Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Today we followed up on a lead from Keep Bermuda Beautiful. They told us that debris washes up on some of the beaches on the South Shore, but mostly in winter.


We headed out with plenty of camera gear and snorkels, not expecting to find too much debris.


We arrived at John Smith's Bay and it is gorgeous.


Two steps into the sand and I saw it. Another step. And another.


"BONNIE!" I yelled and then went further towards the water where the sargassum had washed up. Sargassum is seaweed, by the way.


"BONNIE!" She was trying to get the camera out to film what we were seeing but I kept yapping because what I saw, with every step and every glance, was little bits of plastic. Not just a few pieces of litter, not just a few pieces of plastic in one clump of sargassum.


These pieces of plastic are fragmented and weathered, just like you'd expect from something that's been floating in the ocean for awhile.


And they are everywhere on this small beach.


It's almost midnight and we ship out tomorrow so we've added this small clip but we have more footage to sort through tomorrow so stay tuned and tell your friends. We should be able to upload videos from the ship.


Thanks to everyone who helped us get here. We've learned so much and we're not even on the water yet.


Posted by Jennifer O'Keefe

5 comments:

  1. I'm already scared about what the next few weeks are going to show. You are doing incredibly important work here, and already telling your story eloquently.

    -Rob @ KAB

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  2. how terribly sad to see the plastic in the seagrass- thanks for those amazing videos.

    hi bon!

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  3. Looks like a fantastic voyage! Any feedback on the performance of the trawl would be appreciated. I'm building a new one this week and might add fins beneath the wings to keep it out of the wake. How far east did you go? How many trawls did you collect? I'm eager to see what you've come up with.
    Cheers,
    Marcus

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  4. Hey Marcus,

    Great to hear from you. We could only do one a day, with the exceptioin that two of the days we did two. I have six samples with me and Andre took two. Fins would be very cool! I am wondering how much it would be have you make one for me? Let me know and thanks again for allowing us to use the Manta (Mannie)

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  5. Oh and Marcus, we'll share the results once we finish processing the samples.

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