Posts Tagged ‘floating debris’

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March 18, 2010 – At Sea, 06º 59’S, 083º 51’W
By Herb McCormick and Mark Schrader

Things were going great: until they weren’t. We’ll start with the great part. Yesterday afternoon, as the golden sun was just starting to make its serious, end-of-day descent into the Pacific west, I ambled up on the foredeck, carrying a big, blue bucket, my razor and a bottle of shampoo. The water was 81 degrees. There was a decent breeze blowing, from the quarter, and a gently rolling seaway; the deck was pleasantly warm. I was going to have a shave and a bucket bath, and afterwards, a short sprawl beneath the setting sun. All was right with the world.

Okay, here’s the “until they weren’t” part. You’ll soon see it’s the larger part of the tale.

Had I for the briefest moment put aside thoughts of my joyous, forthcoming ablutions and glanced forward – even for an instant – I would’ve seen the long line of buoys attached to the deep tangle of commercial fishing gear, and I could’ve yelled at my watchmate, Dave Logan, to disengage the autopilot and swing the wheel hard to starboard. In retrospect, it could’ve been easy. There would’ve been time. Fifty feet in the other direction – fifty, measly feet, at the most – and a rather major problem would’ve been averted.

“Yo, Dave! Net! Turn the boat, brother!”

These were the warnings I failed to issue. Logan still had the presence of mind to shift the engine into neutral, but a split second in arrears.

It’s not like we didn’t know they weren’t out there. The day before, we’d actually sailed over two long-lines – lines on which other, hooked lines are suspended – that passed safely beneath the keel. We’d even seen the fishing boat off in the distance. But these were lines that were being tended on a regular basis, well set and stationed well below the interface of water and air. Okay, yes, we’d been lucky. I’d spotted the first moments before we were over it – I said, “We’re over it…” – and looked down to see Ocean Watch clear the hazard with room to spare.

“You see one, you see more,” I said. I wasn’t on deck when we transited the second one. But we did, and kept on going.

The third long line was the problem, an untended, lost, massive tangle of hooks, buoys, polypropylene and god knows what else, all knotted and bundled, all of it lurking right beneath the surface. We hit it hard, we glanced astern, we could see we were dragging the entire godforsaken mess.

We were snagged.

Way back in Seattle, way back in May of last year, we all had jobs on our to-do list before we set out on the expedition Around the Americas. At the top of mine were two items I remember well: Satellite radio for the stereo, and scuba gear for emergencies. I’m a diver, it was my responsibility. In the interests of brevity, I’ll spare you the reasons we have fins, masks, a full tank, and all the things one requires for the safe and exciting activity of exploring undersea worlds…with the exception of a working regulator, the rather crucial item that connects the a) air in the tank with b) your lungs.

But man, we got some rockin’ tunes!

Seeing that I was already in my baggies (remember the bath?) and that, um, I’d forgotten to make that last, somewhat critical run to the dive shop, when the roster of candidates to inspect the situation was winnowed down, I was on the extremely short list.

Into the drink I went.

Let’s just say it wasn’t a pretty sight. There was enough line wrapped around the keel to build a corral. Fortunately, with a sharp blade, this was dispatched with pretty quickly and easily, and proved to be a minor hassle. The first big problem was the net wound round and round the propeller shaft. The second large issue was the fifteen or so feet of open water that had be gained to address it. The third major dilemma was the other thing attached to the shaft, namely, a 44-ton steel sailboat, which had a lovely, mellow, gentle motion when sitting atop it, but took on altogether different, quite sinister characteristics once you were beneath it.

Skipper Mark Schrader, always wanting to get in on my fun, was soon swimming alongside me. I’ll let him pick up the tale with these excerpts from his personal log:

“Our night of sailing was a welcome change from the light air motor-boat ride we’ve been on since Callao.  But, the reason for unrolling the jib and trimming the main had nothing to do with anything pleasant.  About an hour before sunset, with engine and propeller moving OW nicely through the water, we drove over an unmarked and probably abandoned long-line – a fishing trot line that is usually set on the surface between two marked/flagged buoys with a series of hooked lines dangling down from the surface line.

In this case, the marker buoys had been broken and were invisibly floating, along with the line, stretched across our path and moving with the current.

“The on-watch group saw the line and shifted into neutral (stopping the prop) just a second too late.  In no time at all several hundred feet of line, floats, hooks and assorted gear wrapped itself around our shaft, prop and keel.  A few of us, remembering the exact same unpleasant experience during the delivery of OW from Mexico to Seattle a year ago, let out a collective groan.  Thanks to that experience we mounted a so-called line-cutter on the shaft just forward of the prop, and hoped for the best.

