BENEATH the BLUE

I will be performing “Just, one word…” and speaking at some great
locations in the next few months!

February 15, 7 pm, at Ipswich Performing Arts Center, Ipswich, Mass.,
sponsored by The Town of Ipswich Recycling Committee (RAC), in
conjunction with the Ipswich River Watershed Association (IRWA) and
iCARE.

March 5, 7:30 pm at the Rose Performance Hall at Endicott College
Center for the Arts, Beverly, Mass., co-sponsored by Salem Sound
Coastwatch and the Endicott College Environmental Society.

April, 2012, date tbd, sponsored by the Blue Ocean Society, Portsmouth, NH.

I’ll be speaking at the Ocean Sciences Meeting in Salt Lake City on
February 21 on: MARINE EDUCATION THROUGH THE EYES OF AN ARTIST;
TRANSLATING SCIENTIFIC DATA THROUGH NEW MEDIA

Stay tuned…!

–

karen.ristuben@gmail.com

karen.ristuben@gmail.com

*Hello friends,

I will be presenting my performance/lecture, “Just, one word…” at NOAA’s
Gloucester headquarters, 55 Great Republic Way (Blackburn Industrial Park)
on Tuesday, November 15 (America Recycles Day), at 7 pm.

In this 45-minute multi-media presentation, I present the important
environmental issue of marine plastic pollution through photography, video,
sound, and archival images, addressing it through the various lenses of
marine science, economics, politics, and our consumer culture. Nina
Samoiloff, a Rockport artist, will have some of her marine-debris
constructed works on display in the lobby.

We hope to see you there!

Karen
*

After three weeks out of sight of land, we are finally approaching Vancouver. We’ll head into the Straits de Juan de Fuca, and sail up to Victoria BC, arriving late tonight. Then, a day in Victoria before we sail the 80 miles to Vancouver on Wednesday and home!

There is so much to report, so many details of this amazingly challenging and enriching voyage. Marcus Eriksen, our lead scientist, has written a comprehensive report of the voyage – what we gathered in the trawls, the organisms found on larger plastic trash pieces, what the seven scientists will be testing for once samples are sent off.

I’ve been busy editing my presentation with new photos and video clips, and much new information about the marine plastic issues that form the core of our crew’s research. I am so looking forward to sharing this experience with different groups of people, from the VT College of Fine Arts (Aug. 4), Cape Ann Museum (Sept. 3), NOAA’s Gloucester headquarters (Fall, tba), and various school and community groups. Seeing firsthand how microplastics pervade the ocean, how they are analyzed by leading environmental and marine scientists onboard, and discussing the many ramifications of their presence in all the oceans, has been an incredible journey. Over time, our small gestures as artists, advocates, activists, and educators will, hopefully, combine to change our addiction to plastics and the way we think about consumption and waste.

Ten things you can do:

1. Stay informed about our plastic world and environmental toxins.
2. Reduce your use of one-time, single use plastics.
3. Conduct your own personal trash audit.
4. Creatively reuse and repurpose your plastic products.
5. Refuse to use plastic shopping bags and don’t buy bottled water.
6. Support legislation that increases producer responsibility.
7. Support and try to improve local recycling efforts.
8. Pick a place and pick up the trash there every day.
9. Educate children about responsible use of plastic so they can teach their parents.
10. LIVE MORE SIMPLY.

See you soon,

Love, Karen

We’re heading north now, motor-sailing as we’re heading into a north wind until it shifts to NW in a day or so. We had our time change this morning. The 10-2 and 2-6 watches split the two-hour gain, so my team ended up losing 2 hours of sleep – ouch! Funny how time passes when it’s structured by our onboard duties. Sleeping happens when it need to, periods of work and socializing in between. The moon and stars and sun and wind are everything out here, much more central than the day of week or time of day.

We continue to deploy the high speed trawl and periodic manta trawl, and continue to pull in samples of microplastics in every one. We’ve been collecting a series of ten water samples from various locations which will be analyzed for the POPs (persistent organic pollutants) they contain. These are things like DDT, dioxin, flame retardants that end up in the ocean through industrial emissions and water pollution. They are known to cling to microplastics, and thereby make their way into the marine food chain. As it turns out, microplastics are not only ingested by creatures that hunt and eat food, like fish, but they’re also passively ingested by filter feeders like barnacles, mussels, and baleen whales.

