely void of plastic. While standing on the foredeck today, the Captain was able to identify plastic fragments flowing past the vessel. We also spotted some larger debris, a 5 gallon bucket which managed to evade our collection efforts. The point is, even in this new sample area in which our trawls our producing comparatively low amounts of plastic-there is still enough debris present for us to visually register and in our trawls. The relatively low amount of plastic also points to the possible delineation of the boundaries of an accumulation zone, although it is far too early in the data collection process to make any definitive conclusions. Joel noted that during the JUNKraft expedition last summer he and Marcus Eriksen noted a similar trend in abrupt transitions in plastic accumulation as they skirted the south edge of the accumulation area.

On to the adventures in gardening. In between trawls, the day was spent sifting through crates full of greens. To avoid wasting limited food we look for the food about to spoil and eat it first. The parsley was getting ready to turn, so we whipped up tabouli salad (using quinoa instead of bulgur wheat). We also found our beets nearing the tipping point, so the evening has been spent boiling and prepping the beets for pickling or easy snacking. Our greens are on the fritz as well….looks like we’re in for several days of green salad.

And finally, after five days of rigging fishing poles and hand lines, we had our first catch. Christiana kept the liver and other organs and tissue for future analysis.

The wind is starting to cooperate and blow more towards the west. We have taken down the stays’l which is used to sail close to the wind and put up the genoa which is flown when the wind is more a beam. We now are able to make good on a course of 245 degrees to our sampling area south of the Big Island of Hawai’i. Every mile sailed is a mile closer to Hawai’i. If our luck continues the wind will build and tomorrow we will fly the spinnaker!

Best wishes from the Capt. and Crew

Day 5

2009-06-14T23:13:00.001-07:00

Noon Position: 29°40'15.49"N 127° 0'10.80"W

Today is day 5 at sea, all is well and the crew is in great spirits. Now that the all of the crew is up to speed with watch duties, we have switched to 2 hour, single watches. This is a lot easier on our sleep schedules.

There is however news to report regarding our travel plans. Due to a large and persistent high pressure system, we have to rethink our original route, which would have deposited us along the International Dateline (180W) at latitude of about 35N. Because of the high pressure system we are dealing with light winds, which is not optimal for sailing. The weather has forced us to spend most of our time underway motor sailing. We have already used roughly 200 gallons of the 700 gallons we started with? If we keep up at this rate we will exhaust our fuel supply. At this point we are forced to bend to the will of nature and follow the winds.

As is required when dealing with the seas, the Captain has a backup plan. Our new route and sampling strategy will take us to a more southerly location than planned, but will still present us with ample research opportunities. The new plan is to continue our heading south in order to catch the easterly trade winds. This route will bring us to Hawai’i and allow us to survey a debris convergence zone located off the southern tip of the Big Island. This convergence zone is thought to be responsible for the accumulation of debris on beaches such as Kamilo. After sampling this convergence zone, we can refuel and head up the island chain toward the International Dateline at a lower latitude than planned. How far we will actually get is to be determined by the amount of time it takes us to get to Hawai’i in the light winds we have been experiencing since we left.

Speaking of debris sampling, today’s debris catch was a 300mm buoy fouled with barnacles and pelagic crabs (See photo to left of Captain Moore with the buoy and the photo above of one of the crabs, any experts out there know the ID on this little guy?).

Keeping in tune with the rest of the weekend, the weather was phenomenal. Much of the day was spent out on deck stretching our limbs and taken in the scenery (which is mainly….water). Capt. Moore gave a presentation to an assembly of 14-18 year old students at Hawai’i Preparatory Academy. He was able to lead them through a power point presentation via satellite phone.

Our wildlife sighting for the day included a Red tailed Tropic Bird and some Petrels.

Day 4- first open ocean swim!