“Herb was first in the water with mask and fins to do a recon of the situation.  One look and it was obvious to him that the ball of line immediately overwhelmed the line cutter and then just pretended it wasn’t there.  It was also clear we weren’t going to be motoring anywhere until the mess was cut away.  Did I mention it was getting dark and the choppy sea was lifting OW’s stern out of the water every now and then?

“Somewhere in the vast storage areas of OW is an air tank we’ve been carrying for 22,000 miles for just this occasion, and a regulator, mouthpiece and hose setup so the short-straw guy could descend and hack away this kind of a mess at his leisure.  Trying to dive under a bouncing boat with a knife in one hand, a guiding rope in the other while holding your breath long enough to avoid getting tangled up in the lines and then having some time to cut something, isn’t easy.  That much we knew, hence the air tank and gear.  What we had forgotten, however, was that our regulator was missing some important pieces making it useless for our purposes.

“On went the booties and masks and soon McCormick, Logan, Thoreson and Schrader were all in the water, with knives and saws in hand, taking turns under the boat. The sharp line-cutter proved very effective at cutting Thoreson’s hand when he was trying to find something to hang on to as the boat bounced up and down above his head.  Blood in the water isn’t a good thing, neither is a deep cut in the hand.  DT removed himself to the first-aid station.

“Before darkness prematurely ended our efforts we had made some gains and were optimistic that another attempt at first light would be successful.  A nice evening breeze filled in and with all safely aboard, we hoisted the main, unrolled the jib and enjoyed a night of quiet sailing.  New crewmember Billy Gammon served up a wonderful chicken curry on rice; we tended to DT’s hand and then relaxed for awhile.

“The morning assault on the problem started at 0930 when Herb and I hit the water with tools of the trade, a serrated dive knife and a very nice fine-toothed cabinet saw, compliments of Dave.  The prop and shaft were shedding pieces of line pretty quickly for an hour or so, and then we were down to the last bit of tightly wound line on top of the line-cutter.  Another hour of trading dives, tools and people and it looked like we had it all.  Herb made one final look and gave us a thumb’s up.  I don’t know about the others, but I had just enough strength left to haul myself out of the water one last time.

“David’s cut appears to be okay but we’ll watch it carefully and call Dr. Jarris, our emergency medical contact at Swedish Hospital in Ballard, if we see any signs of infection.  OW is motoring along, making good time toward the Galapagos, 557 nautical miles to the north.  Our ETA looks like mid-day on the 21^st, if we manage to avoid a repeat of this experience. We may be a little tired, salty and bruised, but I’m happy to report all are well aboard Ocean Watch.”

One postscript: In the Silver Lining Department, the night proved to be a memorable one. A huge flock of swallow-tailed gulls, drawn by Ocean Watch’s running lights, spent most of the evening circling the boat in orchestrated precision, swooping down to catch the thousands of flying fish that presumably had also been attracted by the green, starboard bulb. It was so quiet under sail that we could hear the flapping of their wings, their warbles and purrs, the satisfied noises from their all-you-can-eat banquet. In the glow of the navigation lights, they fluttered atop the water and spun high into the air, just a few feet frome the boat, and then did it all over again, for hour after hour.

It was such an amazing sight – so singular and unforgettable – one might be tempted to think I left that regulator ashore on purpose. Those birds in flight were just so cool. And would we have even seen them if we’d just motored on, if we hadn’t, you know, gotten snagged?

-Herb McCormick and Mark Schrader with photographs by David Thoreson

*This crew log submitted by Iridium OpenPort and Stratos

*To add a comment to this story click on the comment link below the post title. Please direct your messages for the crew to crew@aroundtheamericas.org instead of submitting them here. Thanks for following the Around the Americas Expedition.

Open the below photos in a full-screen slideshow in Flickr

March 17, 2010 – At Sea, 08º 32’S, 081º 52’W
By Herb McCormick

Everyone remembers the famous scene in the movie The Graduate when the character played by a young Dustin Hoffman tries to come to grips with his future. Without a clue as to what the world ahead has in store for him – or how he could possibly engage it in any meaningful way – he encounters an older, “wiser” man who sums up all the possibilities of the coming decades – in terms of livelihood, security and prosperity – in one single, tantalizing word.

“Plastics,” he says, quietly, conspiratorially.

Hoffman, unsure, considers this a moment, but he got the message. “Plastics,” he replies.

The Graduate was obviously an iconic movie, one for the ages, but that one-word line of dialog – though meant to be humorous and ironic – may have been its most prescient moment. For when it came to the very basics of civilization, the needs and wants of your societies and their interwoven, interwined economies, from the 1960s to this very day, the guy was absolutely, positively, one-hundred-percent correct.

Plastics.

Of course, these days, plastics – and its neighbor in the “p” section of your dictionary, not to mention in the fabric of our shared existence: petroleum and petroleum-based products – are simply everywhere. But do you really want to see plastics, to understand their reach and span and remarkable, mind-bending durability?

