Is it really holiday if you don't have unforeseen mishaps? I don't think so. Yesterday, Deb and I packed up the babe-mobile (pictured below) and drove back on over to Honolulu from the North Shore in order to go snorkeling at the famous Hanauma Bay! The only problem we encountered was: Hanauma Bay is apparently closed on Tuesdays... Not to be deterred from our adventure day, we continued along the coastline exploring the wonders that the southern coast of Oahu had to offer - we got to see blowholes, beautiful coastline, and most tragically, a beach absolutely covered in plastic. Though it was a sober reminder of why we ended up in Hawaii in the first place, it was hard to walk along the beach without feeling insignificant. After a small beach cleanup, we wanted to try to go for a hike at the famous Manoa Falls, but were deterred by the flash flood warnings in the area. The tropics are WILD y'all. We returned to Honolulu for lunch at a hole in the wall sandwich shop where we were both DELIGHTED to eat gigantic veggie sandwiches washed down with kombucha (a probiotic drink, for those unfamiliar). After lunch, we headed to Banan at the University of Hawaii so we could meet up with a friend and that's unfortunately when disaster struck - FOOD POISONING! Deb and I have since figured out that the kombucha is to blame, but the hour-long BUMPY and rainy car ride back to the North Shore was filled with groans of discomfort and laughter at the situation we found ourselves in. Followed by napping and some giving up on the day, we were invited by another Ocean Cleanup Crew member to watch the sunset on Sunset Beach and WOW the beach lives up to its name! Even despite the food poisoning and rainy day and random beach closure, we got to witness and appreciate one of the best sunsets I've seen in a long while. I feel the need to talk more about the plastic beach we saw. I think that it's important to remember that EVERYONE can help contribute to the plastic problem and that there are simple ways to help keep the ocean happy and healthy - bringing reusable bags to the store and refusing or minimizing plastic packaging are good starts! The problem of plastic is a global one, and the U.S. is a significant contributor to the plastic debris in the ocean. A favorite professor of mine taught us that from little things big things grow, and that's the stance I've taken on environmental change and conservation - even if it's one little change, every little bit counts. I don't want to have my legacy be the generation that shrugged its shoulders and said that plastic pollution was too big a problem to tackle - I want to be a part of the generation that learned from the mistakes of the generations before us and made changes to promote the stewardship of the environment and planet! Here's a scary picture of JUST SOME of the microplastics we found on the beach. This is what is scaring me this Halloween! Happy Halloween everyone!
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Seeing as it took me approximately two months to get used to life on board the Launcher, it is only suiting that it will take me at least that amount of time to get used to life onshore again, right? Today's adventure began at the Airbnb we are staying at in the North Shore of Oahu - quiet enough beginnings for a holiday. Well, my friend and colleague Deborah and I have been traveling together since we got off the vessel, which has led to more funny moments than I thought possible - most of which relate to the realities of living life like a normal person again. For one, money is a concept that pretty much ceased to exist for me offshore. I bought candy and chips from the "shop" on board, but the idea of carrying cash slipped my mind for almost two months. Which brings us to today. Deb and I left the Airbnb with some cash between the two of us, leaving our comfy pad behind for the wonders of Waiamea Bay including a turtle, surfers everywhere, and HYDROFOIL SURFBOARDS!!! We wandered the beach for most of the morning, enjoying the sand between our toes and the crashing waves on the sand without too much difficulty. All this changed when we went back to the market for lunch food. Together, we had enough cash on us (using some of our emergency gas fund) to buy food for the week. Which left us both with $14 total. No problem - we were going back to the Airbnb! Side note: the eggs we picked up from the market were totally excellent. They were packed in styrofoam which is totally lame...BUT when I dropped them because I am an absolute butterfingers apparently, ONLY 2 OUT OF THE DOZEN BROKE!!! WHAT?!?! Anyway - good job on the eggs and their packaging Oahu! After lunch we immediately raced back out to the car for more adventuring and stopped at a macadamia nut farm...upon our arrival realizing that we still had exactly $14 to our name. We picked up nuts and coffee, because that's what you do, and had fun chasing the roosters around in the front part of the farm. Another important sidebar to this tale - did you know that in different parts of the world they have different noises that animals make? We learned