Rozalia Project 2012 Summer Trash Tour: Session 1 Recap
What an amazing start to
the 2012 Summer Trash Tour!
Starting June 3
rd, we boarded
American Promise: Captain Kyle
Vowels, first mate Sloane Suciu, interns Kayla Lubold, Laura Dunphy, and Blais
Hickey, Rozalia Project’s director Rachael Miller and me, the Science and
Education Coordinator. Over the
next few weeks we towed our nueston net off the Isles of Shoals, removed
thousands of pieces of trash from beaches on Frenchboro Island and beaches
around Kittery, ME and Portsmouth, NH.
We also tested out our new low bycatch neuston tow device called a
Baleen Basker (bioengineered design based on a basking shark and baleen whale). During the first few weeks of
this session we also had some other interns assist us with our marine debris
removal, research and education:
Andrew Randazzo and Connor Grant.
At the end of June, we attended the America’s Cup World Series races in
Newport, RI and a new intern joined us: Marina Maze. After the America’s Cup, we got another new intern, Laura
Migliaccio and had to say goodbye to some interns who had been with us for the
first portion of the summer session.
Next we began our education-intensive portion of the summer doing
outreach programs in Edgartown, MA, Providence, RI, Newport, RI and finishing
up with a week of education in Boston.
In Boston we docked at
our usual spot at Courageous Sailing Center on Pier 4 in Charlestown Navy Yard
and hundreds of sailing students helped us remove trash from the bottom of
Boston Harbor with our ROV.
Besides our visits at Courageous Sailing Center and Community Boating
Inc., we worked with some new outreach partners in Boston this year and went to
new locations, namely Harbor Discoveries Camp at the New England Aquarium, Camp
Harborview on Boston’s Long Island, and Jamaica Pond in Jamaica Plains. We were able to remove many bottles,
cans, tires, ropes, and other miscellaneous pieces of marine debris from Boston
Harbor, the Charles River, and Jamaica Pond. We are very excited to be heading back to Boston August
18-24 when we will again dock in Charlestown Navy Yard and run programs at Camp
Harborview, Courageous Sailing Center, Community Boating Inc. and Jamaica Pond!
We wouldn’t have been able to remove
24,039 pieces of debris
and work with
2,945 people this summer
already without the tireless efforts from all of our interns. They endured through seasickness, heat,
cold and rain to help us further our mission of removing marine debris. Our fearless interns piloted the ROV, sailed
at night, got covered in plankton, sand, and mud all to take trash out of our
waterways and dispose of it properly. Their enthusiasm buoyed us all and their
passion for our work is an inspiration.
I can’t speak highly enough about their professionalism; we never heard
a single complaint out of any of them!
I feel lucky to have gotten to meet every single one of them and we
couldn’t be happier to have them as part of the Rozalia Project team.
We also had some special visitors onboard American Promise
throughout our first session who also aided us in our mission and gave us
indispensable support and their expertise. Thank you Martha Fisher, Art and Nancy Glidden, Sean O’Hallaran, and
Allyson Wilson!
The next portion of the 2012 Summer Trash Tour will kick off with underwater trash hunting and STEM education with the VideoRay ROV Larchmont, American and Beach Point Yacht Clubs in New York City and with Schooner, Inc. on the tall ship Quinnipiac in New Haven, CT.
We will have a few more interns join us and some previous interns will
be back to help us at various locations.
From August 10-12 we will have a table in the Ecozone! and operate our
ROV as part of the Lake Champlain Maritime Festival in Burlington, VT. Following that, we will sail with
American Promise up to Portland, ME before returning to Boston to finish up our
summer with more outreach programs and research of the density and distribution
of marine debris in Boston Harbor.
I arrived in New York on Sunday evening, joining the Rozalia Project crew, along with another new intern, Zane. We quickly discovered that we have a bit in common, we are both from Michigan, and both go to Eckerd College in Florida. Most importantly, we are both passionate about finding and removing marine debris in any way that we can! The next day, we jumped right into duties as Rozalia Project spent the day at Larchmont Yacht Club. Throughout the day, we educated young sailors on marine debris and its impact on our oceans and waterways. I learned some shocking statistics from Rebecca as she presented- it takes around 450 years for a plastic bottle to break down into tiny microplastic! Kids and adults alike were enthusiastic in taking part in the ROV navigation and were even more excited to pull up some trash. Our most interesting find was a fire extinguisher (Rachael and I accidentally discovered that it still works!). Zane and I were even able to practice driving the ROV on our very first day!
