Isolation and Vulnerability in Bermdua

The approach to Bermuda began in the pre-dawn hours of our ninth day at sea. Before the sun rose we saw the far off glow of civilization, the island was about 20 miles away. As we sailed closer and the sky turned lighter, the bright beacon of the lighthouse faded into the bright blue sky surrounding the low-lying island. Sea Dragon approached the entrance to St. George's harbor, navigating through reefs and the narrow cut in the limestone. In the channel we were flanked by dense woods of palm and evergreen, which were dotted with pastel pink and blue and green cottages. The first inhabitants we encountered were the three dogs that ran to the end of their waterfront property and saluted us with barks. As we tied up at the port of entry dock, we were approached by a bubble-helmeted man named Bernie, who not only gave us the scoop on the island scene, but directed to a quaint marina known as "Captain Smokes".Bernie's brother, Captain Smokes, met us at the spot and filled us in on all the happenings (or lack there of) in St. George's. As we were soon to find out, winter is the slow season on the island. The tourism-based economy slows down as the temperature drops in the winter. Wandering around the empty town on that Sunday morning was like walking through an empty theme park, and the carnival-esque nature of the scene was augmented with replica stocks and gallows in the town square where pirates, should they invade, would be tried. To complete the scene a replica of a tall ship loomed just adjacent the towns square. Sharply dressed locals began to trickle out of the woodwork as the morning church services finished. Coming from months in the Caribbean, I was struck immediately by the socioeconomics of the island nation. Both black and white Bermudians were dressed with casual opulence. With the average price of a house being just short of $1million, and with the third highest GDP per capita in the world, Bermuda really came across as a country of comfort and class. Our mission at sea (studying plastic density/marine debris in the Sargasso Sea) that had brought us to the island led to a lot of local interest. Beginning on the first day, and continuing through our stay, curious visitors made their way to the boat and quizzed us on our task. Several environmental groups, such as BIOS and Greenrock went out of their way to see that our stay was productive and that we were taken care of. We were all kept busy, between preparing the boat for the next leg of the trip to the Azores, engaging the public on the issue of ocean pollution, and assessing the effects of it on the island. On our third day on land, friends from BIOS brought us snorkeling with a group of school kids. The boat tour of the island was astounding, as we beheld the abundant reefs, lushly forested islands, and beautiful white sand beaches. The water was such a clear blue that we could see straight down to the sea urchins 30 feet below the boat. We jumped into the brisk water to explore the reefs surrounding Nonsuch Island, but one of the lead researchers on our science mission, Dr. Marcus Eriksen, and I headed for shore to explore the uninhabited rock. At first inspection, the island was as pristine as any I'd seen. Yet after a few minutes of scanning the beach, it was obvious that Bermuda was another victim of the global tragedy of plastic pollution. Forests of cedar and palm and sea grape and beverage bottles flanked white sandy beaches dotted with seashells and derelict fishing floats. Waves gently lapped at the shore, creating a colorful high-tide line of plastic particle confetti. Meadows of long grasses were home to nesting birds, nylon ropes, and washed up oil jugs. It was terribly frustrating to see such an idyllic beach marred by human waste and carelessness, and unfortunately, this was not an isolated incident. Bermuda is perilously placed on the western edge of the North Atlantic Gyre, making it a sponge for debris coming from the Atlantic rim and beyond. Many Bermudians are cognizant of this issue, and are doing what they can to preserve their island. However, the location that once kept the country so pristine and safe from outside influence now puts them in a position to take the brunt of the North Atlantic's debris. Our work in the gyre was well received in Bermuda, and the support we had from many groups was beyond generous. A cocktail party at the Consulate General's house, numerous crew dinners, and more donated food than we know what to do with served as a sort of thanks for the efforts we are putting in to the problems at hand. In general, everyone we encountered was exceedingly gracious. On a few occasions, asking for directions in the street turned in to lengthy conversations. New friends were easy to make and eagerly took us into their homes and out on the town. Passers-by always go along with a happy greeting, and driving a taxi seems more like a hobby for those anxious to meet new people than a profession. Despite some rough winter weather, we were glad to have come when we did. The open streets and quiet towns were a nice contrast to the tourist trap of USVI that we had left behind. Our stay in Bermuda has been nothing short of spectacular. But however beautiful the people of this unique atoll nation are, their land has fallen victim to an environmental catastrophe that is leaving their shores and waters trashed and polluted. The same story is playing out all over the world, too: The Canary Islands, Palau, and Cape Verde are other victims. But by embracing the issue, Bermudians are setting an example globally. Whether it is organized beach cleanups by Keep Bermuda Beautiful, adopting steel water bottles, or educating the youth, Bermuda seems to be tackling this global issue on a local scale. Let's hope that we find such enlightenment in the people of our next stop, The Azores, after our next few weeks of research and discovery in the core of the North Atlantic Gyre. Steve Amato