2009-06-13T21:03:00.001-07:00

Noon Position: 29°12'28.80"N 124°56'13.20"W

Today the crew had the chance to stop for our first open ocean swim, roughly 500miles offshore! With thousands of miles of water around us and hundreds of meters of water below our feet, it was an astonishing experience. While in the water Drew got the opportunity to test out some of his underwater gear and Capt. swam around the boat with a net searching for plastic. He found four small bits (two pieces of line, a thin transparent fragment and a cloth like fragment).

Day 3

2009-06-12T21:32:00.000-07:00

Noon position: 29°46'1.20"N 121°53'27.60"W

Greetings from the ORV Alguita! In the past 24hrs, we have had our first series of debris encounters. While taking in our fishing lines for the night, we dragged in our first piece of debris; a deflated green balloon with the string still attached. It was a little disheartening to discover that we were fishing for trash instead of fish.

Last night at around 10pm, we passed the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). For those of you who are wondering what that means, we are now officially out of the US waters, in what is essentially the no-man’s land of the Pacific. Because this area is out of US jurisdiction, it is not a top priority in terms of government funded research.

We were greeted in the morning with another debris sighting. We found a plastic water bottle which likely originated from Russia (the cap had Russian text). It had been afloat in the ocean just long enough for fouling organisms (i.e. tiny baby gooseneck barnacles) to latch on.

Our next trash sighting, roughly 300miles out to sea, was a tangle of fouled line and buoys. In addition to gooseneck barnacles making their home inside the floating mess, we found several pelagic crabs and a couple of different invertebrates. After weighing the mass of rubbish (9 kilos) we preserved a sample of the debris with the critters that we found living on it for Miriam Goldstein, a doctoral candidate at SCRIPPS, who is studying the fouling organisms that live on pelagic trash. The last two pieces of trash found today were a Monarch brand garlic-salt container and a plastic napkin or towel floating on the surface. These finds are indicators that we are making our way into the heart of trash accumulation.

As far as wildlife sightings go, we had a pod of Common Dolphins passing us on portside. We also spotted several Velella velella, also known as the By-the-wind sailors, which is an awesome little sea creature that has a small oval sail so it can use the winds to travel the seas.
Best Wishes from the Captain and crew

Cheers,
Nicole

Day Two!

2009-06-11T20:20:00.001-07:00

Noon Position: 31°49'26.40"N, 119°20'42.00"W

Hi everyone,

Thanks to the family, friends and fellow ocean enthusiasts who made it to the Alguita send off yesterday! It was the perfect way to begin our 6 week journey!

Today is our first full day at sea and the crew is still getting used to the swing of things. We are running on paired 4 hours watches. Only one case of sea-sickness so far and we’ve spotted some awesome wildlife! This morning the crew saw four Fin Whales roughly 100 yards of the starboard stern of the vessel, and one more whale who was a little too far from the boat for us to identify high spout.

Lucky for us, we had some great grocery shoppers for the Alguita-it’s full any kind of food you can imagine! Last night the crew had stuffed mushroom and a fresh green salad. This morning we woke up to a homegrown boysenberry cobbler cooking in the oven. As many of you saw at the send-off, the deck is full of delicious fresh produce; we have everything from kale to chocolate persimmons to snack on.

We are motor sailing for the time being, and cruising at an average speed of about 8.0knots, using our precious fuel to leave the calm and enter into the northerly winds.

-Nicole-
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Bon Voyage ORV Alguita!

2009-06-10T22:10:00.000-07:00

ORV Alguita has just departed on the first voyage of the 2009 Pacific Gyre Expedition!

