A week of many exclamation points!!!!!!!!!

I have always linked big checks (physically as well as numerically big) with people who won the Publisher's Clearing House sweepstakes (if that was real). But thanks to your support and the hard work of James, Sloane, Laura, Laurie, Tom, our families, our partners and everyone who came aboard, voted, spread the word and helped with Rozalia Project this summer, we were selected as the national winners of the Interlux Waterfront Challenge! And with that honor came a big check (physically and numerically) of $20,000 to go toward our programs next year!

Interlux even brought me to the Ft. Lauderdale International Boat Show for the press conference and presentation of the award. It was a great day. Beyond just receiving the grant, I also got to talk with journalists from different parts of the marine world (from Soundings to Fisherman Magazine) and had the opportunity to tell and show people about Rozalia Project and what we do.

I have to admit that for a bit, we did know about this awesome award and were sworn to secrecy (which was a little tough I have to say) but this past week also brought a surprise honor.

In a smooth twist of scheduling, the VideoRay International Partners Symposium (VIPS) happened to be in Key Largo from Monday-Wednesday of last week. I am a regular attendee and presented about how Rozalia Project uses its quintet of technology together to achieve our goals. I also got to teach the new user workshop which I enjoy. This is a well attended event with incredibly bright people from all over the world and from throughout the underwater world. They use their VideoRay ROV's for everything from keeping our ports safe to search and recovery and underwater crime scene investigation to research and monitoring underwater structures. Our keynote speaker at the awards dinner was Chris Fischer from Ocearch. Those are the guys who catch, tag and release sharks - including great whites. And he uses VideoRay's to film the excitement.

The surprise of the week came right before Chris was about to speak, VideoRay gave out their yearly awards... and Rozalia Project won for Best Public Relations story! Brian Luzzi from VideoRay presented me with a beautiful clock/barometer set that will look great on American Promise (and of course tell us when the weather is about to change).

No time to bask in the glory, I am back in the office hard at work looking for interns, looking for partners, writing grants, sending out press releases, and organizing next year's schedule (and there must be more). But, it is certainly worth every minute now to tell all of you how much your support on Facebook, in the voting contests, by email and in person matters. Thank you for helping make this first full year one worthy of these awards.

Now we are psyched to see what we can do next year!!!

For a Clean Ocean and Lake,

rzm

Rozalia Project

Click here for the press release
Click here for a video interview taken by Fisherman Magazine at FLIBS

Study results: there is a lot of trash and derelict fishing gear, and we're learning where to find it!

We are now releasing reports and results from Rozalia Project's work this summer. We are kicking it off with our most recent expedition, the Isles of Shoals neuston net study...

Rozalia Project discovers marine debris densities of up to 105,564 pieces and 2.25 miles of monofilament and rope per square mile in the tidelines and current convergences 

east of the Isles of Shoals

Rozalia Project for a Clean Ocean conducted a 4 day neuston net survey of marine debris density and type in the waters around the Isles of Shoals of New Hampshire and Maine. This expedition was funded and supported by the Bonnell Cove Foundation of the Cruising Club of America.

The objective of the survey was to identify if marine debris/derelict fishing gear was found in greater densities in the proximity of tidelines and current convergences and if so, in what densities and make up. This research was conducted by the Rozalia Project as part of a larger ongoing study to come up with marine debris detection and removal methods.

METHODS:

The survey was conducted from Rozalia Project's 60 foot sailing research vessel American Promise, utilizing a 1 x 0.5 meter, 333µ neuston net (provided by Sea Education Association), towed from a spinnaker pole 15 feet off the starboard beam of the vessel at speeds ranging from 1.4 - 2.2 knots. Survey tracks were run in depths of water from 65-330 feet.

The net was washed down when lifted out, to move items stuck on the net down into the cod end jar. The cod end jar was removed and contents sieved through paper towel. Fish, jelly fish and lobster larvae were returned to the sea immediately. The remaining sample was thoroughly inspected by eye for microplastics, fishing line and other marine debris. Once marine debris was removed, remaining organic matter and plankton were returned to the sea. All marine debris items collected were identified, catalogued and those under 2” stored. Larger items of marine debris such as plastic bags were recycled or properly disposed of on land.

Eight trawls, each 1 nautical mile in length were completed (see image below).