Departing Bermuda and a New Website

Short update on the Sea Dragon Expedition. The boat, as you likely know, has been in Bermuda for the last 10 days as a midway stop on an important journey. Led by Dr. Marcus Ericksen and his wife Anna Cummins, the team has been conducting a first ever trans-Atlantic survey of marine plastics. Transiting through the Sargasso from USVI to Bermuda, and now onto the Azores, their surface trawls are providing evidence for accumulations zones in the Atlantic- as now famously known in the North Pacific. In Bermuda, the team was going non-stop in support of local environmental work. Judy Landsberg, a member of the Greenrock Mgmt Cmtee, set up a substantial agenda. Greenrock is a Bermuda charity group focused on promoting sustainable lifestyle choices. They spoke to multiple groups, met with school children, led beach transects, visited the prestigious BIOS institute, and attended a reception held by the US Consulate. The Bermuda community responded beyond any expectation. People jumped in to help the crew with logistics, lodging, dinners and generously donated to the expedition. The latter included hefty discounts at the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club, Captain Smokies, and the complete provisioning of the boat by Butterfields. The team also found that the remote and beautiful island of Bermuda is victim to the now global issue of marine pollution. Even with the nearest land over 700 miles away and a small local population - they found the beaches covered in plastic debris. We are also excited that the boat is supporting ocean art. Yes, be calm those of you who know my incompetence in this area. We have a great team of European artists on board, led by Dutch artist, Maarten Vanden Eynde. Maarten will lead a team to collect plastic debris from the North Atlantic. His group is working on massive interpretive artwork - seen at Plastic Reef.org. Maarten's work will be showcased in Europe as an innovative look at marine pollution. Sea Dragon with a crew complement of 13 left Bermuda this afternoon, heading ESE towards a waypoint of 28.5N / 50W- believed to be the center of accumulation. The weather is looking good with a high pressure cell tracking them east. This should, fingers crossed, put them into light airs and calm waters. This makes for bad sailing...but perfect conditions for surface trawling.They are scheduled to arrive in Horta, Azores on 12 February. From there the crew will change and the boat will head SSE. Sea Dragon is heading south towards summer on a long trek to Brazil, via the Cape Verdes. We are also using this sailing as a chance to launch our totally new website. This marks our turning an important corner from the shakedown startup phase, to our long-term role. Sea Dragon and Pangaea are on a sustained expedition to support marine conservation and bring more people to sea. This trip, with its mixed complement of sailors, researchers, and artists is a great example of this. As you will see, there is an exciting slate of expedition trips coming up. We are focused on the South Atlantic for the remainder of the year. This will include Brazil, Cape Town remote islands like Ascension and St. Helena. These trips are important in the 5 Gyres research program...and to help sustain the overall funding of the project. Later in the year and 2011 Sea Dragon returns to the Caribbean. Our intent is to lead an extended survey of marine conservation in that region- again with guest crew slots available. After this, she will again head south. This time via the Panama Canal to the south Pacific. The 5-Gyres team is keen to visit this region to look for plastic debris accumulation. We will tie this into a larger survey of marine conservation in the island region. Please let your friends know about these opportunities. The more people that we take to sea, the stronger the message. That is a quick summary. Please let us know how the website looks and keep a close eye on the boat. The team should be tracking their position daily and filing important stories as they go. And finally...just a quick update on our shore based crew. Portia is now only 14 days away from delivery. Young Atlas appears to be gunning to get out and dive in the ocean...soon enough! For now his room is completely covered in marine theme items. Best regards and thank you for the continued support, Ron and Portia