Preparing for the 2009 Gyre Expedition

2009-06-03T14:46:00.000-07:00

The ORV Alguita crew is busy preparing for the 2009 Gyre Expedition to study plastic marine debris in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre this summer. The departure date is currently set for June 10- let us know if you would like to attend the informal send-off party in Long Beach California. (vesselsupport@algalita.org for more information)

Quick Background- Pacific Gyre Expedition 2009 Voyage #1
The quantity of plastic pollution in the ocean is increasing rapidly, paralleling the rapid rise in global plastic production. Each time the ORV Alguita crew collects samples from the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, we find that the abundance of plastic has increased since our previous visit. In previous research voyages we have found a very high abundance of plastic in the area of the gyre that has come to be known as "The Eastern Pacific Garbage Patch", but we suspect that the contamination is much more widespread. This summer we will have the opportunity to test this hypothesis during the first voyage of our four month research expedition. During this voyage the ORV Alguita research crew will be at sea for over six weeks as they sail west from California past the Northern Hawaiian Islands as far as the International Date Line (180 degrees longitude) to sample areas of the Pacific Ocean previously un-sampled for plastic marine debris. We will be collecting samples of plastic debris, plankton and fish to analyze back in our laboratory to better understand not only the quantity of plastic debris pollution in remote areas of the ocean, but also the impacts the plastic is having as it is consumed by marine animals. Below is a map that shows the area where ORV Alguita has sampled for plastic pollution over the past 10 years. The first voyage of the summer expedition hopes to extend the study area all the way to the International Date Line at 180 degrees longitude.Who's on board?
Check out our crew's bios- http://orvalguita.googlepages.com/meetthecrew!

Alguita 09 Pacific Exploration

2009-04-16T18:45:00.000-07:00

Its time to get this thing up and running again. The Alguita hasnt been doing much in 2009.... yet. We will sail over 11k miles before the year is over, and there should lots worth talking about along the way

Below is the project description for our main research cruise this year, along with the rough dates for each major section.

A Little Bit of Background:
The Alguita was the first vessel to sample the surface waters of the area that has now become known in the popular press as the great pacific garbage patch, and our research team was the first to develop a standard methodology for this sort of sampling. The end result of this effort is a set of data for summer, and winter surface plastic debris levels, and accompanying zooplankters (<300mm) in the north pacific subtropical gyre (NPSG). The data from these first two trips will be significantly strengthened by a summer sampling of the same transects and beyond during this year. The levels of plastic can then be compared to the levels found ten years ago, and related to our model predictions, allowing for a determination of growth during that period
Very little, in regards to direct mitigation; can be done about small particle plastic pollution, and potential impacts of this mid-late 20th century phenomenon are wide ranging and poorly understood. The exclusive economic zone (EEZ), of the United States extends 200 miles in all directions from every US coastline including the NWHI. This line marks the distance in which US federal environmental management groups, are mandated to mitigate negative impacts to protected species and to the environmental wealth of the country. This means that the open ocean waters of the world are a difficult place to justify government spending on research or cleanup efforts, unless impacts to the US Economy (i.e. damage to a fishery stock from plastic ingestion), can be, beyond all reasonable doubt; proven to government (remember we have been arguing wither cigarettes are bad for us since the 70s).
Because of this reason, direct sampling of the central ocean gyres of the world has to come from nonprofit groups like Algalita Marine Research Foundation. At least until the issue is present enough in the consciousness of the general public to bring about change in what has become a true tragedy of the commons for a global generation.