• Trawls 1 and 2 were conducted west of White Island, Isles of Shoals
• Trawls 3 and 4 were conducted on Old Scantum ledge, 8 miles SE of Isles of Shoals
• Trawls 5 and 6 were conducted 1-4 miles east of Smuttynose Island, Isles of Shoals
• Trawl 7 was conducted 2 miles west of Appledore Island, Isles of Shoals
• Trawl 8 was conducted 1.5 miles east of Smuttynose Island, Isles of Shoals
• Trawl 5 was the only trawl that was conducted through a visually identified tideline. Seaweed, foam and floating micro, meso and macro marine debris were all observed on the surface in this trawl area.
• Trawls 3 through 8 were conducted under sail

The ledges to the east of the Isles of Shoals are a convergent/upwelling zone on the outer bend of a slowing Western Maine Coastal Current (see figure left). This is potentially a temporary terminus area for marine debris that has travelled half of the Gulf of Maine Gyre past some of North America's busiest commercial fishing areas of Nova Scotia and Coastal Maine. In addition, it is an area in proximity to and encompassing marine mammal habitat and feeding grounds such as Jeffrey’s Ledge, seasonal home to minke, finback, and humpback whales as well as the endangered Atlantic right whale.

Using daily sea surface temperature satellite pictures, we identified where the cold water of the Western Maine Coastal Current upwelled to converge with warmer inshore waters, this convergence on September the 13th produced a  visually defined tideline, as we sailed 1.0 miles east from Smuttynose island on the Isle of Shoals. The tideline was in a SW-NE axis. We conducted Trawl 5 at a 90 degree angle to the tideline, and bisected it at the 0.5 nautical mile distance of the 1 nautical mile length trawl.

Right: This image was taken at 1800 UTC, September 13, 2011. The red lines to the left show the border between Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. The convergence is labeled with a black line and the track of Trawl 5 in red.

RESULTS:

1. Trawls 1,2,3,4,6,7,8 yielded an average of 4.714 pieces of marine debris. This equals: 8,731 pieces of marine debris per nautical square mile
2. Trawls 1,2,3,4,6,7,8 yielded derelict fishing gear in the form of monofilament fishing line and rope/net fiber that made up 30.3% of the marine debris collected in these trawls
3. Trawl 5 bisected a visible tideline and yielded 57 pieces of marine debris. This equals: 105,564 pieces of marine debris per nm²
4. Trawl 5 yielded derelict fishing gear in the form of monofliament fishing line and rope/net fiber that made up 66% of the marine debris collected in this trawl
5. Trawl 5 contained 22 pieces of monofilament that averaged 3.2cm/piece totaling 70.4cm
6. Trawl 5 contained 16 pieces of rope/net fiber that averaged 9.6cm/piece totaling 154.1cm
7. Trawl 5 contained 224.5cm total length of monofilament and fiber. This equals 2.245 nm of monofilament and rope/net fiber per nm²
8. Tidelines and current convergences can yield up to:

• 105,564 pieces of marine debris/nm²
• 2.25 nautical miles of monofilament, fishing line and rope and net fiber/nm²

CONCLUSIONS:

1. More research is needed to increase the number of tidelines, convergences that are sampled by neuston net to give a good representative sample
2. There is a higher density of floating marine debris associated with visible tidelines and convergences
3. There is a higher density of floating derelict fishing gear associated with visible tidelines and convergences
4. The Western Maine Coastal Current has a high density of floating derelict fishing gear

FUTURE:

Rozalia Project is planning another expedition in 2012 to conduct neuston net trawls in tidelines and current convergences of the Western Maine coastal current. We will be working with the Blue Ocean Society of Portsmouth, NH, who have representatives on several whale watching boats. Their observers will contact us with the location of visible tidelines between the Isle of Shoals and Jeffrey's Ledge, allowing us to start mapping their location and size, as well as streamline our locating tidelines on a daily basis to run trawls. We also hope to partner with local draggers, lobstermen and tuna fishermen to provide us with additional realtime tidal data.

Jeffrey's Basin and Ledge are critical whale feeding areas, where a variety of marine mammals are frequently observed surface feeding. These areas of upwelling and current convergences with high densities of monofilament and rope/net fiber may also be locations where there are higher densities of plankton and copepods on which the whale feeds, thus increasing the risk of potentially harmful marine debris ingestion by the whales.

The high density of marine debris in these tidelines makes it feasible to remove. Rozalia Project is in the process of designing a trawl net that removes marine debris, but does not harm the plankton and other organisms that are bi-catch in the neuston net trawl. Our intent is that if results are successful, we will scale this marine debris net up to commercial size, so that fishing boats can be employed to trawl tidelines  for marine debris when they have exceeded fishing quota or due to grounds closure.

Thanks to this study, Rozalia Project is making the removal of marine debris and derelict fishing gear in the vicinity of the Western Maine Coastal Current a priority; for the protection of the oceans on the whole and the whales and marine mammals who call these waters home.