Transitions to the Next Phase

Seagoing boats come to shore for transitions. The open ocean is where they live and work, where they move and where their crew is most at home. Sea Dragon came into the USVI just before Christmas to turn a major corner in her new role. With over 8,000 miles of shakedown and testing behind us, we are set to engage on a new, more intense phase of work. We had refitted, upgraded and now proven her in the run from England. With long days of all sails and no wind, grasping for any forward motion- we understood how to make full advantage of her canvass. With unexpected gusts to 55kts and 20' seas behind us, she had given us the confidence to go forward true to her official rating…"all oceans." We have navigated narrow 20' deep channels of chocolate milk like water into the Guyanas, maneuvered in tight spaces on "miniature European harbors" and held anchor in 30kts of wind. The boat is ready. Our work also went through a series of tests and early results. We have completed over a dozen high quality beach transects for plastic counts – and one open water trawl. The team has also collected a wide range of fish tissue samples that will soon be on their way to the University of Miami for toxins analysis. Interviews with conservationists, fisherman and ordinary people along the way gave us a consistent, colorful and, often, tragic sense of ocean decline. Perhaps most importantly, we have scouted a large area new to our crew that will provide valuable options for our future trips. Several like Guyana, Tobago, the USVI and the Cape Verdes have exceptional future potential. There are a swarm of ideas taking shape for expedition work in these locations. And, we have made valuable connections to people that will be a part of the journey ahead – like Dale Selvam. Dale is an ex big wave surfer that has shown himself a fantastic team leader and adventurer (and he comes with the complete 26 volume Jacques Cousteau video set).

We left anchor in St. John on the first of January and sailed, roundabout to St. Thomas that night. Enroute, we made a point of heading off the south shore of St. John seven miles out to where the edge drops off. A relic feature from lower sea levels during the last ice age, there is a narrow ridge of 60-80' water separating the 150'deep shelf towards land, and the abrupt 60-degree down slope to over 3,000'. This deep trench separates St. John and St. Croix. Steep rises like this create water flow, nutrient exchange and, inevitably life. Sailing with our lines out astern you can just feel the life below. Flying fish jump, turbulence on the surface, seabirds in the air…and then the pull of a 7kg mahi-mahi on the line. We ran along this hidden ridge for several miles before heading in. Chris Russo and I both made mental notes to come back here someday and dive. It would be tricky to hit the ridge top and keep the boat near for safety…but well worth the chance to see schools of tuna and mahi hunting the surface waters above.

Due to our draft and size, we have to use the Yacht Haven Grande marina in St. Thomas. Without a doubt the "grandest" we have ever tied up in, we have the unusual feeling of being the small boat. Surrounded by 100'+ mostly power yachts, we are in another world. Only the cruise ships arriving a few docks over give these boats any humility. Bill Gates, Larry Ellison (on his 450'yacht) and many others are passing thru. I cannot help but think of the good that could be done if we could enlist yachts like these for conservation! Surely their owners must tire of endless highly controlled, peaceful circles where the only objective is having a nice time? We would prefer to be out, but need the access of dock to get ready.

On 3 January, Marcus and Anna arrived signaling the true beginning of the next phase. Welcomes aside we all now set to the process of transition. The boat has to be ready, the people settled and prepared, and the routes and planning done. There were, inevitably, more things to do to ready Seadragon. Like bridge painting, we are on an endless cleaning process – bilges, walls, bunks, floors, hull steel, chrome…. At one point Steve and I are completely wrapped up in a painful exercise of unpacking, counting, cleaning and re-purchasing sheets and blankets for all 14 bunks. I have great respect for quartermasters and cabin stewards. I am in a constant mode of triage Do it ourselves now, outsource or put off until the next stop. Rebuilding the port wind turbine gives us a chance to re-weld the crane brackets with "Bobbie" from Alabama. The rigger comes down to strengthen the chafe protection on an anchor line, splice new traveler control lines and make us a proper tack line for the big asymmetric spinnaker. We spend hours downloading software updates and more importantly, navigation charts for the new Toughbook computer. There are fuel filters to change, a starboard head to rebuild, dive tanks to VIP, water lines to check, generator repairs, new deck hardware, winches to grease, steering cables to inspect, and mast rigging to inspect. I am packing out the prior gear to go home, making space and organizing for the new to come in. We update the sat-phone software…only to find out at the last minute that the navigation program Maxsea will not download the weather (OK, work around this). Some things don't get done- a new VHF radio is on the boat but not installed (we can do this in an emergency if needed), the outboard oil changes have to wait, and the new plumbing for our water sensors is on hold until Bermuda.

