Flying fish rush over the waves. First mate Shanley has spotted bioluminescence. We felt like we could almost touch the dolphins that briefly played around the boat. The emptiness is an illusion, that much is clear. There’s not just plastic in there, there’s life, there’s beauty. And this is what I think we came here for – life and beauty, to experience, and preserve.
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We were soon back to routine sailing until about 1720 hours when Captain Eric spotted something large and white floating about 100M off the port bow. In addition to the trawl’s catch, we had been seeing mezzo-plastics (several cm-long), some larger, floating by all day but this object was big, coiled on itself like a great white serpent. Eric called out and immediately turned the boat toward the “thing” – we did not know what it was.
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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.
Read MoreWhen the Gibb’s Hill lighthouse blinked over the horizon last weekend a weight lifted off of all of our shoulders – we had made it! Sea Dragon is back in Bermuda for the 4th time in the last three years, and its beginning to feel a bit like we have […]
Read MoreSomething within is driving me to find that awe moment of sailing that I had experienced from my first ever sailing on the Corwith Kramer and the second trip with Sea Dragon around the Dominican Republic. Reaching these moments where I felt high off of life is much more rewarding when I had to work for it.
Read MoreThe first one landed on board just after three in the morning. Its gossamer wings beating frantically against the rubber stucco deck, its eyes spinning crazily in their sockets. Gasping wetly at nothing. Its scales dripping with sea slime in our headlamps, shining dully in the baleful red shadows in the leaden night.
Read MoreLong-tail whitebirds swoop above us,
Container ships chug along,
The stars brighten and fade,
Bermuda, see you in not too long!
The wonders of this expedition add on, with each passing day and it becomes increasingly difficult for me to do a rating from 1-10. The star-canopied sky brings immense pleasure on Night Watch. Yesterday, Shanley, Ally and I spoke about the constellations. I tell them how my father taught my siblings and me, to identify the Great Bear, with its shape like a question mark. In India, we also call it the “Saptarishi,” or the Seven Sages with the little star, next to them, symbolic of the steadfast wife of one of them, Arundhati. At Hindu weddings, whatever the time of the day, the groom takes his bride out and points out to that star.
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The proximity of close confines can bring with it bonding (as the days, move on) or it could work the other way. So far, it has been a good journey with each one displaying a keenness for peaceful co-existence in the time that Chance or Providence has brought us together. The shared laughter, the pulling together and the learning will stay with me for the rest of my years.
Read MoreIt’s a good end to a long day – we set sail from Great Inagua yesterday morning and have had a beautiful passage, champagne sailing in flat water with beautiful wind under the hot tropical skies, then worked our way in over some shallow sandbars to find anchorage here on the northern edge of the Georgetown harbor. Elizabeth and the crew headed straight to the windward beach on stocking island to do some cleaning and look for inspiration in the rack line, then we settled into a fantastic barbecue at “The Flip Flop Shop,” a collection of crude benches and palm frond canopies near a firepit on the beach – open to all, as long as you only “take what you brought with you.”
Read MoreAt tonight’s workshop Elizabeth read a eulogy to the Caribbean monk seal, then tore the pages from her notebook, folded them and tossed them to the sea.
As night falls and the moon rises we are at sea in good hands. Elizabeth made a wonderful dinner, and we are all looking toward continued fair winds.
But the best part? The flamingos. We saw several flocks standing in the salt ponds, probably eating the shrimp that gave them their pink color. Colin stopped the truck several yards away so Stephen and I could see the birds without spooking them. But eventually the flamingos did take off, and I marveled at the way their long necks stretched into the wind like awkward ballerinas.
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