Pangaea Exploration

Post Tagged with: "travel"

Ocean Friendly Design

by panexplore_u6q245 October 9, 2014 in Uncategorized, Blog, Pangaea, legacy Comments are Disabled

According to the UK Design Council, 80% of a product’s environmental impact is ‘locked in’ at the design stage. Take the humble toothbrush. Most of these apparently simple objects are made from three or four different kinds of plastics. For a toothbrush to be recycled, the different plastics would have to be separated, making toothbrush recycling, even were this technically feasible, an immediate non-starter financially. The toothbrush as a whole is a short-lived item, but actually, the only short-lived bit of it is the bristles in the head. The plastics in the handle will probably last upward of 450 years.

Plankton Poo

by panexplore_u6q245 October 3, 2014 in Uncategorized, Blog, Pangaea, legacy Comments are Disabled

Steph, who is normally based at the University of Exeter, talked about the research she’s been doing en route. She’s asking two main questions: 1) where on our route will we find the most plastic and plankton occurring together; 2) can we find ‘real world’ evidence (as opposed to lab-based evidence, which already exists) that plankton ingest plastic? The critical question is the second one, and the method is brilliant.

Transitions

by panexplore_u6q245 October 2, 2014 in Uncategorized, Blog, Pangaea, legacy Comments are Disabled

That night, by now so used to falling asleep in motion, our berths surging and swaying through the waves, the sudden lack of movement felt unnatural and abrupt, as if someone had slammed on the brakes. These are truly strange transitions, I’m finding, from ocean and motion to stationary land; from the mini-world of our boat, at once small and yet travelling through an immensity of ocean and sky, to the endless-but-limited options of land-life.

Horizons

by panexplore_u6q245 September 25, 2014 in Uncategorized, Blog, Pangaea, legacy Comments are Disabled

On the early watch, a colourless sun turns the shifting waves to a runway of dynamic molten silver. At dusk, as the light leaches away, the sea turns pewter, then gun-metal grey, the wave surfaces etched and chiselled and constantly in motion. At night, there’s an immensity of stars, silent above the black sea. It’s the biggest space I’ve ever been in. It’s extraordinarily, exhilaratingly, utterly wonderful. And I suspect, as I notice my distinctly mixed reactions to the news that we might reach land tomorrow, addictive.

Cruising

by panexplore_u6q245 September 22, 2014 in Uncategorized, Blog, Pangaea, legacy Comments are Disabled

Highlights of the trip so far have involved dolphins; Steph giving an excellent talk about her research with laptop slides on deck and dolphins arching in the background; and bioluminescent dolphins lighting up a dark night like waterborne fireworks. From our perspective, in many ways so out of our element, that there are creatures so at home in the sea seems amazing. Amazing and, inevitably, bittersweet to watch them leaping and sparkling given what we know about how we are changing their world.

Brilliant

by panexplore_u6q245 September 19, 2014 in Uncategorized, Blog, Pangaea, legacy Comments are Disabled

Brilliant. That’s the word in mind today. The combination of people, skills, professions, interests and passions on board – marine scientists, photographers, film-makers, plastic pollution activists and campaigners, commercial project managers, conservationists, philosophers, generally interested folk and, of course, sailors. With luck and a fair wind, bringing these perspectives to bear on the horrible challenge that is ocean plastic pollution will throw up some genuinely constructive ideas and solutions.

Ocean Plastic Pollution – and the Gyre to Gaia sailing adventure

by panexplore_u6q245 September 16, 2014 in Uncategorized, Blog, Pangaea, legacy Comments are Disabled

I’m leaving tomorrow to travel south to Falmouth and join Pangaea Exploration’s yacht Sea Dragon for a voyage through the North Atlantic Gyre to the Azores and then Lanzarote. We’ll be exploring ocean plastic pollution and wider questions about human nature relations and consumerism. Why do we treat the ocean as a dump? And why do so many of us end up consuming so much more than we need? Above all, we’ll be trying to figure out what solutions to this issue might look like.

Leg 4 completed and a new crew for the day

by panexplore_u6q245 August 28, 2014 in Blog, Pangaea, legacy, Orebro University Comments are Disabled

On Sunday we got a new crew on board for the day. Politicians, representatives from government agencies, and sponsors visited us and joined Sea Dragon for a day sail in the Stockholm archipelago. We sampled the water for particles using the pump and also showed some of the trawl samples from the expedition.

Gale Warning

by panexplore_u6q245 August 27, 2014 in Blog, Pangaea, legacy, Orebro University Comments are Disabled

Months of careful planning diseappears in a second when a comprising low pressure enters the Scandinavian peninsula. Sea Dragon is taking shelter at Fårö on Gotland waiting for conditions when sampling on open sea can be carried out again.

A Rough Start

by panexplore_u6q245 August 27, 2014 in Blog, Pangaea, legacy, Orebro University Comments are Disabled

During the evening and night the wind picked up and we were sailing close to the wind in forces of 30 knots, with two reefs in the mainsail and the jib. Later on the wind increased further to 35 knots and the jib was replaced by the staysail and a third reef in the mainsail. During the night and in squalls wind gusts of over 45 knots were measured, and the Sea Dragon was racing off and over ever increasing waves like an experienced surfer off Hawaiian waves.

Leg 3 Completed

by panexplore_u6q245 August 27, 2014 in Blog, Pangaea, legacy, Orebro University Comments are Disabled

Sea Dragon was in her right element tacking in strong head winds and the crew experienced some real sailing. We set some Baltic Sea Expedition records; strongest wind, highest waves, fastest speed, number of people puking, number of pukes by a person, largest puke by a person. The crew was despite this in a good spirit during the whole week and sailing into Stockholm again was a calm and wonderful finish of leg 3.

Rough weather

by panexplore_u6q245 August 27, 2014 in Blog, Pangaea, legacy, Orebro University Comments are Disabled

After the sampling we headed south to reach the next position. However, the weather turned worse during the day; first heavy rain, and later big waves. Despite that the windy weather made the sampling impossible and made several people seasick, this weather gave us a great chance to see this boat using its full potential, as the boat was heeling over.