Algalita Marine Research Blog

25.13N, 153.56E
“Net ball!” Hank yelled.

“There’s an Masked Booby sitting on top of it,” Cynthia says.  It turns out to be a 500lb ball of netting, rope and line from over 80 sources, all different, and fragments of commercial products, including 3 toothbushes, 1 cigarette lighter and two plastic straws.  The bulk of these, and several pieces of chewed bottles, bottle caps and assorted food wrappers, are lodged in a tangled gill net. The whole thing from underwater looks like an upside-down floral arrangement, with lead weights taking some lines straight down, and foam floats taking lines outward.

Fish are everywhere – mahimahi, amberjack, triggerfish – circle beneath the net ball. Three fish are stuck inside in varying stages of decomposition. These nets catch more fish when they are lost than when they were owned.  After a long dive around it, we haul it above the deck to shake it out. More fish, a goby, 5 frog fish, hundreds of crabs, a shrimp, worms, nudibranchs, anemone – Hank Carson from U. of Hawaii collects 26 species in all.

There’s great diversity of live and plastic, creating habitat where it wasn’t before. The reaction is awe at the life. When a dozen fish swim under you for shelter, you can’t help but laugh. When I pull a dead triggerfish out of the netting, I cringe at the thought of the thousands or millions of fish all these tangled nets have killed after being lost. Above all else, I have the same felling I get when you visit someplace beautiful, like the Grand Canyon or Everglades, and you see that someone dumped a pile of trash on the side of the road.  It’s the sense that something is taken away from all of us – the knowledge that there are places in the world, so valuable, so wild, that taking more than a memory would be unthinkable. ~Marcus~

In the Garbage Patch
20.31.42N, 155.11.2009E

We’re 1300 miles into our trip, and somewhere around 21N,156E – still balmy, sweaty, muggy, stinky, but the 14 people on this 72ft. boat are all smiles celebrating Bob’s 64th birthday in the middle of the western garbage patch of the North Pacific Gyre. This is not the well-known Eastern Garbage Patch, but the one 6,000 miles to the West, near Japan.

Tyler was 30ft. in the air standing on the first pair of spreaders on the mast. From that vantage point you’re the tallest point on the planet 1000 miles in all directions, and can see for many miles around. “Hey, there’s something big and white off the starboard side!” he yells.

It’s a chunk of Styrofoam the size of a 55-gallon drum. We can’t say whether it’s debris from the tsunami event last year, but it is the biggest thing we’ve found. There’s nothing written or stamped on it, or anything identifying where it came from. It’s just a massive chunk of polystyrene foam rolling across the seas.
With everything back on deck we haul in the Hi-speed trawl. Like we suspected, there are a few dozen particles of plastic ranging from the size of a pea to a grain of sand. This is the edge of the garbage patch. It’s not an island, nor is it easily visible, except for the random bottle, like the detergent bottle we found this morning. It’s mostly microplastic particles showing up endlessly in our nets, each the size of fish food, in every gyre, in every ocean, and also here.
- Marcus Eriksen, 5 Gyres

We launched the hi-speed trawl yesterday and dragged it until this morning, approximately 100 nautical miles through the Pacific. Research has begun. As Marcus unveiled the sample, the crew surrounded him with curiosity. The sample included several small fragments of colorful plastic (at least twenty pieces) and a single nurdle, a pre-production pellet used to make all plastic items. We have not officially entered the Western North Pacific accumulation zone yet, which explains the minimal amount of plastic found. We are heading west northwest at the moment (Course is 305 Degrees) for the next 580 miles and then we will head north and head into the accumulation zone for approximately 610 miles until we head west to Tokyo (approximately 800 miles). Little plastic pollution research exists in this area of the ocean – the last samples collected were done in the mid 1980s.

