Title: Navegando por la sopa del plastico-Dia 11

Posicion del mediodia: Latitude 32 14.65 Norte, Longitude 167.56.30 Oeste

Hola estudiantes y medioambientalistas futuros! Como siempre, nos agradecemos bastante su apoyo, sus preguntas inteligentes y el saber que algunos de ustedes nos escriben de muy lejos, como Puerto Rico!

Nos contaron que hay una alumna entre ustedes que tiene planes de ser una biologa marina– fantastico! Espero que ella mantegna contacto con nosotros – quizas un dia nos pueda visitar. El mundo necesita mas estudientes como ustedes con pasion y interes en proteger el mundo natural.

Bueno, les damos un resumen de nuestros actividades – has sido una semana facinante, llena de mucho trabajo y hallazgos interesantes…..

Despues de una semana de viajar, entramos nuestra region de investigacion principal, algo que nos emociona bastante. Hace unos dias, empezamos sacar muchas muestras. Antes, les explicamos ese proceso – sacamos y filtramos agua del oceano para medir la cantidad del plastico.

Ultimamente las muestras que sacamos son horrendas……el Capitan se refiere al region como “una sopa de plastico” – y ya entedemos que ese titulo no es una exageracion.

Aqui tienen una foto de una muestra que sacamos esta manana. Fijense en que esta llena de particulos pequenos de plastico!

De donde viene esa basura? Y porque se acaba ensuciando nuesto mar?

Algo interesante que observamos es la diferencia entre las muestras recogidas por la manana, y las del atardecer. La mayoria de las de la manana son particulos con algunas criaturas, pero las del atardecer son una masa gelatinosa y anaranjada-rosada. Como explicar esa diferencia?

Pues eso tiene que ver con la migracion de plankton, un fenomeno super interesante que pasa cada dia.

Durante el dia, millones de organismos microscopicos llamados “fitoplankton” que viven en la superficie del oceano convierten la energia del sol a alimentacion por otros organismos. Ustedes han oido el termino “fotosintesis”? Pues es el mismo proceso, que tiene lugar en el mar. Son como plantitas aquaticas. Cuando se baje el sol, millones de otro tipo de plankton llamado “zoplankton” suben al superficie para alimentarse con los fitoplankton. Ese moviemiento pasa por todo el mar, un tipo de migracion vertical. Es la migracion mas grande de organismos vivos en todo el mundo!

Asi que ustedes ya ven que ese fitoplankton es importante para el balance de la ecologia marina – por eso nos preocupa que encontramos tanto plastico en la superficie – ese puede interrumpir la abilidad del zoplankton de alimentarse con su comida natural.

Hace tres dias, entramos una zona de alta presion, cosa que nos ayuda bastante en hacer nuestras investigaciones. Antes de que les cuente mas, queremos que ustedes busquen un poco en el internet para aprender mas de los sistemas climaticos – que quiere decir eso de un sistema de alta presion? Como afectan los sistemas climaticas y los corrientes del oceano?

Otra cosa muy interesante: cuando encontramos basura como boyas de los pescadores u otros escombros grandes, tienen muchas animales como habitantes de la basura. Muchos peces puequenos nadan por debajo, cangrejos y molluscos cubren la superficie, en total es como un ecosistema entera. Miren esta foto aqui, un “fishing float” que sacamos esta tarde. Jeff y Joel hicieron buceo para sacar fotos bajo el agua.

Manana seguimos con nuestro trabajo, y dentro de unos dias empezamos el viaje muy largo para llegar a Los Angeles. Esperamos que sigan viajando con nosotors! Nos da mucha alegria saber que no estamos solos…..

Gracias y saludos del Capitan y la tripulacion del ORV Alguita!

Day 10

Our noon position: Latitude: 32 46.18 North, Longitude 170 03.41 West

Skies are clear and sunny, but we were slamming along, receiving the ripples from a hurricane force low-pressure zone, far enough away for comfort, but noticeable nonetheless. Yesterday’s wildly celebratory mood has been considerably quieter, as crew retreated to their cabins, feeling the effects.

