Research - Pelagic Plastic - Gyre Voyage 2005
Crew Accounts: 2005 Central Pacific Research Voyage
AUSTIN BROWN
1st Mate, ORV Alguita
ORV Alguita Crewmember 2005
This is my second trip to the Pacific Gyre and the eastern garbage patch. I was also on the 2002 return trip from Hawaii to Santa Barbara. This has been a very good trip we had an excellent crew and great weather. We had the normal boat problems any mariner would expect, but nothing that we could not handle.
Comparing this trip to the 02’ voyage I would have to say the plastic plague is getting worse. We did not find any giant net bundles or thick windrows, but it seemed that the plastic fragments were denser everywhere. We did 42 manta trawls and collected 110 pieces of flotsam ,fishing floats, and pieces of line. It is getting so bad out there that when I was fishing on my birthday the only thing that I caught was a two foot long piece of rope from a fishing net. It is usually the case when fishing near shore that you always tangle up in kelp and the occasional trash bag so you would go far off shore to fish in clean waters and not have to worry about tangling with anything, but that’s sadly not the case anymore.
Posted: 8/17/05