We are about to launch the first manta trawl at 4PM today. This will be the beginning of our official research. The plan is to put the manta out every 50 nautical miles, as long as weather continues to be appropriate. In total, we will probably collected 25 to 35 manta trawl samples, along with a similar amount of hi-speed trawl samples. In addition to the research beginning today, Shanley and I are leading sit-up sessions during the 60 minutes that the trawl is out. Sea Dragon is slowed down to less than 3 nautical miles during this time – perfect time to get a little exercise in.
- Carolynn

We have not seen land or any boats since we left, about 1,000 miles. We started sampling 2 days ago. We had to wait to be 200 miles from international water to start. We have not yet reached the “accumulation zone”, but each trawl has some pieces of plastic. We have seen very little debris so far—a Styrofoam cup here, a bucket there. Life on the boat is based on our watch schedule: 3 hours watch, 6 hours off, with the hardest watch from midnight to 3 am. I have learned to steer the boat. Doing it at night, following the stars, is a great feeling. The team has some really fascinating people: from Bob, a 63-year-old Vietnam veteran and great adventurer, who just came back from a month in the Sahara; to Kristal, 22, from the Bahamas, who works for Cape Eleuthera Institute in the aquaponics research department. Our captain has over 300,000 sea miles under his belt. More later!
- Valerie Lecoeur

It all started several years ago when I began doing “Trash & Treasure Hunts” at the beach with our three young children. Inevitably, we’d find more trash than treasure (though, with young kids, sometimes they’re one and the same). Over time, it upset me more and more to see so much man-made debris, especially plastic, washed up on our beautiful beach. Fortunately I was able to channel all that anger into creative energy, and “The Idea” hit me: Last summer, my company launched the world’s first biodegradable beach toys.

Made from corn, our Fantastic Anti-Plastic beach toys will completely biodegrade in 2-3 years if washed out to sea. (Compare that with 500+ years for the average plastic water bottle, which even then only photodegrades.) As a business owner and a mom, I’m now obsessed by trash on the beach. Anytime I go to any beach, I make a point of taking a long walk and picking up garbage. So this trip to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the next logical step for me: Let’s travel right to the epicenter of the problem. I’m excited to be part of the solution!

“Fish on!” Hank yells.  I can hear it through the small window that divides my bunk, where I was sleeping, to the back deck, where Hank, Tyler and Shanlee are gathered to reel in our first catch of the trip.
“It’s a tuna…no…a Wahoo,” Shanlee says with excitement.  She’s recently finished her yachtmaster course, and loves anything “sailing”.  Hank is our resident marine biologist with a keen interest in the biodiversity of colonizing creatures on plastic pollution.  If we come across some large debris, he’ll be diving under and around it with his wire cutters snipping of pieces of encrusted plastic.  Now he’s hauling in lunch.
The Wahoo flies into the air, then back to water, slapping the surface as the hook and line pull it against its will.  It submits quickly, which makes us think it may have been on the line a while and tired out.  Soon it’s on deck and Hank gives it a quick cut to stop its suffering.  We’re interested to see what’s in the stomach.
This fish is beautiful, with silvery-blue stripes and blotches down its back, black spines in it’s sail, large black pupils surrounded by deep blue, and triangular teeth in a long sharp row from the tip of its beak to deep in its mouth.  Hank opens the belly to remove the stomach and place it on a cutting board.
There’s not much inside: two spherical lenses remaining from digested eyeballs, the spine of a smaller fish, and two lime-size parasitic worms latched onto the inside walls of the gut.  They are filled with brown pre-digested blood.  Alex is in sheer disgust/joy at squeezing one of them to remove its gut contents to see what’s inside.
Nothing, but good news.  There’s no plastic here.  Hank filets the remainder of the fish, which we’ll feed 14 crew today.

We’re trawlin!
We did a test trawl in Majuro Atoll to make sure it all works.  The trawl is a 60cm wide net with a 333 micron mesh, roughly 1/3 of a mm.  It’s smaller than the holes in your t-shirt.  We drag it across the sea surface for exactly 60 minutes and record the exact distance we’ve gone, but also the speed on the knot meter.  We’re measuring particles of plastic per square kilometer by skimming the surface layer of the ocean.  We’ll do this over 100 times in the next 2 months as we sail from Majuro Atoll to Japan (3000 miles), then Tokyo to Maui (4000 miles).  Follow our blog to see what we find!

