A Rozalia Project Rhode Trip!

On Wednesday July 11, Rozalia Project for a Clean Ocean departed Edgartown, MA to begin our “Rhode” trip of the sea. 

First stop: Providence, RI

            We pulled away from Edgartown Yacht Club as the sun was rising to begin a potential day and a half sail to Providence, but the ocean must have been just as excited as we were to get there.  With great wind and a favorable current the entire trip, we made it to Providence Community Boating Center (PCBC) by 7pm that same day.  The staff greeted us enthusiastically as we docked American Promise and settled in for our 3-day visit.  We kicked off our stay Thursday morning introducing students from a local STEM education program to the top 10 trash items found in the ocean, giving boat tours, and using the ROV to go trash hunting.   In the afternoon, we had more fun learning about and picking up marine debris with young sailors from PCBC’s summer program.  Friday and Saturday were filled with similar programming, including several hours where the public was invited to explore American Promise and check out some of the work we do.  We also had some time to bond with the fabulous staff at PCBC as we broke out the paddleboards and Laser sailboats for an afternoon of water play and watermelon.  After picking up 1,823 pieces of debris and working with 130 participants we were reluctant to leave Providence, so we extended our stay one more day to get some extra boat work and data input done, but on Monday morning we said goodbye to PCBC and sailed off.  We did manage to take a little piece of PCBC with us, as a staff member, Sean, joined us for our sail to our next destination…

 

Second stop: Jamestown, RI

           Rozalia Project arrived in Jamestown several hours after leaving Providence.  Upon arrival we had just enough time to set up before the delightful children of Jamestown hopped on board.  We discussed marine debris, searched the ocean floor for trash with the ROV, and played the “Name That Marine Debris” game with 30 students and counselors from local camps.  The day flew by, especially with the help of Sean, and before we knew it we were getting ready to set sail again for our final Rhode Island destination.  Little did we know that American Promise would not want to start her engine.  After hours of fiddling with the engine, we began to accept that we would not be able to sail out that night and would have to make other arrangements to get to our programming the next day.  It wasn’t until well after dark that we heard the roar of the engine.  Captain Kyle and his brother Shane had saved the day!

Third stop: Newport, RI

            Rozalia Project docked at the Alofson Pier in Newport in the middle of the night.  We immediately passed out in our bunks to get some sleep in preparation for the busy 2 days in Newport.  Tuesday and Wednesday were action packed as over 100 young sailors from Sail Newport stopped by to learn about marine debris.  Between trash races, ROV, and one beach cleanup, we picked up 1,715 pieces of trash!  We couldn’t have done it without the excitement and enthusiasm of Sail Newport’s staff and sailors, so thank you all!

We are now safely in Boston preparing for another week of exciting education activities and marine debris removal.  Keep checking back to read more blog posts about some of the debris we are finding and don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and twitter too (facebook.com/rozaliaproject, @rozaliaproject)

Ahhhh, success...

So we are just wrapping up programming here at Sail Newport, and I can honestly say it was a great week. Not only did we get to interact with and educate a lot of kids, but we also pulled up an insane amount of trash out of the waters here surrounding Newport. It was incredible to see not only the amount of trash in the water but the forgotten and left behind derelict fishing gear. The Rozalia Project was able to pull 8 massive lobster traps out of the water. Even more shocking was the amount of trash built up in the actual fishing gear and traps; no could have predicted what we found in these traps, everything from beer cans and rubber gloves, to golf balls and PVC pipes. Essentially, there was an overwhelming amount of "trash within the trash." It was probably one of the most gratifying moments I have had thus far with the Project. Even the reactions on the kids' and instructors' faces around us indicated to me that we had shown them something that they would not soon forget. It was a great feeling to be apart of the team to pull those massive under water trash collectors out of the water.

Fortunately, this feeling of success has been one that has seemed to follow us throughout Rhode Island; in the past week we have been through Newport, Jamestown, Providence, and Bristol. While it has been extremely busy, it has also brought us some great kids and lots of opportunities to help communities clean their waters. Amazingly enough, these places while close in distance to each other, I found to be very different from each other. Providence seemed to possess its own kind of energy, and the Community Boating Center it is a wonderful place with an incredibly dedicated staff. Bristol and Jamestown were both quiet places for me, but we made some great finds. At the Herreshoff Museum in Bristol, we were able to take on the slightly different role of treasure hunter. There, employing the ROV and a little bit of diving, we were able to recover a beautiful antique bronze anchor, which we gladly handed over to the museum (it has a permanent home there, go check it out!).