Moving Forward: 1st leg of the gyre trip June 10th to July 25th, 2009
The most logical expansion, of the monitoring and quantification being done in the NPSG; is west of Hawaii encircling the NWHI and Midway. We intend to travel Northwest form California turning around at the International Data Line at approximately 35N Lat and returning to Hawaii on the northern side of the NWHI chain. The total trip duration will be approximately 6 weeks and will provide both trawl and fish tissue samples for analysis back on land. Based on remote sensing data, models, and NOAA monitoring efforts within the NWHI monument, there are two major reasons for choosing this as the next expansion of our study area.
NOAA estimates, from a 2001-2005 study; that the annual accumulation of debris within the national monument is 52 metric tons. A significant amount of material and yet there is no study of the impacts or mitigation plan for small particle plastic pollutants in these areas. We believe based on model simulation (OSCURS, DELI) that a significant amount of the plastic pollution currently cycling around the North Pacific passes through the NWHI at some point on its journey, a great deal of it most likely does not become ensnared by the islands or reef making the area a suspect for high concentration of small particle pollution.
The other great reason for wanting to conduct a study at this site is that it represents one of the most pristine coral reef habitat left on the planet with one of its most endangered marine mammal, the Hawaiian Monk seal, as well as critical turtle and bird nesting areas. The importance of these islands for a myriad of species, mean that a full understanding of how these animals and their environment are interacting with plastic pollution is in dire need.
Spreading the Word: 2nd leg, August, 2009
In early August approximately two week after arrival in Hawaii we plan to have the vessel depart Honolulu as a part of a major media initiative to help bring awareness to the issue of ocean plastic pollution. Since mitigation seems unlikely, especially for the small particle sizes; education is the best tool to fight this issue. The general populous of the world has to become more educated about the final destination of a wide range of disposable goods. And at the same time the plastic and disposable good industries need to provide innovative alternatives that will appeal to the general public.
Peligro Pictures in conjunction with Billabong and ScubaDrew Video will be taking part in a two week giant loop approximately 100 miles NE of Hawaii into the NPSG, which will include not only the Alguita, but the Billabong Seaplane and their own long range vessel as well. The combination will provide a platform for celebrity guests to come out and witness the problem first hand, while providing their thoughts and commentary on the issue.
Resample of the NPSG: 3rd leg, September, 2009
The trip home from Hawaii back to California will include a resample of the original 1999 summertime gyre crossing. This 10 year time span will allow for much stronger statements to be made about the rate of growth and about the seasonal changes in plastic density. This trip will also be comparing the amount of fish caught in the manta trawl (surface zooplankton net), with a particular interest in the family Myctophidae (lantern fish); to levels caught during the winter transect run last February.

Jeff

Where are these people?

2009-04-16T13:14:00.000-07:00

were around... stuff coming soon in prep for june 10th departure to the dateline and the hawaii.

Jeff

“Nautical Ladder”

2008-08-12T14:05:00.000-07:00

The “Nautical Ladder” development at Santa Rosaliita, or
How to divide a town, step by step.

A study done by Algalita Marine Reseach Foundation, the Autonomous University of Baja California and CISESE, (a Mexican Gov’t. Research Institution) prior to the proposed development of a “Port of Refuge” on Baja California’s pacific coast which would also have the capacity to trailer boats from the Pacific to the Sea of Cortez, showed the coastal environment of Santa Rosaliita to be in a pristine, unaltered condition. The small fishing village there was having no measurable effect on the local marine environment. The location chosen for the nautical ladder development promulgated by President Fox was in the middle of a sandy beach, with sand dunes upwind. The fishing village was mostly to the southeast, and a well-known windsurfing site was to the northwest.

From a coastal engineers standpoint, the area selected was in the middle of a “littoral cell,” which is an area where sand is transported along a coastline. It has come to be known that jetties built out from littoral cells accumulate sand up-current, and erode sand down-current from the jetty. The town was down-current. One of the early settlers of the town, whose property was on the east side, is rumored to have enticed his brother, under the influence of alcohol, to sign over title to his land on the west side and then this individual, with enough land to accommodate the highway and marina, ceded his land to the government for the marina development in exchange for money and rights to concessions at the new facility. He also built himself a large home at the top of the hill behind the town overlooking the marina. Advice from several quarters to put the marina at the southeastern end of the town, where the sand beach changed to rocky coastline went unheeded, and the jetties for the small harbor were built, right in the middle of a windswept, blowing sand beach. The results as monitored by Dr. Azdrubal Martinez of UABC for AMRF were predictable: 1) A gradual lessening of the slope of the beach with sand deposition seaward of the jetty, 2) A steepening of the beach with erosion in front of the town, and 3) Constant filling of the interior of the marina with sand, both blown by the wind and washed in by the sea.