this on the Launcher, and specifically we talked about roosters because they make the CRAZY noise in the States of "Cock-A-Doodle-Do!!!" - which one of the Navigators found really funny. So naturally today Deb and I spent a lot of time chasing roosters on the island trying to film them for our navigator friend Rasmus. Cock-a-doodle-do Rasmus (I hope you're still reading). Anyhoo...on our way back from our after-lunch adventure, Deb turned to me in the car and was talking about how we should totally buy pasta to make for dinner! To which I had to remind her, "Deborah...we have 3 dollars" which was of course followed by peals of laughter from the both of us. So adjusting back to normal life has been both totally awesome (I haven't fallen over putting my clothes on in at least a day) and really confusing (why is money so important???) - more updates on the adventures of two grudging seafarers making their way back into the non-boat world. **Edit: Deb has pointed out that 4 eggs were broken...2 were very obviously broken and 1 other had to be thrown away for fear of E. coli BUT we got 9 eggs to cook with DESPITE my clumsiness and I think that's a win. As all good things must come to an end, so has my trip aboard the Maersk Launcher ended. Though the trip was not without it's stresses and bad weather and bouts of sea sickness, I found it amazingly hard to leave the comfort and familiarity of the ship behind. In almost a two-month voyage, the crew of The Ocean Cleanup and the Maersk crew felt more like family than anything else, and it was more difficult than I would have imagined to pack up all my stuff and leave! For the record, I did not cry upon seeing my first tree on land, though I definitely paused and had to touch a palm tree to make sure I wasn't dreaming! The craziest part of all of this is that I am ON OAHU NOW! There are birds and dogs and OTHER PEOPLE and ocean that meets land, which is NUTS!!! Adjusting to non-rolling ground underneath me has been a struggle as well - I tripped going up the stairs on the Launcher while we were in port...the first time I tripped going UP the stairs and naturally we weren't moving. Another awesome aspect of being on solid ground is that when putting say shoes on you don't have to THROW YOUR WEIGHT against any forces of the waves moving the ship...so needless to say I've almost fallen over while getting dressed more than a couple times...even since actually moving into Airbnb's and not even being in the ENVIRONMENT that the ground underneath me was rolling but I guess it'll be fine... I am wishing Wilson the best and am looking forward to seeing the results of the trial in the GPGP, but for now I'm gonna go enjoy the salt and sand and waves at the beach - the first beaches I've seen in nearly TWO WHOLE MONTHS!!! Goodbye Launcher, it's been a real pleasure and adventure and I know you'll have a place in my heart forever, but aloha Hawaii, I think we're gonna get along just fine. In the spirit of my favorite holiday being right around the corner, I helped in the organizing of a Halloween Party on the Maersk Launcher. There were paper bats lining the halls of the deck, there was excessive candy and coffee, and best of all almost HALF of the people that attended went in costume!!! As one of the only Americans on the vessel, I felt it was my duty to bring some spooky cheer to the crew, especially as our trip is winding down - we've all been working so hard together and such long hours, it felt like the least we could do was lighten the mood and share a night of laughs! As we were not planning on having a Halloween party onboard, the costumes had to be creative AND made using only the materials available to us on the vessel. We had a mermaid trapped in plastic, a witch, a blue whale, a fish, a mummy, a castaway and many more! Yours truly attended the party as Marine DeBREE (thanks to a friend in Miami for giving me the idea AGES ago) and we had a lovely night enjoyed in the company of friends and silly costumes and just a little too much sugar. It's the little moments like this that I'm definitely going to miss, but I'm excited that we got to share at least one last night of genuine fun on the Launcher. In addition, I'm beyond THRILLED to have a costume that matches my blog title: This costume is, in fact, trash! I'm a little nervous about seeing shore for the first time in almost two months, but I'm also definitely looking forward to not having the world constantly moving. A couple days ago we left Wilson behind to the GPGP. It's super crazy to wake up in the morning and not have the barrier somewhere nearby, and even stranger when at night the only lights outside the boat are the stars and moon. Another crazy part of leaving the barrier behind is to be going so quickly! We are FLYING at the breathtaking speed of 10 knots! I know, I know, we're speed demons out here, but to be entirely honest, we've been traveling at the snail's pace of 3 knots (and slower) for over a month now. Seeing the ocean passing by so quickly is exhilarating! We are en route to Hawaii as our final destination for this vessel, and I