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Cisco
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The ocean is broken.
"IT was the silence that made this voyage different from all of those before it.
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Not the absence of sound, exactly.
The wind still whipped the sails and whistled in the rigging. The waves still sloshed against the fibreglass hull.
And there were plenty of other noises: muffled thuds and bumps and scrapes as the boat knocked against pieces of debris.
What was missing was the cries of the seabirds which, on all previous similar voyages, had surrounded the boat.
The birds were missing because the fish were missing.
Exactly 10 years before, when Newcastle yachtsman Ivan Macfadyen had sailed exactly the same course from Melbourne to Osaka, all he'd had to do to
catch a fish from the ocean between Brisbane and Japan was throw out a baited line.
"There was not one of the 28 days on that portion of the trip when we didn't catch a good-sized fish to cook up and eat with some rice," Macfadyen
recalled.
But this time, on that whole long leg of sea journey, the total catch was two.
No fish. No birds. Hardly a sign of life at all.
"In years gone by I'd gotten used to all the birds and their noises," he said.
"They'd be following the boat, sometimes resting on the mast before taking off again. You'd see flocks of them wheeling over the surface of the sea in
the distance, feeding on pilchards."
But in March and April this year, only silence and desolation surrounded his boat, Funnel Web, as it sped across the surface of a haunted ocean.
North of the equator, up above New Guinea, the ocean-racers saw a big fishing boat working a reef in the distance.
"All day it was there, trawling back and forth. It was a big ship, like a mother-ship," he said.
And all night it worked too, under bright floodlights. And in the morning Macfadyen was awoken by his crewman calling out, urgently, that the ship had
launched a speedboat.
"Obviously I was worried. We were unarmed and pirates are a real worry in those waters. I thought, if these guys had weapons then we were in deep
trouble."
But they weren't pirates, not in the conventional sense, at least. The speedboat came alongside and the Melanesian men aboard offered gifts of fruit
and jars of jam and preserves.
"And they gave us five big sugar-bags full of fish," he said.
"They were good, big fish, of all kinds. Some were fresh, but others had obviously been in the sun for a while.
"We told them there was no way we could possibly use all those fish. There were just two of us, with no real place to store or keep them. They just
shrugged and told us to tip them overboard. That's what they would have done with them anyway, they said.
"They told us that his was just a small fraction of one day's by-catch. That they were only interested in tuna and to them, everything else was
rubbish. It was all killed, all dumped. They just trawled that reef day and night and stripped it of every living thing."
Macfadyen felt sick to his heart. That was one fishing boat among countless more working unseen beyond the horizon, many of them doing exactly the
same thing.
No wonder the sea was dead. No wonder his baited lines caught nothing. There was nothing to catch.
If that sounds depressing, it only got worse.
The next leg of the long voyage was from Osaka to San Francisco and for most of that trip the desolation was tinged with nauseous horror and a degree
of fear.
"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.
"I've done a lot of miles on the ocean in my life and I'm 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 it's still out there, everywhere you look."
Ivan's brother, Glenn, who boarded at Hawaii for the run into the United States, marvelled at the "thousands on thousands" of yellow plastic buoys.
The huge tangles of synthetic rope, fishing lines and nets. Pieces of polystyrene foam by the million. And slicks of oil and petrol, everywhere.
Countless hundreds of wooden power poles are out there, snapped off by the killer wave and still trailing their wires in the middle of the sea.
"In years gone by, when you were becalmed by lack of wind, you'd just start your engine and motor on," Ivan said.
Not this time.
"In a lot of places we couldn't start our motor for fear of entangling the propeller in the mass of pieces of rope and cable. That's an unheard of
situation, out in the ocean.
"If we did decide to motor we couldn't 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 isn't just on the surface, it's all the
way down. And it's all sizes, from a soft-drink bottle to pieces the size of a big car or truck.
"We saw a factory chimney sticking out of the water, with some kind of boiler thing still attached below the surface. We saw a big container-type
thing, just rolling over and over on the waves.
"We were weaving around these pieces of debris. It was like sailing through a garbage tip.
"Below decks you were constantly hearing things hitting against the hull, and you were constantly afraid of hitting something really big. As it was,
the hull was scratched and dented all over the place from bits and pieces we never saw."
