Last day of trawling today, and now we point straight for the Azores! 33 successful trawls under our belt.
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Boyan Slat & Ocean Cleanup: Trawling in the North Atlantic Gyre
Today, with a now experienced crew and a comfortable 15 knot-wind, three back-to-back trawls were performed, each around an hour in length. Lots of millimetre to centimetre-sized particles were visible in the samples of the top few nets. Team member Francesco is currently working with some volunteers to clean the nets’ cod ends and prepare the samples for transportation.
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Boyan Slat & The Ocean Cleanup: Second day at sea
It’s our third day on board the Sea Dragon, our second day at sea. Most of us have never been on any type of sailboat, so the first and second day consisted of a lot of very basic training: how to pump the head, coil a rope, where all the supplies are kept. While still in the quiet harbor in Bermuda, we practiced putting the multi-level trawl in the water, each of us assigned a specific task, working as a team to ensure it was deployed safely.
Read MoreOcean Plastic Pollution – and the Gyre to Gaia sailing adventure
I’m leaving tomorrow to travel south to Falmouth and join Pangaea Exploration’s yacht Sea Dragon for a voyage through the North Atlantic Gyre to the Azores and then Lanzarote. We’ll be exploring ocean plastic pollution and wider questions about human nature relations and consumerism. Why do we treat the ocean as a dump? And why do so many of us end up consuming so much more than we need? Above all, we’ll be trying to figure out what solutions to this issue might look like.
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Stars, Satellites, and Sea Lights
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.
Read MoreCasting Off!
Today 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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From Scattered Bolts to A Cohesive Unit
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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