can't imagine how weird it's going to be to see people OTHER than the people on the ship! Another super crazy concept to me is the concept of PLANTS!!! WOW!!! I can't even describe how THRILLED I am to see a real living plant - I might cry. Nature is lovely and the ocean is SPECTACULAR but I think I've missed green more than I'd like to admit. More updates on my reaction to plants to come! 42 is the magic number that has been defined in my life as the answer to life, the universe, and everything (thanks Douglas Adams, and especially Mom and Dad for hooking me on scifi early), so every 42 has a little bit of extra meaning. Today marks 42 days at sea, and I thought I would share some of the lessons learned and wisdom that comes from spending this much time offshore. #1) Adult life is sharing a post on Facebook and restraining yourself from yelling at your friends and family "WOOOO WE OUT HERE" because it's a tad bit unprofessional, and instead sharing it on your blog because honesty is important and the mission of this blog. Sometimes I'm amazed that I hold a degree because I have been known to talk to fish (or beg them to jump out of the water again), or name my buoys (Not Bob, Scuttle, Hei Hei, Sebastian, and Kasper are attached to the barrier folks), and generally have continued using the same beach/surf slang I've gathered since childhood. In moments like this I do have to remind myself that it's okay to be myself, especially because there's not a whole lot of science to be done other than waiting for my buoys to continue taking their measurements. #2) As long as you can play off that you almost fell over as being due to something OTHER than the ship's movement in the swell you can TOTALLY make it as a passenger on an offshore vessel. #3) I totally want to keep on living that good boat life and REALLY want to sail across the Pacific in a sailboat. Not wisdom per se, but definitely something I've learned on this journey and thought I would share. WE MADE IT FOLKS!!! We have successfully installed Wilson in the U-shape in the GPGP! To be entirely honest, it doesn't quite feel real yet - after almost a month and a half of towing and testing to get to this point is pretty crazy! It's been a long time coming - and yesterday we even got to install my buoys on the System! I can't believe that after a year of pondering this project and its possible implications I have the opportunity to help monitor the biological impact of the system ACTUALLY sitting in the Patch!! It's a great start into the second year of my Master's for sure! An even better ending to the day yesterday was a GIGANTIC rainbow that spread from one side of the Launcher and stretched to the sea on the other side! Nothing like a lucky omen for the beginning of a project (or you know, master's research thesis but hey)! With respect to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, well, there's definitely more plastic here than elsewhere we've been. It's really more disheartening and sad to see than I was expecting - I've seen marine debris before. Somehow knowing that even though we're almost as far from land as you can be, there's still the overwhelming sense that humans are having an incredibly negative impact on our oceans. This effect was magnified when we went out on the Megamaid today and could see firsthand just how much plastic is out here - the sizes range from big to around the size of a fingernail - and that's just what we can see moving at around 3 knots! Who knows how much more we'd see if we had gotten to go out for more than just a few hours? At any rate, there's a LOT of plastic, and I'm excited to see how the System performs under these circumstances! Aside from the elation of finally being where we've been trying to get, boat life has really changed after 6 weeks! I can proudly say that I can sleep comfortably with most any swell (within reason), however I still apparently cannot put pants on in 3 meter swell without falling into the wall of my room so I guess we haven't come as far as I might like, but you can't win them all! Though things have been pretty good - last week I hosted a screening of Disney's Moana for those onboard that would be interested in THE COOLEST DISNEY MOVIE TO DATE! This has the benefit of sharing a happy animated with the crew and (my favorite part) is there is a subset of grown men singing "SHINYYYY" at any and all opportunities, which is honestly a fantastic part of ANY day! Well this week has been another week of towing Wilson behind the Launcher, which invariably leads to relatively limited activities. The sun came back out yesterday and I think it definitely helped with bringing spirits up - I know it helped me out a bunch! This week marks an important event in my life - I GOT TO SEE DORADO FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE!!! There was a small school of them hanging out off the bow of the Launcher! The ship tows pretty slowly - the other night I calculated it and we are moving at approximately the average speed I swim when I'm in a pool doing a workout! Me and the Launcher could TOTALLY race (except that she