Plastic was ubiquitous. Bottles, bags and every kind of throwaway domestic item you can imagine, from broken chairs to dustpans, toys and utensils.
And something else. The boat's vivid yellow paint job, never faded by sun or sea in years gone past, reacted with something in the water off Japan,
losing its sheen in a strange and unprecedented way.
BACK in Newcastle, Ivan Macfadyen is still coming to terms with the shock and horror of the voyage.
"The ocean is broken," he said, shaking his head in stunned disbelief.
Recognising the problem is vast, and that no organisations or governments appear to have a particular interest in doing anything about it, Macfadyen
is looking for ideas.
He plans to lobby government ministers, hoping they might help.
More immediately, he will approach the organisers of Australia's major ocean races, trying to enlist yachties into an international scheme that uses
volunteer yachtsmen to monitor debris and marine life.
Macfadyen signed up to this scheme while he was in the US, responding to an approach by US academics who asked yachties to fill in daily survey forms
and collect samples for radiation testing - a significant concern in the wake of the tsunami and consequent nuclear power station failure in Japan.
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"I asked them why don't we push for a fleet to go and clean up the mess," he said.
"But they said they'd calculated that the environmental damage from burning the fuel to do that job would be worse than just leaving the debris
there.""
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motoged
Elite Nomad
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Location: Kamloops, BC
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Heartbreaking ... 
Don't believe everything you think....
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rdrrm8e
Nomad
Posts: 252
Registered: 5-14-2007
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Bullchit
[Edited on 10-21-2013 by rdrrm8e]
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Barry A.
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Time-----------it's going to take a lot of time----- before the debris either washes ashore, or sinks and otherwise slowly disappears------it's
similar to all that pumice floating around for 100's (1000's?)of square miles when a volcano spews stuff out beneath the surface-------it all mostly
disappears, eventually------with "time". It's just a fact of life, IMO.
The rampant over-fishing by mankind is entirely another story---------and I believe a very serious problem that has been with us for decades!!!
Barry
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MrBillM
Platinum Nomad
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Broken ?
Call a Plumber ?
I'd say that it's going to drive Cisco crazy, BUT that's already the case.
Despite all of the Governmental Therapy he's sucked up.
For the rest of us, No Worries.
We'll be long gone before the Oceans' illnesses are a problem.
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Skeet/Loreto
Ultra Nomad
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Just another "Spam Story" to try and Scare People into beleiveing something that is Not True.
If you notice the Liberal Commie/Scoialies always try to make People thionk that the "World is Falling""!! They do not have the Ability to present a
Positive way to Fix a problem.
Is it the DOPE?? Is it the lace of Teaching?? Are they not able to Learn??
Many of the Liberal Louts have to depend on other peoples words to get along in the Great World.
They will not Survive in the Years to come.
Skeet/Loreto
A Redskin/Redneck Texan
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Skipjack Joe
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How does that work?
A liberal sees junk floating and calls it trash and a conservative looks in the same place and says it's not there?
It's either there or not there. Doesn't take an einstein to tell the difference.
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Barry A.
Select Nomad
Posts: 10007
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Location: Redding, Northern CA
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Mood: optimistic
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Skipjack Joe
How does that work?
A liberal sees junk floating and calls it trash and a conservative looks in the same place and says it's not there?
It's either there or not there. Doesn't take an einstein to tell the difference. |
HuH???????? Me thinks EVERYBODY calls it "trash". It's just what to do about it that is different.
Barry
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rdrrm8e
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Posts: 252
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Condom Reef Discovered
Sydney, Australia, 1996
Oceanographic scientists say they have discovered a vast, floating "reef" of the world's disposed condoms in the middle of the South Pacific, about
halfway between Tahiti and Antarctica. The phenomenal mass is almost two miles long, an eighth of a mile wide, and in places up to 60 feet deep, the
oceanographers say.
Mason Froule, Australian marine biologist at his country's Oceanographic Laboratory Outpost on Macquarie Island, South Pacific, said the bizarre
accumulation is explained by a scientific term called "like aggregation"-- that is, the massing of similar objects over short or longer periods of
time due to wind or ocean currents, magnetic fields, buoyancy and other conditions.
"It's fairly common in the world's oceans," he said: natural events such as red tides, for example, are instances of "like aggregation." "People with
pets that shed lots of hair can see it in their own homes," Froule added. "The dog sheds everywhere in the room, but after falling out, the fur soon
collects in a few clumps and masses."