Marcus, 5 Gyres Institute

We’re preparing to leave in a few minutes.  Rodrigo, our skipper, has giving the safety briefing.  “Keep your life vest on, especially at night, cause if you’re overboard we’ll likely not find you.”  Adventure sailing is serious business.  Our science requires a boat that can get us anywhere in the world.  5 Gyres and Algalita have chartered the Sea Dragon from Pangaea Explorations to survey plastic pollution in the Western Garbage Patch of the North Pacific Gyre and in the Japanese Tsunami Debris Field.

As the Research Leader of the expedition, I’ll be engaging crew on the science work.  Everyone participates, and by doing so they become ambassadors for the issue of plastic pollution. They know more, can dispel misconceptions about “Plastic Islands”, and speak more informed about the reality of plastic pollution, its global distribution, it’s fate in our oceans and impacts on other living things.  That’s our purpose here, to understand what we’re up against when nations around the world use the ocean as the “AWAY” in “THROW AWAY.”  As you know, all trash on land rolls, floats or flies downhill.  The ocean is downhill from everywhere.

We’ll talk more in the days and weeks ahead about our voyage goals and objectives as we sail over 7,000 miles to Tokyo and then back to Hawaii.  Stay tuned. There’s always more on the horizon.

Marcus Eriksen, 5 Gyres Institute

We’ve just arrived on Majuro Atoll in the Marshal Islands. As the jumbo jet turned to make a landing, I could see the thin ring of the atoll from the plane window.  Within a few minutes we were on the ground, then headed to the Sea Dragon, sitting calmly in the center of the Atoll.   A crew of 14 is aboard the Sea Dragon, and is ready to go, but we need one full day to provision the boat and get through customs. With hours to spare, we wander the island.

We take a boat to one of the many islands around the rim of this ancient volcano.  From above, the island looks like a cup, with the northern islands completely submerged.  We find one isolated island to the east and wander around.  On the outside, or ocean-side, we find the same plastic pollution washed ashore; flip flops, bottles, bucket and crate pieces, bottle caps, and thousands of degraded fragments.  On the inside of the atoll we find amazing lagoons filled with life. I hover over one giant head of coral (named Porites)  that’s larger than my Ford van back home.  On a sandy plain I find burrows in the sand where shrimp and fish share the same tunnel, one protecting while the other digs.  This world is amazing, unlimited discovery, a beautiful panorama of light, life and color, and all the reason why protecting the ocean is in our own self-interest.

We’re just hours away from departing now.  By tomorrow this time we should be 100 miles away from here, closer to Tokyo, on our way to the Western Garbage Patch of the North Pacific Gyre.  Stay tuned for more.
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- Marcus Eriksen, 5 Gyres Institute

Leg 1
May 1 – 21 Studying the “Western Pacific Garbage Patch”-  Kwajalein Atoll, Marshall Islands to Tokyo

Marcus Eriksen – Research Expedition Leader
Marcus Eriksen received his Ph.D. in Science Education from University of Southern California in 2003, months before embarking on a 2000-mile, 5-month journey down the Mississippi River on a homemade raft.  His experience on the river led to a career studying the ecological impacts of plastic marine pollution, which has included expeditions sailing 25,000 miles through all 5 subtropical gyres to discover new garbage patches of plastic pollution in the Southern Hemisphere.  Though still rafting, his most recent adventure sent him and a colleague across the Pacific Ocean from California to Hawaii on JUNK, a homemade raft floating on 15,000 plastic bottles and a Cessina airplane fuselage as a cabin (junkraft.com).  The journey, 2,600 miles in 88 days, brought attention to the work of the 5 Gyres Institute, the organization he co-founded with his wife Anna Cummins.  Together, they co-direct 5 Gyres, which is committed to marine conservation through continued research, education and adventure, studying and lecturing about the plague of plastic waste in our watersheds and in the sea.  Formerly Director of Project Development for Algalita, he has served as Research Expedition Leader for investigation of the plastic marine pollution issue in all five major gyres of the world over the past couple of years, most recently, last summer on the Algalita 2011 Expedition from Honolulu to Vancouver, B.C.His first book, titled “My River Home” (Beacon Press, 2007) chronicled his Mississippi River experience paralleled with his tour as a Marine in the 1991 Gulf War.  In 2007 he joined board of the Mehadi Foundation and contributes his time to help the foundation assist US veterans and provide clean water to schools in Iraq.  He also hosts “Commando Weather,” a series of public service announcements about the science of weather and survival, for the Weather Channel.  When not rafting, he enjoys time with Anna and is awaiting the birth of their daughter.

