Our fifth expedition started in Bermuda island on the 26th of June and has reached the center of the North Atlantic Gyre. This mission, like the previous one last month, in which Boyan also participated, has as its aim to collect more data and better understand plastic distribution in the oceanic water column. Our team of scientists, Julia and Francesco, helped by the crew members of the Sea Dragon, and eight other highly motivated volunteers, have already successfully deployed the Multi-Level trawl (a customized aluminum structure with 11 separate nets used for sampling plastic in the water column) eighteen times. All the samples of the top 2 meters have so far showed the presence of plastic. On first impression, it seems possible to confirm the theory of a higher accumulation of plastic in the area called the center of the gyre. But only when all the samples have been processed in the Ocean Lab, and the results analyzed and discussed, will we be able to definitely confirm this theory. By the time this blog is posted, our team on the Sea Dragon will have already set sail in the direction of the Azores, where the boat and all the team will again reach safe land after having crossed the Atlantic Ocean collecting samples. After packing all the research equipment, they will come back to Delft with the numerous samples and a 200kg eighty meters long mooring line lost by an anonymous boat in the sea, plastic line that will no longer poison our beloved ocean.
-Francesco Ferarri, The Ocean Cleanup Gyre Expedition #5, July 5, 2015