Starting off as a joke, the Dutch/German cooking team decided to make Pfannekuchen, the European predecessor of globally popular pancakes. Not thinking of the consequences we started at around 9:30 AM with the cooking, giving us 2.5 h to make approx. 40 Pfannekuchen for the 13 hungry sailors. Needless to say, frying Pfannekuchen on a sailboat rolling with the swell and waves is quite a treat.
Read MoreBefore starting this trip I had close to zero sailing experience and my sea voyages were a few ferry rides. After 2 weeks at sea I have learned and experienced so much it is hard to sum it all up.
Read MoreIn addition to our trawl sampling, we are accumulating quite the collection of larger plastic debris! So far on our journey we have retrieved crates, jugs, buoys, fenders, hausers, and floats.
Read MoreOn 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.
Read MoreLead Oceanographer for The Ocean Cleanup Foundation Julia Reisser wears a hat resembling the foil bags that trawl samples are stowed in for safe keeping. Written on her hat? Trawl 33, Net 11!
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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.
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 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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Even the mundane is touched by the whales – yesterday while cleaning the bilges Shanley was surprised to hear them singing to her, the noise resonating through Sea Dragon’s steel skin. This is truly one of the most spectacular places I have ever been.
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