Rodrigo Olson – Skipper
Born in Mexico, Rodrigo has spent his life sailing the oceans of the world in search of some of the planet’s most elusive whale species. He has a degree in Oceanography and was Captain of the famous research vessel ‘Odyssey’ which spent five years studying marine mammals around the globe. He has covered almost 300,000 nautical miles on sailing boats. A highly experienced diver, his ability to free-dive to great depths has resulted in some fantastic footage of his interaction with many species.

Jesse Horton – First Mate
Jesse is an artist, videographer, boat captain and submarine pilot, hailing from Colorado to Costa Rica. He specializes in documenting “hard to reach issues,” like pollution at the bottom of the ocean and wildlife in inaccessible areas. He’s recently documented shark-finning in Asia and Central America and worked to help reduce plastic consumption in the South Pacific islands.
He’s filmed Great Whites without a cage in South Africa; chased poachers from marine parks in Central America; regularly holds his breath for up to five minutes while making free dives; and has survived a brain tumor. In his “downtime”, he competes in 24 hour endurance/adventure races with a best finish in “only” 4th place.

Carolynn Box – Deck Hand
Carolynn lives and works in San Francisco as a Coastal Manager for the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission. Activism work with the Surfrider Foundation San Francisco Chapter to protect local beaches introduced Carolynn to the issues related to plastic pollution. Ultimately, her passion for adventure and a healthier ocean resulted in her being part of the 5 Gyres Institute research voyage across the South Atlantic Ocean in January 2011, and across the North Pacific in the Summer of 2011. Now, heading out on another voyage, Carolynn is most excited about comparing trawl results between gyres, being surrounded by a passionate crew, and seeing the sunset every night.

Kristal Ambrose
Kristal is a student from New Providence, The Bahamas. She has an AA in Fisheries Management and Aquaculture Science and has some sailing and research experience. It is her desire to learn more about plastic pollution and to develop a research project within The Bahamas studying plastic pollution/marine debris.

Bob Atwater
Bob grew up on the Maine coast working on a lobster boat.  He is a US Marine Corps Vietnam veteran; Life Fellow of the Explorers Club; Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society; Retired Federal Homeland Security Agent; Life Fellow of the World Scout Foundation and Life Member of the National Eagle Scout Association.  He has led expeditions to Belize, Cuba, the Yucatan, and the Sahara Desert, is a SCUBA diver and World Traveler, rides motorcycles, was the security advisor for adventurer Steve Fossett, has had personal audiences with HRH Queen Elizabeth; HRH King Carl Gustaf and other royal families. Bob enjoys volunteer work on several fronts.  He serves, or has served, on the Board of Directors for Boy Scout Councils in Washington, DC and Ogden, Utah; the Archaeological Institute of America; The Institute of Nautical Archaeology; the Las Vegas International Scout Museum; as INS Agency President of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association and Vice President of MIA Charities.

Belinda Braithwaite
Belinda is a great adventurer and aged 21 rode her horse solo 1,700 miles from the south of Spain to Paris and subsequently wrote a bestselling book about her travels. She’s also ridden across America.  Her adventurous life led her into film-making, and when Rodrigo Olson introduced her to diving, it was immediately obvious that her affinity with animals allows her to approach and film some notoriously shy marine mammals.  An experienced scuba diver, it is her free-diving ability and affinity with animals which allows her to approach and film some notoriously shy marine mammals.

