Day 6- First manta trawl!

Noon position: 24°52'40.80"N 128° 9'57.60"W

It’s Day six and we are officially 2/5 of the way to Hawai’i. Day six has been a day of firsts-- the first plastic trawl of the trip, and our first fish catch (a Mahi Mahi!).

Let’s start with the trawls. While the winds have been against us in terms of maintaining our original course, they have put us in an area of the Pacific which had never been sampled……until today! See the map below or Click here, to view more maps of our previous sampling areas. We deployed the first Manta trawl, a device that captures surface debris in a fine mesh net, at 9am. This process was akin to riding a bike for the Captain and veteran crew Drew, Joel and Jeff, and a learning experience for the newbies (Christiana and myself).

After an hour of towing the trawl we pulled it in to find a strikingly low amount of plastic. Among the plastic identified was some line, a few hard plastic fragments, and a piece of a clear plastic label on which we could decipher the letter “d”. Among the life identified in the sample was a button valella, some copepods, a juvenile Pacific saury, and tiny gastropods with gorgeous purple shells. (See image of sample at the top of this message.)

The evening brought on trawl number two. This trawl gave us the opportunity to experiment with a tethered underwater camera, which Joel was able to rig to record the underwater flow into the Manta trawl. This was a significant in that it confirmed the integrity of our surface sampling methods. We ran the evening trawl for an hour as well, finding results similar to the morning trawl--very little plastic.

Obviously the low quantity of plastic present in samples is good news, but it does highlight a key point. Throughout fifteen years of sampling, we have yet to bring in a trawl completely void of plastic. While standing on the foredeck today, the Captain was able to identify plastic fragments flowing past the vessel. We also spotted some larger debris, a 5 gallon bucket which managed to evade our collection efforts. The point is, even in this new sample area in which our trawls our producing comparatively low amounts of plastic-there is still enough debris present for us to visually register and in our trawls. The relatively low amount of plastic also points to the possible delineation of the boundaries of an accumulation zone, although it is far too early in the data collection process to make any definitive conclusions. Joel noted that during the JUNKraft expedition last summer he and Marcus Eriksen noted a similar trend in abrupt transitions in plastic accumulation as they skirted the south edge of the accumulation area.

And finally, after five days of rigging fishing poles and hand lines, we had our first catch. Christiana kept the liver and other organs and tissue for future analysis.

Best wishes from the Capt. and Crew

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Day 5

Noon Position: 29°40'15.49"N 127° 0'10.80"W

Hey guys, the ORV Alguita team needs your help!Most of the debris we have captured from the ocean has contained barnacles and crabs. All we know about the crabs is that they are pelagic (which means they spend their life floating throughout the open ocean). Can anyone help us find the name of the pelagic crab in the picture Above?

Today is day 5 at sea, all is well and the crew is in great spirits. Now that the all of the crew is up to speed with watch duties, we have switched to 2 hour, single watches. This is a lot easier on our sleep schedules. There is however news to report regarding our travel plans. Due to a large and persistent high pressure system, we have to rethink our original route, which would have deposited us along the International Dateline (180W) at latitude of about 35N. Because of the high pressure system we are dealing with light winds, which is not optimal for sailing. The weather has forced us to spend most of our time underway motor sailing. We have already used roughly 200 gallons of the 700 gallons we started with? If we keep up at this rate we will exhaust our fuel supply. At this point we are forced to bend to the will of nature and follow the winds.

As is required when dealing with the seas, the Captain has a backup plan. Our new route and sampling strategy will take us to a more southerly location than planned, but will still present us with ample research opportunities. The new plan is to continue our heading south in order to catch the easterly trade winds. This route will bring us to Hawai’i and allow us to survey a debris convergence zone located off the southern tip of the Big Island. This convergence zone is thought to be responsible for the accumulation of debris on beaches such as Kamilo. After sampling this convergence zone, we can refuel and head up the island chain toward the International Dateline at a lower latitude than planned. How far we will actually get is to be determined by the amount of time it takes us to get to Hawai’i in the light winds we have been experiencing since we left.