For more information about our work, to secure a berth on American Promise (intern opportunities available) or to support our work going into next season, please give Rachael a call 802-578-6120 or send us an email: rachael@rozaliaproject.org.

Stay tuned for next Wednesday's report about our side scan sonar survey for the Blue Ocean Society locating derelict fishing gear off the NH seacoast. And please remember to vote for us in the Interlux Waterfront Challenge facebook contest (last day to vote is Friday September 30th: https://www.facebook.com/interluxwaterfrontchallenge scroll down until you find Rozalia Project and click LIKE right under our description!

Many hands to pick up a lot of trash... the ICC comes to Vermont!

Though we have been doing the vast majority of our work along the (east) New England coast, it was very exciting to come home to VT for some marine debris work right on Lake Champlain on the west coast of New England. Saturday, Rozalia Project headed up Vermont's involvement in the Ocean Conservancy's International Coastal Clean-up. Vermont was one of only 4 states not to participate last year and that is ridiculous... our lake is huge, spans two countries AND directly connects us to the ocean via two major rivers so we really have no choice but to participate.

And thank goodness we did. It will be very interesting to see what we find next year because this year, we were all shocked at the amount of trash that was picked up within 1/8th of a mile on either side of the Lake Champlain Community Sailing Center, our hosts for the afternoon. The reason next year will be telling is that this clean up came on the heels of two brutal disasters for the Champlain Valley and Vermont/Upstate New York. Last spring the lake stayed feet above flood level for over a month destroying waterfront property, docks and more. And of course, just over over two weeks ago, with Hurricane Irene, Vermont had it's worst flooding in nearly 100 years with the Winooksi River, among others, at 23 feet above flood stage. The Winooski drains into the Lake and the destruction caused by Irene had marine debris in the form of people's homes and whole yards  as well as many of the state's roads and bridges washing down our rivers.  

Among the haul, we certainly can attribute the large metal canoe and municipal intake pipe as results of the storm. However, nearly 70 pounds of recycling  and the majority of the 409 pounds in 1,864 pieces of trash looked more careless in nature. We followed close to expected worldwide numbers with our top five items (in numbers of items):

Food wrappers: 293

Cigarettes: 275

Styrofoam pieces: 254

Caps and lids: 217

Plastic bottles: 153

Other finds included the expected cups, cans, glass bottles, tape and plastic sheet as well as the less expected shotgun shells, tires and light bulbs with a bit of the wish-we-didn't-see-it thrown in - syringes (2), condoms (12), diapers (4) and a pair of undergarments. Eew.

As you know, I really love getting and seeing trash taken out of any body of water and I am psyched with the haul. But, a big highlight of the day was the people. There was a college sailing regatta happening at the same time, they were delayed due to lack of wind for much of the afternoon which was great for us. We have to thank all of the sailors who helped especially the Middlebury College Sailing Team. They rocked the clean up bringing back 6 overstuffed bags of trash and recycling plus tires and the intake tube - the whole time looking like they were having fun. My kind of people. I think I might have found an intern or two for next year from that group as well! We also had a great turn out from UVM. Coco, their sailing coach, singlehandedly filled two big bags with trash and kept the data card accurate and we had some more students come down the hill to scour the shore by foot and by kayak. It was a group of 3 UVM students who teamed up with Tom Peterson and his 30' sailboat and crew (Tom joined us on American Promise this summer) to recover the aluminum canoe off the rocks (among other bits of trash and recycling).

One of my favorite parts of the day were the kids. We had a bunch of families come down and the kids worked as hard if not harder than their parents. I LOVE seeing that (and all the kids who stayed for the Trash Bash got t-shirts, I couldn't resist).

As always we are rarely able to do anything alone and this day was no exception. Our first thank you is to everyone who came and helped picking up trash and keeping good record of what they found. I want to thank my friend Marsi Foster for giving up an afternoon at the harvest festival with her family to help me at the registration desk (she was perfect). The Lake Champlain Community Sailing Center were excellent hosts, as always, and a big shout out to Colin for giving us Chris, Bill and the other volunteers when your work was done. Thanks to CSC's efforts, CSWD is going to do a free dumpster pick up to remove the trash from the day. And to Gary Kjellen for cleaning up on South Hero and making the trek to Burlington to drop off his data card and say a few words about the Lake Champlain Committee.

Looking ahead we are psyched and inspired to keep the ball rolling in Vermont. Our mission is marine debris, we are Vermonters and we just had a wake up call that Vermont has no less marine debris than many of the coastal sites we visited.

Stay tuned as we head up additional clean ups this fall and next year's ICC in Vermont will be even bigger and more effective with sits across the state!