Michael Brown
Michael has 20 years experience in domestic and international business development, providing the leadership to take a number of visionary business concepts from planning to successful execution. His current company, Packaging 2.0, provides front-end design services, manufacturing and delivery of sustainable packaging products. He graduated from School One in Providence and attended Franconia College and is a true believer in experiential learning. He has served on the board of the Sloop Providence, the American Sail Training Association and the Jamestown Conservation Commission.

Hank Carson
Hank is a post-doctoral researcher in marine debris science at University of Hawaii, Hilo.  He has a PhD in Marine Ecology and 3 years post-doctoral research experience.  His interests include marine debris research, population connectivity, larval biology, invertebrate biology, and population biology. Hank’s goals for the expedition are to characterize the macro- and micro-communities of organisms attached to plastic along a transect across the North Pacific Gyre, to relate transitions in that community to physical gradients along the transect, to collect additional samples of gyre plastic for graduate students and collaborators for a variety of purposes, and of course…to have fun.

Valerie Lecoeur
Valerie was born and raised just outside Paris, France. After stints in New York and Chicago, today she enjoys dual citizenship living in North Carolina with her husband and three children. She is the founder of Zoë b Organic, which makes and sells sustainable, eco-friendly products for babies and kids. The company recently launched the world’s first biodegradable beach toys, made from corn. (If left behind and washed out to sea, her Fantastic Anti-Plastic Beach Toys will fully biodegrade in 2-3 years—as opposed to 500+ years for conventional plastic.) Valerie is proud to be a “green” mom and thrilled to be part of Leg 1 of the expedition. Both personally and professionally, she’s dedicated to her company’s motto: “It’s time to mother nature.”

Shanley McEntee
Shanley was born and raised in San Diego, CA and lived there until completing her college career at Western Washington University. She graduated with a BA in Environmental Policy and a minor in Environmental Science. Having grown up by the sea, she holds a deep passion for Mother Ocean and our ever-growing need for protection and awareness of the problems our environment is facing. She enjoys anything having to do with the sea, from surfing to scuba diving to sailing. She is PADI Rescue Diver certified and an IYT MOY 200 Ton Offshore Captain.

Cynthia Matzke

Cynthia is a marine biologist and Director of Trilogy’s Blue’aina Campaign on the Island of Maui.  She has witnessed the devastating effects on wildlife and has dealt with the issue of ocean debris for the last two decades. This has involved cleaning up beaches and reefs, cleaning up oiled sea birds and assisting with turtle and whale stranding networks. She also is an educator, scientist, documentarian, event planner, sailor and fund raiser. Following the symposium in Japan, she will have an opportunity to present her findings in Seoul, South Korea – one of the world’s largest plastic producers.

Tyler Mifflin
Tyler is a skilled cinematographer and emerging director. He graduated from the University of British Columbia with a major in film production. Tyler got his start in film and television industry at a young age when he shot and starred in an episode of the YTV reality show Road Scholars, for which he traveled all over France, Italy and Switzerland, exploring many cultural wonders and doing extreme sports such as snowboarding, wakeboarding, mountain biking and rock climbing. Tyler has filmed projects in Cambodia, Laos, Belize, Mexico the U.A.E, and all over Canada, from the rough mountaintops of the Rockies to the urban streets of Toronto and Vancouver. Tyler recently completed a course in 3D filmmaking presented by the Canadian Society of Cinematographers. Tyler’s hobbies include any sport that involves a board, scuba diving, rock climbing, reading, playing music (harmonica, drums) and video games, and spending time at his family cottage on Georgian Bay.

Alex Mifflin
The idea to embark on The Water Brothers project first arose when Alex started working alongside his brother at SK Films in 2009 conducting research for IMAX® films in development. After receiving a degree in International Development and Environmental Studies from Dalhousie University and the University of King’s College earlier that year, the decision to join the family business and then begin The Water Brothers project were easy since they both allowed him to combine his interests in science and the environment and use film to explore how humans can harmonize our relationship with water and the natural world. When he isn’t hosting television shows, reading, enjoying music or thinking about the worlds biggest social and environmental dilemmas, Alex likes to spend his time playing sports, watching sports, taking scuba diving trips, and hanging out with friends surrounded by nature at the family’s Georgian Bay island cottage.