The afternoon lull was broken up by another sighting of a tangled rope mass. We dropped our drogue (an anchored buoy to mark our spot), and quickly lowered our sails as Joel and Jeff suited up with dive gear. Relocating piece of debris, with strong currents and winds blowing from all directions, has a needle in a haystick-like quality at times, but we managed to navigate back and find the floating culprit.

Though not as populated as our last rope mass, there was still a mini-ecosystem living underneath. The photo above shows a few pelagic fish hiding in the knots, and as we pulled the rope on board, dozens of fish and crabs came scuttling out. We scooped them up by hand and threw them in a mini aquarium, to observe and photograph before releasing them – here’s a close up of a crab. Can anyone out there ID this guy?

Plankton migration

Yesterday, we mentioned the huge difference between our samples from the morning and late afternoon/early evening. Our morning samples were mostly plastic fragments and some interesting ocean critters. The photo here shows one of our morning samples, with a mass of fish eggs entwined in some plastic fishing line. These eggs are a favorite food of the Black footed albatross and many of their boluses containing regurgitated fishing line can be found on Tern Island. Our evening sample resembled a gelatinous, orange-pink tinged mass, about the size of a baseball. This gooey mass is made up zooplankton, tiny, filter feeding organisms, coming up to the surface to feed.

During the day, millions of phytoplankton on the oceans surface convert solar energy into food, through photosynthesis. These Phytoplankton account for 98% of the oceans total biological productivity! As soon as the sun goes down, masses of zooplankton swim to the surface to feed on the phytoplankton, returning to the oceans depths at the first hint of sunrise.

This massive vertical migration happens across the entire ocean, every day -- the largest daily migration of any living organisms.

In the thick of it - Day 9-

Our noon position: 33 00.908 North Latitude, 167 54.150 West Longitude

Another highly successful day for the ORV Alguita. The calm conditions produced by a huge high-pressure zone surrounding us, has meant continued perfect sampling weather, right in our DELI assessment destination zone. Taking advantage of these dream conditions, we sampled three times today, stopping every thirty miles to re-deploy the Manta trawls for two hours at a time.

Our first samples were almost entirely plastic, along with a few fascinating creatures. The image above shows some crew members displaying our morning sample - the plastic plauge in a bottle. No two trawls have been the same – each time we open the collecting bags, it is something of a treasure hunt. Like this unusual, alien-like Nudibranch, which we had to hunt through a marine invertebrate book to identify. For those interested in Nudibranches (sea slugs that lack a shell and a mantle cavity), this one floats upside down at the oceans surface, and relies mostly on passive transport by wind and currents. This is but one of many species were finding daily, swimming about in this thickening plastic stew.

Several students on the had questions about what, if anything, our government is or should be doing about this issue. This is something we will address in the coming week.

Aloha and gracias from the Captain and crew of ORV Alguita.

Anna Cummins, ship's blogger

Day 8

Our noon position: Latitude: 3209.17 N, Longitude: 16528.47 West

Aloha to all of the students, teachers, and friends following our progress!

Following our plan to sample at each degree of latitude, we began trawling at 31 degrees this morning, and pulled out our most impacted samples yet. This photo shows the contents of our educational trawl – a bottle cap, surrounded by colorful plastic fragments. The calm winds we experienced appear to allow the smaller particles of plastic to reach the surface where they can be captured by our manta trawl.

Today, we have a special assignment from crewmember Dr. Marcus Eriksen. Marcus devised a real world question for you all, based on our experiences here in the gyre. As you’ll note, whoever answers first will receive a gyre sample, straight from the source!

“As you know, one of our research questions is to see if a sea surface temperature of 18 degrees Celsius, and the convergence of phytoplankton (seen as chlorophyll a from sattelite), which often go together, can also be a predictor for where plastic marine debris might converge. Other scientists, like Dave Foley of NOAA, have suggested this possibility. We’re here to test this hypothesis with our surface trawls. Last night Dave sent us a sattelite image of phytoplankton blooming in the ocean. He reports that most of the action east of the International Dateline is around 170 degrees West Longitude, between 28-32 W Latitude.

So here’s a real math problem for you, and the first right answer gets a gyre sample mailed to them when we return!