Sloane

The Art of Going Slowly

We are just on the verge of our first Trash Bash Celebration for a Clean Ocean here at Providence Community Boating and taking some time to catch up on emails, phone calls, cleaning up the boat (and a little stand up paddleboarding on our new Bic SUP's).

It has been a great and satisfyingly crazy few days. My last post came from the daylight hours of what turned out to be a lovely and smooth, if not slow, overnight trip the length of Long Island Sound to Newport, RI. In some cases slow is good. Slow let us see 20+ firework shows at the same time along the length of the CT and Long Island shores. Slow let us enjoy only the sound of the water rather than the engine. Slow let us sail through The Race (the potentially extremely rough junction of Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean) very near slack tide. And slow let us arrive in Newport in the daylight to come alongside at the Museum of Yachting in Fort Adams. Despite the lack of sleep, we were happy to have a full day or recovery and some boat projects as well as time to watch the last start of the Transatlantic Race (go All-American Offshore team!!!).

After that, slow would not be the appropriate word for what has been going on... more like full-on. We had a great day with the kids at Conanicut yacht Club, around 92 of them! Thanks to a swiftly moving current it was not so much about picking up trash though we did recover a piece of dock fender, as it was about the ROV and the issues and problems of marine debris. CYC's director, Meg Myles, has been doing an excellent job integrating marine education with their sailing education and the kids were informed and excited to recognize creatures they had already learned about... as well as have an explore through the eel grass (which looked like swimming through a jungle). In many ways, I would rather fly the ROV around an environment full of fish, crab, sea urchins, starfish, colorful seaweed and little darting winter flounder than loads of trash. Unfortunately, we are not fooled by the clean bay as July 4th, Sloane, Laura and I picked up 2 huge bags of trash from the shores of Fort Adams in less than an hour.

Thanks to James' 5 am wake up and helming skills, we arrived in Providence in time to roll straight into trash pick up excitement with the Community Boating's STEM program (Science, technology, engineering and math) for the morning and then the sailing programs for the afternoon. This was the first stop where we had American Promise alongside a dock and it was very cool. We organized into stations: Laura gave boat tours teaching the sailors about the boat, its history, navigation and life at sea; Sloane led the net brigade recovering lots and lots of trash that was floating by on the fast moving tide and then sorting, measuring and recording the trash and I was in charge of the ROV/sonar/Smart Tether station.

Providence Community Boating was one of our pilot program stops and John and Will and their team of instructors do an incredible job giving the sport of sailing and access to the water to a diverse (and excited) group of kids and adults.

This stop saw us gain a piece of very exciting equipment, The KCF Smart Tether will let us know exactly where we are, where we are going and where we have been with the ROV, a luxury we have not yet had. We are especially excited to have this new piece of equipment going into the Newport stop where we know that derelict fishing gear is a problem. We will be marking the derelict traps we find so that Clean the Bay can come in behind us with their landing craft and pull it out!

So, the stats so far are approximately:
In 4 days of programs...300+ people have participated, we have picked up 500+ pieces of trash and have traveled a total of around 300 miles. We are on the verge of our first Trash Bash supported by the Boat US Foundation (yipppeeee, thanks to ALL of you who voted last month) and psyched to keep on rolling, meeting great people, having fun with the kids and picking up a whole lot of ocean trash.

If you or anyone you know are near any of our upcoming stops, we have lots of free and open to the public action:

Tonight (July 7): Trash bash, Providence Community Boating from 6-8pm
Friday July 8: Herreshoff Museum, Bristol, RI: boat tours in the afternoon
Saturday July 9: 10-3 trash hunting with the ROV off the docks
Sunday Jul 10: Time TBA boat tours
Wednesday July 13: 5-7pm Trash Bash at Sail Newport

Hope to cross paths (or wakes) with you soon,

rzm and the American Promise crew (right now: James, Sloane, Laura, Hickory and Smudge)