Late August 1965
Sharks are rarely seen in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The only exception is the large migration of Great Whites between April and June. That’s when they leave the fertile coastlines of California and Hawaii to congregate in what they call, “The Great White Café,” a section of the ocean midway between the two coasts. I was aware of that before I jumped into the water in that precise location. *
But first, a bit of backstory.
The Trans-Pacific Yacht Race had just finished, and over a hundred sailboats of various sizes waited in Honolulu’s Alawai Yacht Harbor for crews to sail them back to Southern California. My high school buddy, Bob Witte, and I had graduated from high school and spent the summer bumming around the islands. Burned out and broke, we had to get back to Long Beach for fall college classes. We were experienced sailors so we walked the docks of the yacht harbor asking captains and owners if they needed a crew. One of them said yes.
His name was Jim, and he needed two more bodies to round out the crew of his 36-foot wooden sloop. Jim said it would take a few weeks to traverse the 2,250 miles to Kings Harbor, California.
“And by the way,” he smiled, “that’s the longest stretch of ocean between any two points of land in the entire world. Still want to go?”
Dumb question, I thought. The statement made the voyage all the more exciting.
***
A week and a half later, Jim informed me I needed a bath. We were near the end of the “Doldrums”—the high-pressure area in the mid-Pacific notorious for glassy seas and no wind. So Bob took the shark watch position on top of the coach roof while I stripped down and dove in.
The cool, salty water excited every nerve of my body. I swam away from the boat for about five minutes, and then turned and saw our boat in the distance. The small, delicate craft made of wood, steel, and canvas bobbed in the water like a toy. We were literally thousands of miles from anywhere. When I looked over the horizon, I beheld an eternity of clean, blue sea and sky. There was nothing else, anywhere (I wrote about it in one of my memoirs).
Fast-Forward to the Present
No, I did not encounter any Great Whites during that swim. But if you happen to journey across that same Pacific expanse today, you might encounter something far worse. Instead of a Great White Café’ you would hit a “Great Pacific Garbage Patch.”So-named by Captain Charles Moore, founder of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, these “patches” are growing way too fast. In fact, our oceans have become recipients of the entire world’s trash in the years since I took that swim. They are the culmination of broad neglect of the proper disposal of all things non-biodegradable. Why the ocean and not the landfills? As Capt. Moore puts it, “The Ocean is downhill from everywhere -- the principal repository for vagrant plastic waste." In his 2011 book, Plastic Ocean, Capt. Moore zeros-in on the root of the problem. “In the late 1950s, the winds of change blew into our kitchens via the invention of throwaway living.” His book is a great read. Try it.
Tides of Change
He started his foundation after 1997, when he participated in the same Trans-Pacific Yacht Race that I was involved in 32 years earlier. During his return trip he encountered numerous chunks of plastic floating all around him. “I could stand on deck for five minutes seeing nothing but the detritus of civilization in the remotest part of the great Pacific Ocean.”
He returned to the same area in 1999 to collect samples for analysis on his custom built research vessel, ORV Alguita. The results of the first study were shocking...plastic debris trawled in his nets outweighed zooplankton—the ocean's food base—by a factor of six to one. Think about that one.
Today, Capt. Moore is a full-time oceanographic researcher who does urban farming on the side. His work has prompted awareness and influenced policy change to counteract this dire environmental problem. You can read his many research papers about plastic islands as well as his exploits at www.captain-charles-moore.org.
Now, I don’t consider myself a tree-hugger, but I am a responsible person. I feel pangs of guilt when I accept plastic bags at the grocery store, and I stopped buying plastic bottles altogether. It’s a fact that we all need to take better care of our God-given planet while we can.
All the best!
Ken
- From my upcoming book, Intrusions, When God Shows Up In Your Life Unexpectedly