Well, do as we have. Go to sea.

Today on Ocean Watch, our tiny spot on the Pacific Ocean is framed in beauty and wonder. Just before noon, about a mile ahead, the waters began to boil as if we were approaching a shallow reef. Considering we were about two hundred miles off the coast of South America, over a deep expanse of waterborne canyons known as the Peru Trench – where depths range from 14,000 to over 20,000 feet – this was unlikely. But it had to be something.

Suddenly, a black form broke the surface, then another, then a half dozen more. Porpoises! Hundreds of porpoises! It was a stampede of sea life, at least a half-mile long and several hundred yards wide, crossing our bow and sprinting, soaring and leaping westward into the Pacific. This captivating show by the acrobats of the ocean was riveting enough, but just when you couldn’t imagine it getting any better, there was the sight of an unmistakable geyser spurting skyward from a massive, sounding whale that was riding shotgun to the herd. Coupled with last evening’s stunning, clear, moonless night, with all the heaven’s blinking above, the first days of our light-air voyage to the Galápagos Islands has been nothing less than a visual cavalcade.

Happily, there hasn’t been a scrap of plastic in sight.

That wasn’t the case during the time when we were moored off the Peruvian seaside town of Callao, where an endless stream of plastic garbage bags streamed past Ocean Watch, and we crossed our fingers every time we started our generator to charge our batteries that the raw-water intake valve wouldn’t be fouled by the refuse of a mini-market. Miraculously, it never was.

And that most certainly was not the case just a few short miles north of our anchorage. The day before we departed, our David Thoreson met a professional delivery skipper from Florida who, on the night before arriving in Callao with a sailboat he was delivering from Ft. Lauderdale, sailed through a literal river of plastic and garbage. The sailor, Captain J. Miranda, left early the next morning, so we never had a chance to view his photos, but he did send an email message on what he’d seen.

“I talked to you yesterday about the garbage we found off the coast of Peru about thirty miles north of your location and about twenty nautical miles off the coast,” he wrote. “As I told you, at times there was so much of it around us that we had to go off the autopilot to dodge it. The garbage seems to be partly processed (through a grinder) but the size of the chunks of it and just the sheer volume of it raises some eyebrows.”

That’s right: this stuff isn’t the current-borne flotsam wafting off the coast from the massive metropolis of Lima. Commercial vessels are deliberately dumping it.

“The crews of the boats do it to avoid dumping charges at the ports they visit,” Captain Miranda continues. “Raising awareness of this to the crews of the ships doing the dumping is not going to resolve it. The solution will be found in the partnership between the ports and the recycling companies. If you can eliminate the dumping fees (pay them through avenues other than the ship companies) and reward the crew’s recycling efforts (through cash incentives), then you are moving in the right direction.

“Where to get the money for it?” wonders Captain Miranda. He suggests, “marketing campaigns of worldwide awareness. (For instance) if all the people driving Japanese cars would realize that their purchases are (indirectly) financing the killing of whales for the satisfaction of the Japanese whale-eating market, things (might) be quite different.”

We were delayed in leaving Peru, and though we tried to locate the seaborne garbage dump in question, we passed the location in darkness and failed to do so. But that doesn’t mean we didn’t encounter plenty of plastic trash on the beaches near Callao. Just as he did in Miami, in ports all through South America, and outside Lima, during our stay in Peru David T continued to record the sad truth about the cleanliness of the coastlines – or distinct lack thereof – in a series of heartbreaking images, some of which accompany this report.

David’s pictures bring to mind the work of another environmental photographer, the Seattle-based photojournalist Chris Jordan, whose images of dead albatrosses in the vast Pacific – their skeletal remains cast in the framework of the plastic junk they ingested, which put an end to their lives – tells the story about what’s happening with greater frequency not only out at sea, but everywhere birds take flight, in sad, telling detail. (Jordan’s subject matter extends beyond wildlife, but is all topical, important and related, and though often disturbing, is well worth seeking out.)

And, of course, the infamous Pacific Gyre – a swirling, gargantuan whirlpool of rubbish borne endlessly along the currents of the wide Pacific Ocean – is something we may yet encounter before our voyage is through.

So, yes, despite the glorious scenery, the good company and the fine weather, like “The Graduate,” today we’ve been thinking about plastics. They sure do add a lot to a complete, consumerist life!

Unless, of course, they’re killing you.

-Herb McCormick with photographs by David Thoreson

*This crew log submitted by Iridium OpenPort and Stratos

*To add a comment to this story click on the comment link below the post title. Please direct your messages for the crew to crew@aroundtheamericas.org instead of submitting them here. Thanks for following the Around the Americas Expedition.