I’m currently preparing for another night shift, and reflecting on my experiences of the past few days. After successfully testing the multi-level trawl in a Bermudian harbour a week ago, we then spent three days enduring 10ft swells, 30kt winds and the aftertaste of seasickness medication. The sound of flopping sails on Monday morning thankfully marked an end to this trend, and enabled us to complete our first offshore trawl yesterday.
My day started today by reversing some of the damage done by accidentally using shower gel to wash my hair for the past 5 days, after which I had to wake up the other crew members in order to start the trawl deploying procedure at 11am. We then performed two trawls, which we lengthened to 2 hours each, to compensate for the significantly lower concentration of plastics this far south.
Happy but exhausted by a long day of trawling and preparing plastic/plankton samples, captain Eric let us do a lovely afternoon swim around the boat, above what turned out to be 6900 meters of water. And as if this day couldn’t get any better, today’s sunset dinner was accompanied by a group of bow-riding dolphins.
Isn’t science fun?
– Boyan Slat, founder of The Ocean Cleanup
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