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!
ld 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.
nd 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.
marking the derelict traps we find so that Clean the Bay can come in behind us with their landing craft and pull it out!