The sea goes from deep blue, to silver to gold, depending on the sun. The sky has stayed clear. It feels altogether magical and, punctuated by volcanic islands and swooping seabirds, our watches are no hardship. Armed with sunglasses and cups of tea, it is possible to sit on deck for hours, basking in the sunlight. The only difficulty is forcing ourselves to sleep – none of us want to retreat back down to our bunks when the weather is so glorious.
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I am excited to envisage on paper the experience of being on the ocean, with no land in sight. It’s a new thing for me, to embark on this kind of expedition, and I want to try to get the feeling down in pencil and paint – the raw wilderness surrounding us on all sides.
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Here, where the wilderness shouts so very loudly, words seem quieter somehow. Less important. I can imagine my own melting away, driven by the sound of the wind and rock. In Helen’s maps though, her collections of words and drawings are the anchors that connect place to place, person to person, creature to creature. Sea shanties from an Icelandic village are tied, across an ocean, to perhaps a Faroese folk chant or a viking childrens’ tale.
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For us, and our small team of emerging artists, it won’t be plastic but rather whales and dolphins that will be our watchwords. But, one cannot help bleeding into the other. As more whales wash up on beaches with stomachs full of plastic, how not to feel the weight of Sea Dragon’s most recent research as we gaze across the bright blue sea?
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Here on board Sea Dragon, the last few days have been a whirlwind of activity. We returned from a very successful trip with The Ocean Cleanup on Saturday, and on Monday we head back out to sea with BAMZ, the punchily-acronymed Bermuda Aquarium, Museum, and Zoo. In the intervening time, we are getting the boat ready for our voyage to Iceland with The 5 Gyres Institute.
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The calm, clear skies made trawl deployment and recovery very easy. The weather, in conjunction with the ease of deployment, was welcomed by the very wary crew! The only ‘problem’ we had at one point was a pesky Cahow trying to investigate the equipent and whether or not he could make a tasty meal out of it.
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As our eyes began to adjust even more to the night sky, we were able to pick out more and more aspects that only being on the ocean in the dead of night would present. The waves crashed against the bow, and we created a wake as we travelled further south. It excited some of the smallest marine organisms called plankton, causing them to illuminate and dance in the sea beneath us.
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Being able to see the moon, the stars, and planets was breathtaking, and certainly not something we see everyday. There was also enough wind at the time to allow for straight sailing. As a result, we were able to turn off the boat engine and have the waves be the background soundtrack for our watch. We were also treated to a beautiful sunrise, painting the sky various hues of pink, orange, red and blue.
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Early observations of the samples show that most of the plastic and debris was being found in the top three nets, so approximately the first meter of the water column. Julia, the scientist spearheading this project, has her work cut out for her as she analyses the information collected. Once the two trawls were completed for the day, it was time for lunch – quesadillas or Casey-dillas, as they were renamed by Casey.
Read MoreToday we officially casted off for what will be the last time until we return to Bermuda. We were a little slow casting off due to the customs officers having difficulties with locks and keys. Once those issues were sorted, we were quickly on our way! Within the first 2 […]
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We’ve got a mix of 13 crew members from all over, including the UK, Holland, United States, Brazil, Sweden, and one person all the way from Bermuda! We spent the larger part of the morning assembling our multi-level trawl, which is paramount in collecting any plastic debris. It collects debris at various levels to create a depth profile of plastics within the gyre.
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We’ve finally got some breeze again after a few interminable days of motorboating towards Bermuda and have had a glorious day sailing upwind, doing 8, sometimes 9 or 10 knots through the waves.
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