I spent most of the last few days on my bunk and they are a big blur to me. I have been dealing with seasickness.
We started towing our nets on a regular schedule and each time we caught micro plastic. On our last tow, we counted over 60 pieces.
On day 4 we started catching fish. The first one, a mahi-mahi was too clever for us and got away, but by the end of the day we had two small skipjack tunas for dinner.
The following day, the first fish of the day won again. The spool of line unwinded so fast with a high pitch that everyone on deck screamed: fish!
Josh and Drew grabbed the pole and tried to bring the fish in. They both were fighting and the line was slipping at times. They never were able to reel it in closer to see what it was, in an instant the line got loose and the fish won.
But they had better luck later in the day when they brought in a beautiful 15 pounds Wahoo. They dissected its stomach, no plastic was found only small fish.
On day 6 we were getting very close to the first location our scientist Nikolai sent us. I was still not feeling my best and decided to take on some medication for seasickness to be ready to swim the next day. Adam, our medic gave me a strip of piles to take every 8 hours.
On day 7 finally I was getting in the water. We had reach our first point of interest. I always feel much better in the water than on the boat. Ty and Josh were on the dinghy and we started progressing north east. It was a beautiful day, the water was warm but the waves coming from the east, were cresting from time to time and challenged me a bit.
Suddenly about 10 small black and yellow fish came under me and swam with me. I realized Ty had removed a small plastic barrel full of barnacles that offered them shelter, they were looking for a new home and for a few minutes I was it.
After few hours, in the beginning of the afternoon, one of the batteries was getting low and the electric engine didn’t get enough power to keep on going. Since it was going to take awhile to get all set up again, I decided to call it a day. Yoav at the helm of I Am Ocean came to pick up us off the water.
Ben
Follow our progress with our live tracker
More updates on instagram, facebook and twitter
Photo credits @joshmunoz & @sea.marshall
1 thought on “[DAY 5-7] Like a fish in the water”-
Now I have found you here on this site!
I knew you had ventured, about months ago, to swim across the Pacific Ocean trying to appeal to the world the reality of a huge amount of plastic, which is drafting in a form of a some-mile-long strip.
I reminded myself of your great challenge today as I recognized that next week, a G-20 summit is going to be held in Osaka, Japan next week, one of the topics of which will be about how to deal with the micro-plastic proliferation on the ocean.
Now is the best time when you and your team let the world leaders and mass media know more about the problem, I think. Therefore I am writing to show an appreciation to the feat you are achieving.
Please raise a loud voice to uncover this overwhelmingly imminent problem and draw more attention of the people.
Good luck, from Japan, to you all.