We did just get the important new CO2 sensor from Sunburst in Missoula MT. This instrument is a critical addition that will allow us to automatically log dissolved CO2 levels for NOAA and independent researchers. Facing the intimidating threat of ocean acidification, the science community is in desperate need of data to understand this relatively recent issue. Common wisdom had been that the seas ability to absorb prodigious amounts of CO2 was all good news. However, like jet-fuel on an already smoldering fire of concern, the emerging view is that this absorption may set up an equally catastrophic condition. As the ocean absorbs the gas, pH declines and acidity increases. If this really happens the universal foundations of marine food chains will be severely impacted. Diatoms, Foram plankton, coral, mollusks, lobsters…everything with a calcium-based skeleton will be stressed. We hope our early deployment will encourage other boats….like the ones around us to carry theses sensors as well. This, and our existing Hach water sensor that measures pH, Temp, Salinity and Turbidity will be installed in Bermuda.

The most important transition is the crew. We have two excellent skippers on board now to take the role of myself, Portia and Dale. Clive Cosby skippered one of the Challenge boats in the actual race, and John Wright is an experienced hand in big boats around the UK. Both are RYA Yacht master certified. This trip will be a new challenge for them. They will be asked to put the mission first and sailing second as a means of transit. The team will ask to do some unusual things at sea…deliberately seek low wind, get off the boat in the middle of the ocean, stop for hours while a deep sampling probe is lowered 14,000'…

Marcus and Anna are new to the boat, but well seasoned on high seas science voyages. They met on an 80+-day "junk raft" trek from CA to Hawaii. Stiv Wilson, editor or Wend magazine is in awe of a boat that "does not move when you step aboard". After his first 2-hour sail in the harbor he immediately re-arranged his work schedule to join the second 2000-mile leg to the Azores. John Howard of Ecousable casually reveals that he is really a professional musician…"I better know how to sing well" Ivan Martinetti as a major sponsor from Blue Turtle is living the purpose of his organization. Leslie from a social justice background is a) diving into the galley organization, and b) thinking through a whole new layer of connections between here work at home and tragedy of ocean pollution. Steve our long-term intern finds himself, again, the junior voice in the group. This is good, he's getting what he wanted and needed – a chance to be constantly knocked around, humbled and challenged to greater things. I laugh when I think that his mom's biggest concern was that he might, due to the trip, skip college and just be an eco/surf bum. The kid is drowning in the product of higher learning- swamped with talent, big ideas, PhD's and proof that you need real skills to get things done!

These are all good people serious about their mission ahead. We now work to make them mariners who can work as a team. Clive, Marcus, Anna and I are united in a strong message of Safety for the boat and crew, productivity in the work and the fun will follow. My own experience at sea is that if you get the first two right, you win. Keep the boat and the crew safe; get the work done people will leave feeling right about the trip. No matter how hard the weather, long the watches, cold the water – get these two right and people feel good. It's the same whether you are fishing in the Bering Sea, or collecting bits of plastic and data in the Sargasso. So we talk, and talk. We demonstrate, tell stories, and go out for a shakedown test sail. Stay on the boat at all costs, stay out of danger triangles that can take out an arm or foot with the boats full force, mind the winches, use your senses, react to any anomaly, ask questions…the advice is timeless and persistent since the Phoenicians. The sea is a tremendous and amazing world, but is it not your friend. Treat her with respect and you will be rewarded.

The last piece is planning. Marcus and Clive have a tough balance to manage between schedule, work productivity and the dynamic weather patterns. The research work cannot be done in over 20kts of wind or any excessive sea state. This time of year there is a dichotomy of weather in the 800nm between tropical USVI and Bermuda. The northern 1/3 is regularly swept by powerful fast moving lows. As I write one with hurricane force winds off Nova Scotia is rippling into Bermuda. These systems will "enhance" the boats entry to Bermuda and can create peripheral winds and large swells. The bottom 2/3 of the trip is mostly light air ideal for the research. However compression of nearby high-pressure systems or the outer bands of the lows can push the winds up. This will be a strategy, like chess, of when to advance, to linger, and to press hard on the research work. Getting it right will bring the team home safe and productive. It will make all the difference in mission success. They make a first cut plan to move slowly north and east trawling heavily as they go. The plan, like all, will not survive contact with the enemy as we say (in this case those low pressure systems). They will adapt real-time with the weather at hand, and the forecasts we send them via sat phone.

Seadragon is transitioned. The boat is ready, the crew is set to go to to sea, and the plans are in place. Like all who have been before they will ultimately be alone with the sea and have no certain fate before them. Protect the boat, work hard, and be smart with the weather and they have every chance of success. We all need them to succeed. This mission is too important to fail. We must learn of the state of the Atlantic and plastics. Excited by the Pacific, we are missing crucial insight into the waters between the two great-industrialized continents of North America and Europe. We keep them in our thoughts.