Speaking of debris sampling, today’s debris catch was a 300mm buoy fouled with barnacles and pelagic crabs. (See photo of Captain Moore on left.)

Keeping in tune with the rest of the weekend, the weather was phenomenal. Much of the day was spent out on deck stretching our limbs and taken in the scenery (which is mainly….water). Capt. Moore gave a presentation to an assembly of 14-18 year old students at Hawai’i Preperatory Academy. He was able to lead them through a power point presentation via satellite phone.

Our wildlife sighting for the day included a Red tailed Tropic Bird and some Petrels.

Dear East Hills 4H Students,It may not seem like it, but there is plenty of space on board for 6 people to sleep. On the starboard side of the boat there is a cabin which sleeps three people. On the portside of the boat, next to the galley (which is the kitchen on a boat), there are two more bunks. The Captain’s quarters are also on the portside of the vessel. Regarding the oven, it is located in the galley.There are lots of places incorporated into the design of the boat, which allow for us to stow the large amount of equipment we have to bring. Our microscope and some of our more delicate instruments are stored in compartments below deck. Our more durable items are stowed below deck in either the lazarettes (storage space at the stern, back, of the boat) or forepeaks (storage space near the bow (front )of the boat). These storage spaces are separated from crew quarters. For example one forepeak houses all of our dive equipment and another holds our fishing equipment and extra sails. Here is a link to a video and slide-show tour of ORV Alguita http://orvalguita.googlepages.com/touroforvalguita

Dear Cleo and Sal,Thanks for the awesome question contaminants such as, PCBs, in the open ocean. Keep your eyes open for an answer in the next couple days!

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Day 4- first open ocean swim!

Noon Position: 29°12'28.80"N 124°56'13.20"W

Today the crew had the chance to stop for our first open ocean swim, roughly 500miles offshore! With thousands of miles of water around us and hundreds of meters of water below our feet, it was an astonishing experience. While in the water Drew got the opportunity to test out some of his underwater gear and Capt. swam around the boat with a net searching for plastic. He found four small bits (two pieces of line, a thin transparent fragment and a cloth like fragment).

Can anyone identify the animal in the photo above? (Hint: Check out the links on day 3!)

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Day 3- Dolphins and debris

Noon position: 29°46'1.20"N 121°53'27.60"W

Greetings from the ORV Alguita! In the past 24hrs, we have had our first series of debris encounters. While taking in our fishing lines for the night, we dragged in our first piece of debris; a deflated green balloon with the string still attached. It was a little disheartening to discover that we were fishing for trash instead of fish.

Last night at around 10pm, we passed the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). For those of you who are wondering what that means, we are now officially out of the US waters, in what is essentially the no-man’s land of the Pacific. Because this area is out of US jurisdiction, it is not a top priority in terms of government funded research.

We were greeted in the morning with another debris sighting. We found a plastic water bottle (see photo above) which likely originated from Russia (the cap had Russian text). It had been afloat in the ocean just long enough for fouling organisms (i.e. tiny baby gooseneck barnacles) to latch on.

Our next trash sighting, roughly 300miles out to sea, was a tangle of fouled line and buoys. In addition to gooseneck barnacles making their home inside the floating mess, we found several pelagic crabs and a couple of different invertebrates. After weighing the mass of rubbish (9 kilos) we preserved a sample of the debris with the critters that we found living on it for Miriam Goldstein, a doctoral candidate at SCRIPPS, who is studying the fouling organisms that live on pelagic trash. The last two pieces of trash found today were a Monarch brand garlic-salt container and a plastic napkin or towel floating on the surface. These finds are indicators that we are making our way into the heart of trash accumulation.

As far as wildlife sightings go, we had a pod of Common Dolphins passing us on portside (see photo above). We also spotted several Velella velella, also known as the By-the-wind sailors, which is an awesome little sea creature that has a small oval sail so it can use the winds to travel the seas.
Best Wishes from the Captain and crew

Cheers,
Nicole

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Day 2

Noon Position: 31°49'26.40"N, 119°20'42.00"W

Hi Students,
Thanks for all of the fantastic questions and comments you have sent our way! Today is our first full day at sea and the crew is still getting used to the swing of things. Only one case of sea-sickness so far, and we’ve spotted some pretty cool wildlife. This morning we spotted four Fin Whales roughly 100 yards of the starboard stern of the vessel, and one more whale who was a little too far from the boat for us to identify.

