Dive Into Your Imagination

During the 3:00 am manta trawl Jim found small pieces of plastic in the manta.  I was so tired it did not fully hit me for a few minutes of what was happening.  I mean, we found the exact kind of plastic that Dr. Charles Moore had described as confetti.  But there was no party happening on board.  Here I was staring at pieces of polymer that were only a few millimeters long and comparable to the size of plankton.  It was there, staring me in my lens and now it was so easy to see that a fish could easily swallow one of these pieces whole.  It was right there in the petri dish, side by side with other animals.  We were hundreds of miles away from any coast and fishing for plastic.  We thought we had found pieces of plastic earlier in the trip, but as it turned out the particles we found were from one of our own lines shredding and getting into the system.  Science is so accurate and the data collection is so important that it is imperative that one remains completely objective and you must be your own worst critic.  It was very difficult for this group of scientists and graduate students to have me on the journey documenting every step of the way.  First of all, I was hired by the organization that helped fund the expedition, Project Kaisei, and secondly I had a still camera and video camera documenting (or trying to document) every move that they made.  I know I don’t like it when someone follows me around with a camera so I could only imagine how they felt when at every crucial moment, there I was hoping to photograph it or video it.  One of my saving graces was that it was apparent I cared.  Who else would stay awake side by side with the scientists, sometimes for 22 hours at a time making sure we were documenting what was happening, or in this case about to happen on the journey. 

Finding plastic at 3:00 am and then in every manta trawl after this was extraordinary.  Within hours the next 24- hour station was called and soon the intensive sampling was to begin.  We were approaching the area of what this group of scientists believed was going to be the highest accumulation of plastic.  It was really interesting being behind my camera observing it all.  I could hide behind the lens.  Jim always had his camera in hand because the documentation and visual observations are a crucial role to the entire expedition.  Jim had two cameras on board and with his experience, he had one of them on him at all times to photograph or video what was happening.  I brought 8 cases of equipment with me.  Two of the pieces allowed me to build a portable lighting studio that I set up on a daily basis for interviews or filming sea creatures.  I was able to lend assistance in this way to the scientists.  It truly became a team effort gathering all the information needed to get the best science necessary.

Miriam Goldstein had two major aspects of her science that she was hoping to collect data, little did she know that in less than 12 hours after finding plastic in the manta that the first fouling community was to be netted by Doug.  Doug Woodring, one of the founders of Project Kaisei, worked side by side with the scientists all day long from sun up to sun down.  We nick named him Dr. Dip-net because every time the boat slowed down for a manta, bongo, Oozeki or any other trawl, he would grab a net and hang it over the side.  At first he was helping Chelsea net tunicates, but as we started to turn up plastic, his efforts turned to marine debris. 

I was up in the pilot house when I heard the words out of Doug’s mouth.  “Look what I just found.”   
“Oh my gosh, that is a fouling community!  Look, there are crabs and eggs.  Somebody go and get Miriam, ”  Chelsea said excitedly.  She realized the importance of the find.

Miriam emerged from the dark wet lab, and almost in a dreamlike state she started analyzing the marine debris.  We all knew how important this was for her as she is planning on studying fouling communities for invasive species being transported across the ocean.  A fouling community is a community of animals that attach onto things like boats or docks.  In this case they are attaching to floating marine debris and essentially “hitching a ride.”  Although the gyre is compared to a desert community, it is one of the largest biomes on earth.  Jim must have been aroused from his sleep because he was awake in the middle of the day and he is normally responsible for the night shift from 8:00 pm to 8:00 am.   All the samples had to be processed immediately and everything needed to be documented .   I tried to be invisible, but entering the wet lab with my camera in hand does not allow me invisibility like I would hope. 

Who would have known that everything was just getting started and the exploration into the gyre had truly begun.  I suddenly found myself reaching for just a little bit more caffie ne as I knew it was going to be a long day.  Now if I only had some chocolate!

For more information go to check out these sites:
http://www.seaplexscience.com
http://www.projectkaisei.org
http://kaisei.blipback.com

Thank you to our sponsor, Samy's Camera

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