A tragic tale of a journey from Osaka to San Francisco After we left Japan, it felt as if the ocean itself was dead, Macfadyen said. We hardly saw any living things. We saw one whale, sort of rolling helplessly on the surface with what looked like a big tumour on its head. It was pretty sickening. Ive done a lot of miles on the ocean in my life and Im used to seeing turtles, dolphins, sharks and big flurries of feeding birds. But this time, for 3000 nautical miles there was nothing alive to be seen. In place of the missing life was garbage in astounding volumes. Part of it was the aftermath of the tsunami that hit Japan a couple of years ago. The wave came in over the land, picked up an unbelievable load of stuff and carried it out to sea. And its still out there, everywhere you look. In a lot of places we couldnt start our motor for fear of entangling the propeller in the mass of pieces of rope and cable. Thats an unheard of situation, out in the ocean. If we did decide to motor we couldnt do it at night, only in the daytime with a lookout on the bow, watching for rubbish. On the bow, in the waters above Hawaii, you could see right down into the depths. I could see that the debris isnt just on the surface, its all the way down. And its all sizes, from a soft-drink bottle to pieces the size of a big car or truck.
Posted on: Sat, 19 Oct 2013 22:16:56 +0000
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