Thank you again for a great day and a great start to what I am optimistic will be many bigger, better ICC's and best of all, a much, much cleaner Lake Champlain.

rzm

Contest winners! We are dedicating a day of ocean clean-up to...

Andy and Pat Deshaies of Snow Island ME and Ursula King of Wellesley, MA. On our last outing in Portland for the Dodge Morgan celebration and then again for the presentation on Chebeague Island, we had cards for people to enter their names for a day of ocean clean up in their name. Now that the amazing road, power and phone crews of Vermont have reconnected us, we are happy to announce the randomly drawn winners from each event.

This means that on our next Rozalia Project outing on American Promise, we will work even harder on the days assigned to each of our winners and report on our progress. Thank you to everyone who submitted their names to receive our updates and keep in touch with our progress and programs.

A note about Hurricane Irene: We would like to say a big thank you to the Kittery Point Yacht Yard for their care and attention to detail keeping American Promise safe last weekend. When I woke up on Monday morning to find out that Granville was isolated from the rest of the world physically (we only have 3 ways out and all three had large sections of road and whole bridges washed away) as well as verbally (no power, no phone, only have 1 bar of cell coverage on one small part of one road and no internet), it was such a huge relief to hear, through the static of a bad connection, that the boat was 100% fine. I would also like to thank everyone who offered their help (to backpack or mountain bike food in to me, Hickory and Smudge or to bring in a generator, etc.), we are fortunate across the board. Our sympathies are with the people who lost homes and businesses.

The amount of debris caused by and carried around by the flooding here in the middle of Vermont is staggering. It will be interesting to see what we find on the coast as far as hurricane debris goes since all of that water was rushing to the sea. In the case of VT's floods it all headed either to Lake Champlain or out the Connecticut River to Long Island Sound.

We are off for our next Rozalia Project marine debris mission starting this weekend. We will be looking at convergence zones between cold and warm water and inspecting the entire water column to see if we can find areas of increased debris accumulation associated with these boundaries.

We hope you and your families are well after the storm and enjoying Labor Day weekend. Congrats to our winners!

rzm

A new captain, no trash and a lobster attack (or 2)

For the first time, rather than James, I was in charge of the boat. Of the engine. Of getting on and off docks and moorings. And finally of preparing the boat for a hurricane in whose path she sits. I feel completely confident with navigation and confident in interpreting multiple weather forecasts, but James had the helm for all of the tricky maneuvers this summer. He, however, got a great job coaching at the Canada's Cup and we had some exciting plans for Rozalia Project so it was time to step up.

To start with the end - we did it without any drama - other than the lobster boat and tug boat

racing in Portland and some crazy attack lobsters going after the ROV off Chebeague Island. No surprises or broken equipment. Docking was all smooth. And even better, we enjoyed some of the best sailing all summer for the trip from Kittery to Portland and then from Chebeague back to Kittery. This may sound dramatic but going into this summer James really had the majority of the really big boat experience and knowledge.

All of this is really thanks to the solid, calm, competence of our friends and crew, Ernie

and Bette Reuter as well as Sloane's great sense of humor, willingness to do whatever is needed and my dad coming in as the 5th crew member at the halfway point. Having Ernie next to me for some tight u-turns in high current and very little space was huge; having Bette, as reliable as ever, keeping the bow in the wind while we wrestled with the main to get it nice and neat while not running into lobster traps and having everyone work together to discover new and easier ways to accomplish everything from putting sails away to launching the dinghy to dining on some straight-up deliciousness was awesome. We are grateful for their help. I am not sure they realize how much it meant to me to have such a smooth first, James-less mission.

Though we did not have any boat-related drama, I am happy to say that we did get to have some adventures. We were in our first parade! We joined in at the back of the MS Regatta Parade of Sail (sailboats under motor). That was fun - we figure American Promise was recognized by about 1/2 of the fleet and she will feature in a lot of people's photos from the day. We did not race but put up the sails

and hammered around the harbor reaching back and forth to watch as what looked like a hundred boats or more started and headed out to the harbor entrance buoy and back. Afterward I was treated to a visit by one of my best friends to meet her baby (who clearly is going to be a sailor judging on his fascination with the boat and his total coolness on Promise) and spend some time with her husband and parents (some of our favorite people).

The next day was the Dodge Morgan 25th anniversary celebration (of his record-breaking circumnavigation). It did not start until 4 so we had some time to move to a mooring

(to avoid getting pushed up against the dock by the wakes of the race boats) and watch the festivities. The lobster boat racers were up first and they started showing up to register at Portland Yacht Services at around 9:15 beer in hand, friends onboard and boats looking spiffy. The racing was great fun to watch with the boats getting bigger and faster with every heat. The racing ended with the huge tug boats going head to head. I am a fan of tug boats. I think they are cool. They are not exactly meant to skim above the water and pushed a huge wall of water ahead of them when at full tilt. Luckily we were on the mooring as the wakes were almost surfable.

