International Coastal Cleanup Day

Today was International Coastal Cleanup Day! California's cleanup volunteers alone have already reported over 400,000 pounds of trash cleaned from the state coast today! That is just one state- and they are not done counting yet! It is estimated that up to 100 countries participated- imagine how much that will add up to! Information was recorded about the different kinds of trash collected to help us better understand where the trash comes from.
If you had the opportunity to participate let us know about what you found! I brought home the BBQ grill and the plastic sword I cleaned off the beach today!
If you didn't get a chance to participate today don't worry! Unfortunately, there will still be more trash on the beach tomorrow and even more importantly there is always the opportunity to do your part to make sure trash doesn't make it into the ocean in the first place!

Here is a link to information about ongoing cleanup events.

Day 5, Bottles, Float, strap and fragments

September 14, 2007
We are now 350 miles from the Eastern Garbage Patch, an area of the North Pacific Gyre that accumulates a very high concentration of debris. We found our first stray fishing float yesterday afternoon, a 300 mm diameter black float with two ears for tying to. This is the most common type of float we have found on previous trips. Today we picked up two bottles, and when we stopped for a swim, we found a white packing strap tangled in our rudder, and Captain Moore took a small aquarium net and pulled out 2 small pieces of line and some small plastic fragments while swimming around the boat. As we stand on the bow, we can see plastic fragments passing by at a rate of about one every 5 minutes. We expect this rate to increase each day as we get closer to the garbage patch. We have finally gotten fairly consisten 15 knot winds from the Northwest and are motor sailing at 5.5 knots under staysail, blade jib and mainsail.

Don't forget to participate in International Coastal Cleanup Day in order to bring attention to the marine debris crisis in our oceans.

Aloha from ORV Alguita.

Ahora nos encontramos a 350 millas del llamado "Eastern Garbage Patch" or la mancha de basura del Este. Esta area esta en el Giro del Norte del Pacifico y esta acumulando altas concentraciones de basura. Ayer encontramos nuestras primereras muestras de basura plastica, una boya negra con dos orejas de 300 mm de diametro. Esta boya es muy tipica de las que nos hemos encontrado en anteriores viajes. Hoy agarramos dos botellas plasticas y cuando decidimos tomar un descanso y nadar un poco encontramos un cincho blanco atrapado en el timon. El Capitan Moore tomo consigo una red chiquita, para acuario y atrapo dos pequenas piezas de lineas y dos pequenitos fragmentos de plastico cuando nadaba alrededor del bote. Cuando nos paramos en la proa podemos observar como fragmentos de plastico pasan a una velocidad aproximada de un fragmentos cada 5 minutos. Desafortunadamente, esperamos que esta razon se incremente cada dia mas y mas cerca de la mancha de basura. Por fortuna, al fin logramos tener 15 nudos de viento del Noroeste y estamos veleando usando un solo motor a una velocidad de 5.5 nudos bajo la vela principal y dos velas secundarias.

Por favor no se olviden de participar en el Dia Internacional de Limpieza de las Costas para poder atraer la atencion de la crisis por la que esta pasando nuestro ambiente marino debido a la basura no biodegradable en nuestros oceanos.

Aloha desde la ORV Alguita.

PD. Este mensaje fue escrito sin acentos.

International Coastal Cleanup Day is Tomorrow!!!

International Coastal Cleanup
Saturday, September 15, 2007

Each year, thousands of volunteers from around the globe participate, clearing tons of trash from coastlines, rivers and lakes and recording every piece of trash collected.

Find out more about how you can get involved;
http://www.oceanconservancy.org/site/PageServer?pagename=press_icc

Day 4, Debris!

Sept 13, 2007

Today, over 100 miles west of San Francisco Bay, during very calm sea conditions, the calmest so far on our trip, we began to encounter plastic trash. First was a very yellowed piece of styrofoam (expanded polystyrene), about the size of a briefcase, with no fouling organisms attached. When we picked it up, it had a tern standing on it. If we took a knife and opened a small cut, the yellow styrofoam was bright white underneath. This presents a mystery, since we would expect yellow, aged styrofoam in the ocean to have lots of barnacles attached. One theory is that, being so light, the styrofoam is blown upside down on a regular basis and the sun bleaches out the incipient life forms on the exposed side. The second piece of debris we found was a smaller, bright white piece of styrofoam, also with no fouling organisms. The third piece, in the same local area, was a liter water or soda bottle with barnacles attached. It had about 100 cc of water inside which acted as a ballast to keep the cap end under water, so the barnacles could grow.

