Mother, Mother ocean, I have heard your call …

…Wanted to sail upon your waters since I was three feet tall…

OK here is what it is all about. August 10 I will sail out from the San Francisco Bay area with some longtime sailing buddies, aboard the 150 foot brigantine (yes, square rigged) Kaisei. We will go about 1,000 miles west to the North Pacific Gyre at about 35 degrees North latitude, 140 degrees West longitude. That is where all the plastic and other floating garbage that has made its way into the ocean (at least the North Pacific) eventually congregates. We will spend a few days there, collecting samples, documenting the amounts and attempting to map the extent of the damage.

Here is a link to the organization sponsoring the trip with some description of the work they do.

“Yes I am a pirate, two hundred years too late. The cannons don’t thunder, there’s nothing to plunder, I’m an over-sixty victim of fate, arriving too late, arriving too late.”

All the quotes from Jimmy Buffett bring up the memory of trying to write a song years ago we called Carhartt Sailors. It's like all the pictures you see of sailing involve sunshine, bikinis and white short pants. No one ever romanticized the Alaska sailor dressed in a full suit of Carhartts insulated coveralls and gritting his teeth as he sails into a snow storm. We meant to change that.

After a few days in the gyre, we head southeast where we will join other tall ships in San Diego for the Festival of Sail September 2-6

A link to the festival. Down the left column is a list of other links. Check the one to “participating ships.” It is quite a list.

All in all, to me it is a great adventure, another chance to go sea on the big ocean, the one thing in life I enjoy above all else, and perhaps doing some good for the earth as I do.

One of my chores will be to try to make Internet connections work from sea, so I might be able to blog, or at least get a post onto Facebook while we are gone. If i can't that is why I might not post anything for a month, or, why there will be wierd places like 35 North, 144 West as locations. If you don’t understand latitude and longitude at this point in life, it is time you learn. (Hint: GPS coordinates are really latitude and longitude positions)

And, as if there is need of another reason to do this, of course there is this from Crosby, Stills and Nash:

“… and it ain’t long, before it’s gone. You might as well have a good time.”

More ocean-related posts here