The Ocean Cleanup’s 6th Expedition is halfway between Bermuda and the Azores, successfully sampling on target with our research goals.
Our mission this voyage is to get more depth profiles of ocean plastics in the so-called North Atlantic ‘Garbage Patc’’: one of the major plastic pollution hotspots forming within subtropical waters of the world;s oceans.
These measurements will help The Ocean Cleanup team to further develop ocean cleanup technologies and to better estimate total loads of ocean plastic.
So far, we have successfully deployed our Multi-level Trawl 24 times and made many improvements to our beloved new app, which will be officially launched during the upcoming multi-vessel venture ‘Mega Expedition’.
We plan to arrive in Azores on the 13th July, with 363 ocean plastic samples, 13 happy people, and a finalized version of The Ocean Cleanup Survey App for both Apple and Android smartphones.
I would like take this ‘blogging opportunity’ to acknowledge this awesome at-sea team, which includes many enthusiastic volunteers and the competent Pangaea Exploration crew.
– Julia Reisser, Lead Scientist aboard SV Sea Dragon / Mission Leader, The Ocean Cleanup Gyre Expedition #5, Bermuda to Azores, July 2015