Question: Our current position is 32 degrees North Latitude and 165 degrees West Longitude. If we want to maintain the same latitude, but move 5 degrees to 170 degrees West Longitude, which direction do we go and how many nautical miles do we travel?

Break out your maps and calculators, and go for it!

Entering the plastic soup - Day 7 – One week out.

Our noon position: Latitude 3008.447 North, Longitude 16524.955 West

At 0700 hours, still pitch black outside, we had entered another time zone west of Hawaii but not changed the ship’s clocks, those of us on watch were treated to a rare sighting – Venus and Jupiter rising together. Two brilliant silver-gold orbs fading with the morning’s light.

We spent a restful morning after yesterday’s relatively rough travel – most of the crew slept in, nudged awake by the scent of banana pancakes, the promise of a perfect, sunny day…., and the Captain’s animated countdown to latitude 30 North: (Drum roll) We’ve entered the central high pressure cell of the gyre, and had our first very successful days work here!

We began sampling as soon as the last pancake disappeared, deploying four trawls simultaneously – the Manta, the Bongo, and two smaller surface trawls. Unlike the Manta, which skims the surface, the Bongo Trawl is lowered to 100 meters deep, to give a more accurate snapshot of plastic particles throughout the water column (we have done 10 meter and 30 meter bongo trawls on previous voyages). The Manta and Bongo trawls are being used for research purposes; the smaller trawls Marcus Eriksen is using to collect samples to distribute for educational purposes, to students, policymakers, and the media.

The image above shows what we found in our first sample. This truly illustrates the term Charles uses to describe the gyre, “plastic soup”. It really is difficult to comprehend the vastness of this phenomenon. There is still a common public misconception that the gyre is a “place”, a detectable spot, when rather it is an enormous, extremely diffuse region…..being out here, seeing nothing but blue horizons day after day certainly helps.

Our strategy from here on out will be to sample at each degree of latitude, (one degree of latitude equals sixty nautical miles) or roughly every eight hours. We just completed our second round of sampling, 1:30 am at 31 degrees north, and are now moving on to the next spot, 32 degrees north, about eight hours away under power with both engines.

Tomorrow, a bit about what Charles found while free diving with a hand held net, just below the Manta Trawls one meter limit……

Aloha from the crew and Captain of the ORV Alguita!

High tailing the trade winds- Day 6.

Latitude: 2642.350 N, Longitude: 16502.179 W

Current Log: 939 Nautical Miles.

Were on the run today. Screaming along at up to 11 knots, heaving and rocking and bucking our way to the center of the Gyre – the Captain’s warning back in LA that we may be in for a wild bronco ride now makes more sense….

As today was another travel day, it’s a good time to discuss the weather systems a bit, as they are a key factor in debris accumulation in the Pacific, north of the Hawaiian Islands.

“Trade winds” is a term from the days of yore, when ships relied entirely on wind for commerce. These winds are created by temperature variations – hot air from the equator rises, moves away from the equator, cools as it moves north toward the poles, and descends. As it descends, and its pressure increases, it is warmed again by compression, and creates a clockwise circulation. (Learn more about the trade winds here.)

These high-pressure atmospheric systems, traveling in a clockwise direction, create surface ocean currents which are like a vortex, sucking materials in, such as debris, as the higher pressure pushes down. The more northerly lows, which travel counter clockwise, tend to “spit” debris out. Where these two zones meet is known as a transition zone – the sub-arctic lower pressure zone spits its debris into the high-pressure whirlpool. The result? Well that’s exactly what we’re headed to investigate.

The readings on our Barometer (Make your own barometer here, or here), which have been stable for the last week, now indicate a rise in pressure – which means were nearing the center of a high pressure vortex within the Gyre. A few scattered pieces of large debris here signaled our impending arrival - a plastic laundry basket, with a school of iridescent blue-green fish trapped underneath, and another fishing float. At 10 knots, both flew by before we had the chance to scoop them, but there will be no shortage of debris to collect, starting tomorrow.

The lack of activity today – no sampling, no sail hoisting, leak fixing or other boat repairs was more than made up for by the Captain’s famous sweet and sour Ono. Caught yesterday, prepared this afternoon – homemade sauce with fresh pineapple and red peppers, served over sticky rice, and devoured with much appreciation this evening.