Although we have collected microplastic bits in each of our trawls, we haven’t seen the large patches of macroplastic objects we had all expected. As our trip leaders say, the Garbage Patch is patchy, and we’ve had our share of rocky seas which make spotting debris a challenge. But the absence of one large area of visible plastic waste has changed my preconceptions about what the accumulation zone actually is. The issue is very real: there is evidence of our over-consumption of plastic throughout remote areas of this vast ocean, and it is in the marine food chain. But while the sensationalized image of a plastic island of sorts is not what we see, such an image might help for awareness and action. We’ve had interesting discussions about this: how to raise awareness, create a sense of outrage, and engender change while presenting the realities of the issue with scientific credibility. Sensationalization, after all, is anathema to science.

Meanwhile, we have occasional shark visitors, phosphorescence dancing in our night wakes, rich and companionable conversation, and lots of laughs.

Karen

It’s day 11 onboard SeaDragon and we’re at lat40/long147, heading east through the northern edge of the accumulation zone. Spirits are good as we are all accustomed to the rocking boat and its jobs: standing watch, driving, cooking, cleaning, setting and hauling the trawls, keeping the ships log. Last night my crew of 4 (Hank, Rob, Ming & I) had the 10-2am watch. The wind was up, the sea was up, and I got the boat cranking along at 10 knots, starboard rail on the water. For awhile, the moon shone through a generally cloudy sky, and I steered by its location as it danced between the mainsail and its stays. What a place of immense power that we, so small, are traversing!

Each night after our 6pm dinner one of us takes the Six O’Clock Slot and presents basically anything of interest. We’ve seen film footage from our South Korean crewmates of coral spawning at night. We’ve heard about Tim, our Australian mate’s beach clean-up project Take Three, and his aspirations to expand its scope. Ming, from Taiwan, showed photos of the Taiwan coast before and after the government’s 70-year use of the beaches as landfills; only in the past 20 years have Taiwan citizens had access to their coastline and had the ability to clean it up. Hank Carson, marine biologist from U Hawaii/Hilo, presented his work researching the impacts of plastics acting as “rafts” for various organisms. And Marcus presented a powerpoint spanning his work on the marine plastics issue including the Junk Raft that he sailed from California to Hawaii. I presented my work in progress, “Just, one word…” to a warm reception and very constructive feedback. I’m spending considerable downtime editing it, as I’ll be doing a formal presentation of it at Vt College of Fine Arts on Aug. 4 – right around the corner!

Meanwhile, we are 9 days away from Vancouver, speeding across the sea, and all are well.

Karen

Finally, time to sit and write another blog entry! We’re at lat41, long154, heading east through the northern part of the accumulation zone. We drove straight north for 7 days in rolling choppy seas, and had our first calm day yesterday in the midst of a high pressure system. What a day, too! We stopped for snorkeling and swimming. Two thousand feet of deep blue water below us, flat sea and horizon all around, we were very tiny dots on the vast expanse of blue.

We’ve become a boat-bound collective. All on board are fit, cooperative, generous of energy and spirit, and eaay-going under sometimes difficult conditions. A communal community we are, bound by our dedication to making this a better planet.

We’ve been visited most nights by some small birds that we call sea-bats, because we haven’t been able to identify them yet. They sound playful as they chirp and swoop around the boat. During the day, we have an occasional black-footed albatross fly by with a 5-foot wingspan. Nightwatch is interesting. 10-2 or 2-6 am, we drive the boat, make bread, drink tea, gaze at the moon, make our hourly log entries, and have funny and thoughtful conversations on deck.

We have the high speed trawl out all the time between the larger manta trawls. I can see now that this whole area of ocean contains plastic: we’re trawling a tiny slice each day and we’re pulling in plastic with each trawl. We log each piece of macro debris as well: pieces of buckets, buoys with massive amounts of barnacles along for the ride, float balls from fishing fleets far away. Marcus and Hank, the lead scientists, are collecting much important data from the barnacles, seaworms, fish eggs and plankton clinging to the debris.

More later!!

Trawling the Pacific under fair skies…

Day 5 of our SeaDragon/Algalita journey, we were under blue skies and sailing across a deep cobalt sea. We put out the manta trawl – the larger one – for the first time. It’s an aluminum device that sieves a large quantity of water through a 500 micron tubular net. It’s deployed for one precisely timed hour, and all conditions are carefully recorded by us, the crew, including sea state, wind direction & velocity, lat/long. We are collecting the plastic and fish from each trawl. Onboard scientist Hank Carson (U Hawaii/Hilo) will be testing some of the samples as we go, some will be preserved for about 7 other scientists from different institutions, and we will bring home small samples. The trawls pick up small items and microbits of plastic. We will try to deploy the manta trawl 25 times over this voyage. So far, this was the first day it was feasible as we need fairly calm seas and it’s been choppy.