The last debris item was perhaps the most troubling, as it represents the farthest from land we have found mylar balloons. Someone had had a birthday party, and released a pair of them, never thinking that they might choke one of the beautiful dolphins that continue to accompany us. We onboard are enjoying our ship to shore educational blog produced by ORV Alguita Vessel Support Coordinator, Holly Gray. The blog is located at http://www.ship2shore.blogspot.com/. Our noon position today was 37 14 N, 125 10W.

Hoy fue un dia especial para nosotros, la tripulacion, que por primera vez viene a estas partes del oceano y empezamos a encontrar basura plastica. Recogimos dos trozos de poliestireno, uno amarillo y otro blanco, asimismo, nos encontramos una botella de agua o soda, pero lo mas impresionante, por llamarlo asi, fue el encuetro de dos globos de "feliz cumpleanos", esto comprueba una vez mas lo peligroso de la basura plastica representa para la salud de los oceanos y del planeta entero. Nos seguimos encontrando delfines que nada tan tranquilamente en estas aguas que estamos contaminando con el uso del plastico.

Aloha from ORV Alguita

Day 3

September 12, 2007 10:55 PM

Today in the morning we had dolphins accompanying us. Two of them stayed longer than the others, jumping in front of the bow in the beautiful clear blue water. It was a great spectacle.

Hoy en la manana tuvimos dos hermosos acompanantes, dos delfines, que nadaron junto al Alguita. Saltando a la superficie de estas cristalinas aguas. Fue un gran espectaculo.

Question: How fast are you going?

Answer: We have had very little wind, so the sails are not enough and we are running one of our two engines to make 6 knots. We are currently off San Francisco. Our noon position was 36 09N, 122 19 W. We transferred fuel from our bladder tanks on deck today, 140 gallons of diesel. We have used about 200 gallons so far.

Question: What type of data will you be collecting?

Answer: We will find pieces or fragments of plastic objects and complete objects made of plastic floating near the surface. We will classify them based on their size, color and later at the lab at the University of the Pacific, Dr. Rios will analize them to determine the type of plastic we found. Also, we are taking water samples along with the plastic samples. This is the first time water samples for Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) have been taken inside the North Pacific Gyre. The idea is to compare the contamination found on the plastics with the contaminants found in the water samples.

Que tipo de data va a resultar de sus estudios?

Podemos encontrar plasticos en fragmentos o piezas completas de plasticos. Los clasificaremos de acuerdo a su tamano. color y posteriormente en el lab de la UOP los analizaremos para saber que tipo de plastico estamos encontrando. Asimismo, estamos tomando muestras de agua de mar y plasticos que nos encontremos. Este es el primer muestreo en agua de mar dentro del Gyro del Pacifico. La idea es poder contrastar la contaminacion encontrada en los plasticos con los resultados que encontremos en el agua de mar.

Todos los analisis analiticos los haremos en la Universidad del Pacifico , haremos extracciones e identificaciones y cuantificaciones, usando cromatografia de gases unidos a un espectrometro de masas.

PD.Este mensaje fue escrito sin acentos.

Students Participating from Around the World!

A student from Maine asked; "How many different schools [are there in the program] and from where?" The answer is that there are currently 23 schools participating from 9 different countries (Australia, Canada, Chile, Columbia, Germany, Guam, Japan, Pakistan, Puerto Rico and the USA!) Here is a map to show you the location of all of the participants!

Day Two!

Day Two, Activities

Today we took a noon sight of the sun using the sextant. Lorena filtered seawater for 3 hours to get enough for a column to run in her gas chromatography, mass spectrometer back at the University of the Pacific, and we dove and collected a moon jelly to look at in the tank. We are north of point Conception. Our noon position was 34 23 N. 122 01 W. While we were stopped for water filtering, several young fin whales swam close to the boat and gave us a good look.

Aloha from ORV Alguita

Dia Dos, Actividades

Hoy sacamos un altitud del sol a medio dia para confirmar nuestro posicion de 34 23 N. 122 01 W. Lorena Rios filtraba agua por 3 horas en una columna para analizar en su laboratorio. Nadamos y sacamos una medusa "luna" para inspeccionar. Cuando estabamos parados filtrando agua, nos redearon varios ballenas "fin." Fue impresionante.

Aloha del barco Alguita