Yeah, so it’s early morning
of the day of potentially,
where we land the biggest plastic catch
that The Ocean Cleanup has seen to this point.
It’s been a tough last week or two.
We’ve had lots of issues with the camera skiff.
It’s a piece of equipment that allows us to see
what’s going on inside the retention zone,
and it also allows us to actuate
the emergency release inside in case
an animal does get caught inside.
We did fix it.
And it broke again.
And then we fixed it.
Behind me, you should be able to see the camera skiff.
It’s looking really good this time around.
You might also be able to see
the not so pretty modifications
that we had to make do with what we’ve got out here.
They’re not perfect, but we’ll make them better next time,
and for now, this should do.
Everything is looking good so far.
Fingers crossed for Test 2.
So, it’s about 10 pm
and we’ve got the Maersk trader behind me,
which means we’re about to start
our first night test.
It’s been a frustrating road to get here,
we’ve had a few setbacks,
but this is one of the first tests of the campaign,
and it’s a really important one
because it’s really important that we monitor
the impact that we’re having on the environment
to ensure that we’re not causing damage.
We’ve got cameras in the system to monitor that,
and tomorrow morning we’ll pull the system up on deck
and do a full inspection of the system.
And it broke again.
So, the good news is that we’ve actually already done
a day test and a night test.
We’ve got other mitigations in place,
and we’ve put further mitigations in place,
and a new operational mode
so that we can continue testing,
mostly during the day and slowing down at night.
Just to make sure that we’re really
not risking too much for the animals.
So, we are drifting along the system
and having a good look at the wings
after 24 hours of towing and collecting quite some plastics.
And we’re using some GoPros, underwater cameras,
to inspect the system and check for damages.
We’re getting close to the retention zone,
and as we could see from drone shots this morning,
the retention zone is full of plastics.
Seeing it from the drone is one thing;
seeing it up close
and with the underwater camera is another thing.
So, this is an exciting moment.
We are here in the middle of the pacific,
five days sailing away from home.
We have two vessels towing a 500-meter wide system.
We generally have waves of no less than two meters.
We have the two vessels towing,
we have drones flying,
we have workboats in the water.
And all of this work is impossible
if you don’t have a professional crew.
So, big thanks to these guys here,
driving this boat,
making all this possible.
We’ve been monitoring the system over the last
roughly 48 hours
because we’ve been doing a 48-hour test.
We took some drone inspection flights yesterday,
and it’s looking really promising.
The system looks really full.
It’s the only way to explain it; it’s bulging in places.
And that’s not what we saw in the shorter tests
that we’ve already done.
So, where we caught 100 kg in our first test,
we really are expecting to land plastic
in the tons this time around.
So, I don’t want to jinx it or say too much and it
not be the case, because we’ve done that before.
But we really are hopeful that today
we’ll be landing tons of plastic on the deck.
So, it could be a really good day
for The Ocean Cleanup.
We have the mountain of plastic we are looking for.
After 48 hours of towing.
It’s sad to have this much after 48 hours.
But we’ve worked very hard
for years – through failures, successes, small successes,
and now we’re here with this big pile of plastic.
This is a good day.
What a pile of trash.