As we approached Bermuda, eyes gazed out the airplane windows awed like children at the teal blue water lapping the shores of the 22 mile island, a color foreign to the NC shores. I contrast this beauty against the thought of the ocean quickly becoming a landfill and it reinforces the purpose of my visit to the North Atlantic Gyre. Our first encounter with a Bermudian is with a very personable customs officer. She asks our purpose here and when she hears marine debris research she replies "Ahe, very, good, very good." The Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS) compound looks like an old hotel from the turn of the 1900s – quaint and auspicious with wooden french doors and spindle railings up both sets of stairwells to the third floor. Guess how I know that! It sits about a mile from the airport separated by a turquoise blue waterway. We find the lead scientist for this cruise, Dr. Maureen Conte, working in the warehouse. Shortly after introductions, she is curious to see the design of our aluminum manta trawl fabricated by Algalita’s Dr. Marcus Erickson. She wastes no time devising a plan on how we will deploy the trawl from the Research Vessel. (RV) This type of research she has never seen before. We are all looking forward to seeing the manta floating in the open ocean Wednesday.
This blog shares the research experiences and findings conducted at University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW faculty and students) in conjunction with Plastic Ocean Project. Earlier posts share open-ocean sampling and adventures in the North and South Atlantic, the South Pacific and the North Pacific Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Outreach and education is the primary purposes to bring global awareness to an issue that has reached a crisis level in the marine environment.
This is great! Your writing is extraordinary, I can almost feel what it's like to be there. You are exactly right that this reinforces your reason for being there. Awareness MUST be spread as there are too many that turn a blind eye at the problem. Very interested to see how the expedition goes! Keep writing, it is enjoyable as well as informative.
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