Froule said ocean "reefs" of styrofoam and detergent residues have been observed in the South Pacific and elsewhere for many years, but they are
usually broken up by storms before they become large or hazardous. He believes the huge concentration of condoms, not reported before, is more
resilient than other "aggregating" ocean materials, and may have been developing for decades. Froule said parts of the newly discovered reef are
matted together so densely that "you could almost land a plane on it." "I suppose it would be funny if it didn't pose the hazard it does to marine
life and navigation," Froule stated. "I pity any freighter, submarine, or dolphin, for that matter, that might run into it."
The biologist said he and his Australian scientific colleagues will have the reef mapped by satellite and monitored from now on to see if it expands,
breaks up, or drifts from its current location (reported at 63 degrees latitude and 154 degrees longitude). Froule said there would not be much point
in trying to break up the pulpy mass with explosives or other devices. "It seems pretty indestructible," he said.
The world's industrialized nations are estimated to consume and dispose of nearly 300 million condoms a year. Industry analysts say about a third of
the discards become waterborne.
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motoged
Elite Nomad
Posts: 6481
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Location: Kamloops, BC
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Yeah, shoot all dem commies....we gots lots of fish to eat (to hell with our kids and grandchildren...that's not my problem).
Dope and video games....that's the ticket....
Some folks....
Don't believe everything you think....
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Barry A.
Select Nomad
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Location: Redding, Northern CA
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We need a law mandating vasectomies, obviously!!!! Down with condoms!!!
I have done my part 40 years ago. No stinkin "condoms" for me!!! 
Barry
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bufeo
Senior Nomad
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Location: Santa Fe New Mexico
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| Quote: | Originally posted by rdrrm8e
Condom Reef Discovered
Sydney, Australia, 1996... |
To use your term, "Bullchit".
This one has been "floating"  around the WWW for years.
Allen R
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rdrrm8e
Nomad
Posts: 252
Registered: 5-14-2007
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| Quote: | Originally posted by bufeo
| Quote: | Originally posted by rdrrm8e
Condom Reef Discovered
Sydney, Australia, 1996... |
To use your term, "Bullchit".
This one has been "floating" around the WWW for years.
Allen R |
Zackly...!
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Sweetwater
Senior Nomad
Posts: 915
Registered: 11-26-2010
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Mood: chilly today hot tomale
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The Oceans are Dying!
The Oceans are Dying!
Soylent Green is people...............
[Edited on 10-21-2013 by Sweetwater]
Everbody\'s preachin\' at me that we all wanna git to heaven, trouble is, nobody wants to die to git there.-BB King
Reality is what does not go away when you stop believing in it. -Philip K Dick
Nothing is worse than active ignorance. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe(1749-1832, German writer, artist and politician)
When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I\'ve never tried before. - Mae West
Experience is what keeps a man who makes the same mistake twice from admitting it the third time around.
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EdZeranski
Nomad
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Mood: Si! Como no???
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fix it???
"The ocean is broken,"
.....Its just so old its hard to find parts.
EdZ
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David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 64755
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Location: San Diego County
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LOL... the sky is falling, and the earth is warming... no it's cooling... no it's warming... Climate: IT'S DYNAMIC not STATIC!
The answer from the left: tax more, have less, accept blame.
Oh, and Soylent Green ... yup, it's people:
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captkw
Ultra Nomad
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Mood: new dog/missing the old 1
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EVER WONDER ?
Why other life forms (Alians) don't want to enteract/deal with us ??....Thinking out loud again !!! Ooops !!
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Chupacabra
Nomad
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It's true.
I was out in my canoe the other day and shot some video of it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7OHG7tHrNM
Chupacabra
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MrBillM
Platinum Nomad
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An OBVIOUS solution
To part of the problem, at least, is Biodegradable Condoms.
Of course, that MIGHT not be a great selling-point.
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bajadogs
Super Nomad
Posts: 1064
Registered: 8-28-2006
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| Quote: | Originally posted by David K
LOL... the sky is falling, and the earth is warming... no it's cooling... no it's warming... Climate: IT'S DYNAMIC not STATIC!
The answer from the left: tax more, have less, accept blame.
Go off-topic!!!
You are a total dill weed!!! |
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