Now for an evenings rest, as we hopefully gear up for some intense sampling.

Aloha from the ORV Alguita crew and Captain!

Day 5: Traveling Day

Noon Lat Long: 23 38.8 N, 164 49.5 W

Aloha students, teachers, and friends, its great to hear from you! The crew sends a special hello today to the students of Burbank and Edwards Middle Schools – your enthusiasm keeps us fueled, here thousands of miles from home…..

Today has been wonderful day – part preparation, part travel, and lots of fun as we make a beeline for our next sampling spot, taking advantage of some swift, steady winds. We’ve been cruising along at a steady 7-9 knots.

Early morning, we pulled up our first and only sample for the day – as today is mostly a travel day. We’re a few days yet from our destination, but still find evidence of plastic in all of our samples…

Daybreak also brought us a stunning view of Necker Island(shown above), or “Mokumanamana”, an extremely remote Island in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument, (NWHI-MNM). Mokumanana stands 200 feet high, a relatively small Island with sheer rocky cliffs and sparse vegetation. Now on the National Registry of Historic Places, Mokumanana was likely used for religious purposes by local Islanders, between AD 1100 and AD 1700.

As we needed to make some emergency boat repairs in the lee (calm) afforded by the island acting as a windbreak, we had the rare opportunity to observe the island's austere beauty. Frigate birds, petrels and boobies were everywhere. A young humpback whale surfaced right next to the boat. A rich habitat indeed!

The momentary reverie was shattered as we spotted a large piece of floating debris – a plastic fishing float bobbing on the water where moments before a baby humpback had surfaced.

We mentioned yesterday that we’d share a bit more about the NWHI-MNM, lesser known than the Southeast Islands, yet home to some breathtaking ecosystems and some beautiful, highly endangered species, such as the Hawaiian Monk Seal, a fascinating creature we learned a bit about today from our underwater photographer Joel Paschal. Joel used to work for NOAA studying and removing marine debris from the National Monument, and had the very rare opportunity of visiting many of these remote Islands. In fact he lived on a sailboat for four months doing research here.

Rather than tell you what we learned about the Monk Seal, lets see what you can find out on your own ( explore here, and here)
Send a few interesting facts about the Monk Seal by this coming Monday, and we’ll chose one or two of your answers to post on our blog.

Though we didn’t spot any endangered species today, we had some other great wildlife sightings – two Humpback Whales, a bunch of Frigates, some petrels, black footed albatross, three pink footed boobies that hitched a free ride on our mast for a while, and an Ono – this last one is actually a fish that we caught, here are Jeff and Anna holding it up.




Your Questions:
Several of you had some questions, some of which we’ll answer, others we’re going to play hardball and throw right back at you!
Has the ORV Alguita ever been attacked by a shark?
No. The ORV Alguita is a good 50 feet long, a very solid craft, and doesn’t resemble anything a shark would find appetizing. We’d love to see some sharks – from the safety of our boat that is! What kind of foods would be appealing to a large predatory shark, say a great white?

What do we eat besides fish?
With 4 avid cooks on board, and a boat full of fresh ingredients, we’ve been eating like kings! Hilo has an awesome farmers market, and we loaded up on local, organic produce just before leaving.
Every morning, our Captain whips up a beautiful fruit salad, with pineapples, mangos, papayas, apples, bananas, tangerines, and jicama, which we all snack on till….till someone prepares the next meal! Joel made a delicious risotto the other day, Anna seems to like making salads – lately shredded carrots and red peppers with a ginger-garlic-cilantro vinagrette, Jeff is our poke master (poke is a raw fish Hawaiian dish, have you ever tried it?) and has also been making lots of popcorn, sprinkled with nutritional yeast, cayenne pepper, and garlic salt. Delicious. Marcus and Herb both enjoy eating, and fortunately, doing dishes!

What is a cookie cutter shark?
Here’s one we are going to return back to you. We want to know what YOU can find out! Tell us, and again, we’ll post a few good answers on our blog. (try here!)

Thanks again to you all from the ORV Alguita Crew, and keep your questions coming - your support keeps the wind in our sails!