Currently, the small warehouse where the artisanal fishery loads its catch into a refrigerated truck, is inundated with water during winter storms, and one of the houses built near the coast has lost a fence and a bathroom. The individual who ceded land for the marina began to make representations to government officials that he was the owner of the whole town. He was advised by his attorneys to pretend he didn’t know anybody in the town, presumably to add credibility to his claim that they were not original inhabitants. FONATUR, the government tourism agency, claimed they bought the whole town from this individual. To assert their claim, they began by bulldozing the soccer field and were preparing to do the same to the cemetery in order to build a hotel. The meager income of the fishermen had to be used to buy gasoline to drive to the government seat in San Quintin every 15 days to sign papers to gain rights to their property. When FONATUR was frustrated in their attempt to take the whole town, they decided to take the back part and put up a fence. Four village people went to jail for tearing down the fence, but actually the whole town participated. Their fine was set at $700/each but was reduced to $500 because that is all the money the townspeople had when they went to bail them out.

Since the standoff, the marina infrastructure has been completed, but sits idle. Two large Pemex fuel tanks are on the dock and a travel lift is ready to lift vessels up to a 22 foot beam for trailering to Los Angeles Bay on the gulf side of the peninsula. This presents a tragi-comic scene in a marina which is filled with sand, and where there is water, the average depth is about 2 feet. One improvement that the townspeople seem happy with is the arrival of electricity. Two months ago, the installation was complete with telephone poles, and every two months someone comes to read the electric meter in front of each house. The fishermen still use their solar panels to charge batteries and provide electricity like before during the frequent power outages on the new line.

Today, Santa Rosaliita is a town split in two. The family of the turncoat is isolated in their hilltop home and charge $5 a night for campers to camp at the windsurfing spot northwest of town. Members of the family on the hill do not enter the main town, nor do their children play with the children in town. They have a fine view of the bay, and the marina they helped create which will never service a vessel until major changes are made. The interior will have to be dredged almost continuously, as every day winds blow in large quantities of sand and currents bring sand in from upstream. The sand has made a ramp for itself over the jetty rocks, further facilitating its entry into the marina.
Capt. Moore

We spent a great deal of the day while in the town of Santa Rosaliita walking around talking with people and trying to better understand the scale of the changes already occuring to the beach and the town as well as how this place will change in the seasons and years to come. This harbor has only been in place for a few years now and already there is sand out to the end of the jetty on the windward side. The sand slopes up to the tops of the rocks covering them almost completely in spots, the new berm acts like a ramp for blowing sand which comes over it at an incredible rate even on a calm day depositing into the harbor on the other side. I can’t imagine this place ever being usable, much less profitable since the only way anyone will ever get to use the boat ramp and hoist will be to install a permanent dredge on sight.

Good photos of the calamity were a big part of the reason we made the trip, and I took lots of them.

Since we are saving bandwidth and emailing material in a semi-finished form to our friend Tim at Seanet Electronics in San Diego I’m captioning the photos by file name all in one place.
Jeff Ernst

The gas dock at Santa Rosaliita and the piers for the boat hoist.

The beach where our dingy is tied up was designed to accomidate easily a 50 foot power boat. The pier on the lefthand side is the outside pier of the 23 foot beam vertical hoist.

The new house of the man who no one talks to anymore, on his scenic hillside overlooking the unfinnished harbor.

The new road isnt safe from the shifting sand either, and in the calmest season it is still covered in sand in several spots.

The same guy that claimed to own the town and sold it to the govornment tries to charge people 5 dollars a night to camp on the newly improved beach above to the town and the harbor.

The town and harbor of Santa Rosaliita, note the breakwall which now has beach extending the length of what was a jetty sticking out perpendicularly to the shoreline.

The new beach

The next generation of Santa Rosaliita residence.

Checking the meter; the town of Santa Rosaliita got hooked into the power grid 2 months ago.