can go REALLY fast if she wants). Another thing was brought to my attention by my friend on the vessel yesterday: a couple posts ago I mentioned the time change and how we all gained an hour and got to sleep extra. Well my buddy is a navigator and has the watch from midnight until 4am (I'm pretty sure) and so when the time changed and went backwards at 1am...well his watch was an hour longer. Major bummer, but I'm really glad we have navigators that take watches because making sure nothing bad happens on the ship while I'm sleeping is a big comfort. Thanks Navigators! Growing up in California, rainy days and "real weather" were few and far between. As such, rainbows have always been a treat and they're something that my mother has delighted in for as long as I can remember. Because of this, I have always viewed rainbows as a sort of magic and have thought that good luck follows spotting them. In Miami, I have delighted in the near-daily summer rainstorms that bring with them lovely views of rainbows at sunset over the research vessel at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, but I'm not sure anything prepared me for the magic of seeing a rainbow over Wilson while in the middle of the Pacific Trials. Since I have received multiple requests for more pictures on the blog, I'm looking at you Uncle Mike, I thought I'd share this one with y'all. This was captured from the relative comfort of the Megamaid, my home away from home (where home in this case is the Launcher, but hey it is what it is). There may be no days fully dedicated to rest, BUT we did have the pleasure of a time change as we are moving west and have made some serious distance since we started our trip 31 days ago! 31 DAYS AT SEA?! The time has absolutely FLOWN. At the same time, the comforts of home and land do seem really far away, so it may just be a matter of perspective. In addition to a time change that allowed everyone an extra hour of sleep, we had BRUNCH yesterday AND a barbecue! Life at sea isn't so bad when you're surrounded by AWESOME people! The seas are picking up, which has definitely led to some stumbling around in the stairwell and hallways but it also made the jam session in the rec room last night all the more magical - you didn't have to put any effort into swaying to the music! And YES I did mean jam session, we had a guitar and a ukulele and some wonderful music being made as the day was winding down. Music has been a passion of mine as long as I can remember and being able to share it on the high seas with the coolest crew around has been an absolute highlight of the trip! Happy Monday y'all! I feel like I spend an inordinate amount of my free time on this vessel napping, and I don't think I'm alone in that use of time. Existence at sea is apparently one that lends itself well to the cat lifestyle: sleeping whenever and where-ever possible. I thought I was good at napping on shore but my existence on the Launcher has turned that thought on its head - I think this week alone I've napped more days than not...which is probably where all of the excess energy comes from while I'm awake. At any rate, towing days are tough because even though we're busy there isn't exactly a TON to do - not to mention it limits my time aboard my beloved Megamaid but its chill - it gives me more time to SLEEP! Since I was a kid, I feel like it has been reinforced that the scientific process is one of trial and, far more often than I'd like, error. As a kid I learned about science with a sort of starry eyed wonder - how could scientists just go out into the world and DISCOVER? And as I grew up, I took the required science classes and discovered, much to my dismay, that science can be pretty aptly described as a series of happy, well-timed accidents with a little bit of brilliance and good luck (*and on more than a few occasions, bad luck) thrown in the mix. Confused and intrigued, I continued to pursue my fascination with science by chasing down a Bachelor's in Biology. This endeavor took me around the world to Australia where I was faced with my first serious struggle with the scientific method. I'll paint the picture - there we were on the Great Barrier Reef, tasked with studying a symbiotic relationship between a species of crab an type of coral. Putting our four heads together, we engineered this brilliant system of mounting GoPros above the coral colony of interest and PRESTO we'd have video footage of the crabs' interactions with their coral host! Well that design was an INCREDIBLE failure. We couldn't see ANYTHING in the footage we took. This was the first experimental design that I had had the opportunity to contribute to EVERY aspect of the experiment and was my first true head-on interaction with the absolute FRUSTRATION of having a brilliantly (or at least so we thought) design come back and just crash and burn. Determined to try again and, if for no other reason than our grade relied entirely on having a project where we had SOME FORM of successful data collection, we managed to put our heads together again and come up with a different form of observation which