During the first hour of my swim an albatross landed next to me, then followed by a second one. It didn’t take long for the first bird to reach for my fingers and pull on them like they were food. We stayed with them for awhile, Corbin and Hannah joined me and interacted with them too. One of them was also attracted by the yellow lettering on Corbin’s wetsuit and tried to get a piece.
Throughout the day, Corbin and Hannah would stop me to check on big plastic debris and the life under them. We found crates, a laundry basket, a fishing buoy, a jerry can and even a car part that looked like a piece of siding or bumper. The same type of yellow fish swam under the debris.
They also spotted at the surface a very high number of plastic fragments of 5cm and bigger.
The net count for the day was: 2409 PIECES OF MICROPLASTIC
At the end of the day, when we were all on I Am Ocean, Corbin sighted a big net. Yoav maneuvered the sailboat to get as close as possible. It was the biggest we ever found. Corbin and Drew jumped in the water with some biological panels and I threw them the tracker provided by 4Ocean. There was a beautiful sunset in the background and Adam took some amazing pictures of this awful and massive trap.
30°57 N / 144°58 W
Ben
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Photo credits @sea.marshall, @osleston
