Jon T. Howard North Atlantic Gyre Blog #27 

I headed to the airport before the crack of dawn on Thursday January 21st. After making my way through customs, I departed Bermuda in route to Miami just as the sun was rising to begin a long day of travel back to Los Angeles. As the American Airlines plane lifted into the new day I could see the Sea Dragon docked in the bay and I was suddenly hit with the reality that I was heading home. It was a great trip of scientific discovery, new friendships and truly an experience of a lifetime. I realized during…

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Jon T. Howard North Atlantic Gyre Blog #26 

I've been spending the last the few days getting caught up in Bermuda and staying active with the Sea Dragon crew working on various projects. I got in a good long run along the coast which was absolutely picturesque. I also checked out some old forts and even collected 16 bottles for my Running For Mother Nature Campaign. It doesn't matter where I run there are always bottles and cans along the way. Yesterday I had finally had access to a computer long enough to add some photos to the past blogs so please…

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Jon T. Howard North Atlantic Gyre Blog #25 

We reached landfall at approximately 8:30 am on 1/17/2010... It was a beautiful serene sunrise with very calm conditions as the Sea Dragon cruised into the port of Bermunda. After 9 days out in the North Atlantic Ocean it was great to step off the boat and feel the ground again though I must admit I really always felt extremely comfortable on the boat regardless of conditions. We were allowed to go take a walk around the town of St. George to grab some breakfast and coffee but expected to be back to the…

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Jon T. Howard North Atlantic Gyre Blog #24 

It is a calm beautiful night and even though it is cool up on deck, the stars are crystal clear and it feels very exhilarating to take it all in. We are listening to some Bob Marley and are just beginning to see the glow of Bermuda far off in the distance on the Sea Dragon’s port side. This is our 8th day out in the North Atlantic Gyre and it has been a very productive day of gathering evidence of plastic pollution. The further north we have trawled the more plastic we have continued to find. We are now…

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Jon T. Howard North Atlantic Gyre Blog #23 

I spent last night’s shift completely layered up with fleece and covered with my foul weather gear from head to toe. We were using the engine to push north due to the winds being so unfavorable. The winds were 20-30 knots from the north creating conditions that forced us to head directly into the swells. The Sea Dragon usually rocks side to side but we spent 12 hours through the night consistently rocking forward to back which caused quite a few of the crew to get sick. The temperature has dropped…

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Jon T. Howard North Atlantic Gyre Blog #22 

Our shift ended at 2 am and we headed to bed to get 4 hours sleep before our 6 am – 6 hour shift was set to begin. The North Atlantic was still tossing the Sea Dragon around mercilessly and I didn’t get the best sleep. The great thing about the 6am –Noon shift is you get to watch the sun rise which from an ocean view is very majestic. Once we had the light of day, it was great to ride the swells sailing full steam ahead. Around 9 am we had our first dolphin sighting as a group of them swam with the ship…

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Jon T. Howard North Atlantic Gyre Blog #21 

I woke up today at 10:30 am after getting to sleep around 6:30 am. I was greeted with a big bowl of oatmeal Anna had made for me since it was my birthday. My next watch was set to begin at 12 noon but I could hear everyone up on deck very excited so I rushed up to see what was going on? Marcus was on the bow pointing at a long line of Sargassum and telling everyone to grab the nets and cameras and keep a look out for plastic. Sure enough there it was mixed in with all the Sargassum.… everywhere. Marcus…

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Jon T. Howard North Atlantic Gyre Blog #20 

I was up through the night on the 2-6 am shift helping Anna and Marcus do some night trawling and videoing the samples we found. I shot some great footage that I will post when I get back to land in Bermuda. I am very thankful to have the Tactical Solar Lites that Hybrid Lights http://www.hybridlights.com/ gave the crew for the mission because we have been working every night and it is very dark once the sun goes down especially when there is cloud cover like last night. Every trawl has come up with some…

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Jon T. Howard - North Atlantic Gyre Blog #19 

My day began at 5:45 am and our first task of the day was to put out the trawls for another round of gathering debris and marine samples. It was an amazing sunrise and the beginning of a beautiful clear warm day. During my 6-12 shift we pulled in our first large piece of plastic floating in the middle of the ocean. I was on watch at the front of the ship and spotted 5 other smaller nylon ropes and colored plastics floating by as we made our way north towards Bermuda. After lunch I rested and did some…

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Jon T. Howard - North Atlantic Gyre Blog #18 

Today was our first day of research and trying out the equipment to gather specimens. Working as a team we deployed the Manta Trawl to pull alongside the boat and did visual observance for plastic debris. Both times we deployed the trawl we captured fragments of plastic. We also spotted a few large pieces of plastic and even picked up one with the net around midday. We had to slow down to about 2 knots while using the trawl but used sail power the rest of the day which is a completely different feeling…

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