Hank’s main research focus is on the variety of microbes and organisms that cling to plastics as a habitat, a raft, or a food source. Other scientists will continue to analyze the adsorption potential that plastic has for persistent organic pollutants (POPs), and others continue to study the extent to which POPs from plastic ingestion exists in the marine food chain.

So far, each trawl (manta and high speed) that we’ve deployed has captured a significant amount of plastic. When we slow the boat for manta trawls, we pick up any macro plastic items that drift close to the boat. What’s clear is that the ocean around us is teeming with plastic.

Day 7 onboard SeaDragon

Well the seas are still up, and it’s still windy, 20-25knots. We’re moving the boat well, north, where there is a high pressure system 2 days away. Rights now we’re at lat36/long156. We see plastic everywhere, large and small pieces, and we’re pulling in hundreds of bits in the high speed trawl every time it’s deployed. When we reach the high pressure system and the seas calm, we will be able to see more debris, and perhaps get into the water for some photos and video. For now, we mostly record trawl samples and sightings of debris in a log, recording time, date, lat/long, sea state, wind.

Life onboard is a constant challenge. We have a prevailing wind from the NE, so the boat is always listing to port, rocking and rolling in a 6-8’ sea. Cooking, cleaning, showering take basically everything we have. Thankfully the seasickness is history, but the queasiness remains when down below. The crew, all of us, are easy-going, cooperative, and team spirited, and we are all learning much from each other.

Yesterday my partner, Ken, lost his dad to the universe. After our satellite phone call, I drove the boat for awhile in tears, then I saw an albatross gliding and swooping through the rolling waves. Freedom and peace, I wish for Dad Parker. Rest peacefully

At sea!!

We left Thursday July 7 at high noon from Honolulu – bright sunny skies and a
gentle sea at Lat.23/Long.68N. Skipper Clive knew the seas were up north of the
island, so we went the long southern route around, getting used to the boat tasks
and each other. There are 13 on board: Skipper Clive, first mate Dale, and
science leader Marcus. Crew mates beside me are Kim, Judy, Carolyn, Ming,
Jin, Brandon, Ron, Hank, and Tim. A diverse group indeed, from US, Australia,
New Zealand, Taiwan, and South Korea. We are in watch groups, on duty in 4 or
6-hour shifts noon-6 pm, 6-10 pm, 10pm-2am, 2am-6am, and 6am to noon. We
have two shifts off between watches.

This is my first blog, as writing has been impossible for the past 3 days. 8-10
foot swells and chop, and winds 25-35k have kept the Sea Dragon rolling such
thateverything is an enormous chore. It was basic sustenance living for 3 days.
No one ate much, almost everyone was seasick, yet we managed to laugh about
it, learn our basic crew duties, and watch out for each other. We all now drive
the boat from its stern wheel, on a heading of roughly 0 degrees, straight north.
We’ve sailed over 500 miles since leaving the dock.

Outfitted in foul weather gear and state of the art life jackets, and having total
confidence in the core crew, we feel safe on board despite rough conditions.
Today the seas and wind finally started to diminish, so communications will be
better.

What an amazing place to be for these 3 weeks: already we have had great
discussions about the science, policies, and public health consequences of
marine debris. We are all doing what we set out to do: to learn as much as
possible from each other, and to work directly towards a better understanding
of this global problem. We will be collecting debris and water samples once we
reach the accumulation zone in the next several days.

Today, Marcus launched the high speed trawl, which will collect surface plastic
and whatever else for several hours at a time, between deployments of the larger
manta trawl. We are collecting samples and data for several marine scientists
studying a range of issues from POPs adsorption to how plastics attract and
carry marine life.

Excitement this afternoon as the high speed trawl picked up a large net ball (it
broke away as we pulled in the trawl), and at the same time Dale and our fishing
line caught a 3’ mahimahi which we will have for dinner. We think the fish might

have been following the net ball, which probably had quite a lot of smaller fish
in and around it. Marine scientist and crewmate Hank Carson inspected the
stomach and found what might be clear plastic bits – they will be analyzed later.

So far, then, quite an adventure in difficult living conditions, but amazing stars
and galaxies in the night sky, dolphins and flying fish and what a thrill driving
this 72’ steel stallion across the Pacific waters. We’re now at lat29N/long157W,
holding a straight northern course.

Later…..!
Karen