allowed us to cover even more colonies each observation AND gave us reliable results! This process has since been ingrained in my mind as part of the scientific process. For every success there has been lots of thought and reconsideration and occasionally just throwing your best at the problem and hoping for the best (at least in ecology to my experience), so with good faith and a fair dose of hope, I had the opportunity to try out my buoys at their attachment points on Wilson during the Pacific Trials. With hope and some trepidation, I prepped my two buoys (an arduous task of removing a single magnetic pin from each buoy being deployed), and gave them to the people going out in the workboat to attach to the System 001. Pictured below, I'd like to introduce Bob the Buoy. Bob was deployed for TWO WEEKS on the barrier during the Pacific Trials, and for the most part, he performed SPECTACULARLY! As the days wore on and we conducted our tests and monitoring of Wilson during the Trials, I got to say "hi" to Bob on pretty much a daily basis. As my first buoy in the water, I was particularly attached to this little dude. However, we hit a pretty rough spell of weather (see Bree almost falling off the treadmill for an approximate 5 day period) and both buoys remained attached at their critical attachment points! YAY! The experimental design WORKED! But then as the time passed, it became apparent that one of the buoys had suffered some damage either in the storm or due to the storm, and eventually, Bob stopped working and had to be removed from the trial. Well this is my goodbye and obituary to a fantastic buoy. Bob was a fixture in the Trials, and he will be remembered as we continue our way to the GPGP and beyond. Thanks for the soundings Bob, you will be missed. Y'all we just got the okay to GO ON TO THE Great Pacific Garbage Patch! Wilson was put through numerous tests in the Pacific Trials including the U-shape installation, maintaining sufficient speed through water, ability to reorient when wind or wave direction changes, and effective span (opening-width) in steady state! Go Wilson go!!! We have been sitting around 350 nautical miles off the coast of California through some rough weather, through the installation process, and through monitoring Wilson closely for the last 17ish days! I cannot even begin to describe how excited I am (and I think the rest of the crew too XD) to see the system in action in the Garbage Patch! Hopefully we'll get there in relatively good time - crossing our fingers for no storms en route (I did knock on wood writing that - GOTTA BE SAFE). The trip to the GPGP is two weeks of towing approximately, though if I've learned anything on this journey, it's that the ocean determines our speed and effectiveness of towing and other operations. So we shall see what kind of timeline we are looking at as we begin to make our way out to the Garbage Patch. It has come to my attention that there have been a number of spelling errors on my blog and seeing as our operations on board the vessel tend to be more limited while towing I'm going to be on the lookout for my typos - though if anyone has any that jump to mind if you wouldn't mind leaving a comment on that post it would be much appreciated by this Trash Scientist. Happy October! Gross post ahead: not for those that don't like bugs! Alrighty well here we are - out in the middle of the Pacific and it IS the month of spookyness and too-much-sugar-ingestion so naturally I stumbled into some bad luck! I got LICE!!!! In all of my 23 years I've managed to avoid the nasty little bugs that have recently taken up their unwelcome residence on my head. BUT ever the optimist - I went to the ship's medic and we are combatting the problem head-on! HAHAHAHAHA At any rate, moving on, another American on the vessel and I are trying to plan a Halloween celebration on the Launcher because we have SO MANY TOOLS at our disposal to make some of the coolest spur-of-the-moment Halloween costumes EVER!!! Additionally, there is a little "shop" where sweets can be purchased on the vessel - so basically it's gonna be the coolest Halloween on the high seas (and quite possibly one of the only Halloweens on the high seas but it's chill)!!! Today I am feeling really thankful for the day and age we live in - I have been able to call my mom whenever things have been overwhelming (read I GOT FREAKING LICE THREE WEEKS INTO MY CRUISE!!!) and she's always been there with a song when I've been low, the most recent being about gross bugs crawling all over me...but it's the thought that counts <3 and I guess hearing her voice helped me laugh about it a little harder than I would have before. Sorry about the gross post for the day but THIS IS THE REALEST THING TO HAVE HAPPENED OUT HERE SO FAR! Welcome to the wonderful world of working and living and staying on boats! Happy Spooky Month! |
AuthorBree Gibbs, here. I'm a recent Master's Grad just trying to share what it's like to be a trash scientist (for those who aren't in the know, I'm a marine biologist). Categories
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