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 about 50 miles south of Bermuda and planning on arriving there around 8 am on Sunday January 17th. We spent today doing 3 hour trawls every 50 miles with Anna and Marcus’s goal of getting 20 completed by the time we reach Bermuda. Along the way we happened upon another large Windrow where the Sargasso Sea weed was very dense and there was plastic mixed in throughout everywhere we could see. Large, small and tiny pieces of plastic every shape and color were fished out while we filmed and photographed the pollution to document it as best as we were able. As successful as we feel to have found the debris we are all saddened by its first hand truth. I can only hope that the more www.EcoUsable.com, www.5Gyres.org, www.Algalita.org, www.panexplore.com and www.BlueTurtle.com work to bring attention to this issue with research the more the world will realize we must find better solutions to this serious problem. We are all very excited to be on land and after regrouping in Bermuda for a few days I will be heading back to Los Angeles on January 21st. The Sea Dragon will leave for its next leg January 28th and head across the North Atlantic to the Azores as they continue to study different parts of the North Atlantic Gyre.

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