Many of you are wondering the same question: what are we going to eat? The Alguiita is full any kind of food you can imagine. Last night the crew had stuffed mushroom and a fresh green salad. This morning we woke up to a homegrown boysenberry cobbler cooking in the oven. As many of you saw at the send-off, the deck is full of delicious fresh produce; we have everything from kale to chocolate persimmons to snack on.

Vilen, Alex, and Rony for Los Angles Senior High School (Los Angeles, CA, USA):
You wondered if we will have the time to enjoy the ocean while we are out here during research. Of course! We are kept busy between keeping watch (you never want to leave the helm of the boat unattended!), changing sails, and collecting and preserving samples. But there is still some down time to watch for marine life and bask in the beauty of the ocean.

Kevin from Woodlake Elementary (CA, USA):
The goal of our voyage is to reach the International Dateline, which is an imaginary line that splits the globe in half lengthwise. It is located at along the 180 longitude line. We want to reach this point because we have never sampled for plastic pollution in here, and it is important to figure out where the plastic is, and how much is out there if we want to figure out a way to fix the problem.

East Hills 4H (San Leandro, CA, USA):
Yes we will catch fish, both to eat and to analyze for pollutants. We will take tiny tissues samples from the fish and freeze them so we can analyze them later to test them for pollutants

Kindergarten Students from Escuela Nº41 Montevideo, Uruguay:
See above to learn more about the food we have with us and we have a water maker that can treat the sea water and make it drinkable.

Woodlake Elementary 4th graders (CA, USA):
Joel said he is looking forward taking photos of Whale Shark sand Oceanic White Tips and Drew said the coolest thing he has ever captured on video were the bioluminescent sea creatures during the 2002 Alguita gyre voyage.
-Nicole-

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Bon Voyage ORV Alguita!

ORV Alguita has just departed on the first voyage of the 2009 Pacific Gyre Expedition!

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Preparing for the 2009 Gyre Expedition

The ORV Alguita crew is busy preparing for the big research voyage to study plastic marine debris in the Pacific Ocean this summer. Would you like to get your class involved with this expedition? It's not too late! Send an email to; vesselsupport@algalita.org and I will send you information about how your class can participate!

Background- Pacific Gyre Expedition 2009 Voyage #1
The quantity of plastic pollution in the ocean is increasing rapidly, paralleling the rapid rise in global plastic production. Each time the ORV Alguita crew collects samples from the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, we find that the abundance of plastic has increased since our previous visit. In previous research voyages we have found a very high abundance of plastic in the area of the gyre that has come to be known as "The Eastern Pacific Garbage Patch", but we suspect that the contamination is much more widespread. This summer we will have the opportunity to test this hypothesis during the first voyage of our four month research expedition. During this voyage the ORV Alguita research crew will be at sea for over six weeks as they sail west from California past the Northern Hawaiian Islands as far as the International Date Line (180 degrees longitude) to sample areas of the Pacific Ocean previously un-sampled for plastic marine debris. We will be collecting samples of plastic debris, plankton and fish to analyze back in our laboratory to better understand not only the quantity of plastic debris pollution in remote areas of the ocean, but also the impacts the plastic is having as it is consumed by marine animals. Below is a map that shows the area where ORV Alguita has sampled for plastic pollution over the past 10 years. The first voyage of the summer expedition hopes to extend the study area all the way to the International Date Line at 180 degrees longitude.


Meet the Crew!
Get to know the six dedicated crew members that will be corresponding with you during the upcoming voyage. Find out about how they got involved in oceanographic research, and why they are willing to leave land for six weeks to study plastic marine debris in remote areas of the Pacific Ocean. Click here to read more http://orvalguita.googlepages.com/meetthecrew!

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