Sloane, Ernie and Bette did a spectacular job getting the boat ready for the reception and after coming back to the dock, we headed off to the PYS Room with a View to watch Around Alone, the video from Dodge Morgan's voyage. I have seen the movie many times but it was extra exciting to see it while living and sailing on the boat. The Maine Maritime Museum was

gracious enough to let me introduce myself to the crowd (around 150 people) and invite them to tour the boat and learn about what we do... when the skies opened. Full-on

thunder, lightning and torrential rain.

Despite the rain, we had around 60 people wait for a break in the weather to come aboard. We met some great people some of whom had sailed on American Promise when Dodge had her. People were genuinely interested in our work and we are excited to keep in touch with a lot of the people we met.

The next day we were off through a carpet of lobster trap buoys to Chebeague Island

in Casco Bay. This was thanks to Manny Morgan and her partner Chris who were excellent hosts. We had around 60 island residents come aboard American Promise for a marine debris program. But, there was no marine debris! This was our first location without any trash for us to pick up. We did get to look at (and get chased by) some incredibly large lobster and crab on the

lovely and clean sea floor off the Chebeague Boat Yard. After that excitement we went to Manny and Chris' lovely house on the water for a delicious and fun dinner then back to the boatyard so I could give a presentation about Rozalia Project. We had an engaged and fun audience (I love giving presentations) and it

was great to be able to include photos from the day including a video from one of our lobster attacks (on the ROV) and some photos of the local kids wearing American Promise t-shirts that Manny Morgan gave me to give away (the shirts were from Dodge's homecoming 25 years ago)!

The night ended with Ernie as chauffeur bringing us all back to the boat via dinghy on a beautiful, cool, star-filled night.

Tuesday was all about sailing back to Kittery and it was beautiful. Not much to say other than that - American Promise sails great and there were grins all around as we fetched our way southwest going anything from 5-9 knots.

Wednesday was all about Irene prep. Sloane and I worked from 7am to 11pm to get Promise as ready as possible for high wind and a lot of water. We put on a bit of a show for the guys at Kittery Point Yacht Yard as we wrestled the main into submission getting it off the mast, folded and down below. It took a fair amount of pushing, pulling, crawling and then mercifully, halyarding. We also deflated the dinghy and put it down below with the headsails and everything on deck that could fly away including the paddleboards. We tied Promise to the dock with multiple bow, stern and spring lines, inflated the fenders, secured the halyards, dogged the hatches and left at 5am Thursday to get Sloane to the airport and back to her senior year of college.

So now, I am back in VT reunited with Hickory and Smudge. The house is about as far from the eye as the boat just on the west side (which is a touch better than being on the NE side of a hurricane where the boat is, though our forecast includes 8" of rain and up to 60 knots of breeze here in the mountains). I am confident that the boat is in as safe a place as it can be and in the very competent hands of the guys at KPYY.

The plan for our next mission (the last of the summer with the boat) is to do some research looking at accumulations of marine debris from the surface to the sea floor associated with the boundaries of the Eastern Maine Coastal Current. But, we will see how the next 48 hours play out. If Irene hammers the coast, we will change the plan and use our equipment to help coastal communities with debris clean up, locating and recovering anything big (or small) that might have sunk.

We are hoping for the best, not just for us, but for all the millions of people along Irene's path. I am guessing that includes many of you who are reading this... so, good luck. May you stay dry and have nothing more to talk about come Monday than your photos of some cool clouds.

rzm

Technology Starfish style and a beautiful place

After a week in the mountains (awesome) of not necessarily rest but a different kind of work (OK, yes a little rest) we are back in action on American Promise. The Blue Ocean Society (who are dedicated to marine conservation and do a huge amount of work in everything from marine mammal conservation to beach clean ups to awareness campaigns - getting people to clean up after their dogs...) brought us in to do some survey work as part of a NOAA Marine Debris to Energy Grant. The goal this week is to look for and identify derelict fishing gear off the NH coast.

This is exciting because it marks the shift in focus for us from the trash pickup/education part of the summer to trash pick up/research part. We are getting to get a little farther from the docks and putting the equipment through some different challenges. Yesterday was

all about the Starfish side scan sonar. Tritech is the company who makes the Starfish and who generously donated this unit for the season. This is a small, towed sonar that looks down and to the side. It 'sees' objects by giving us both bright returns and showing shadows (see photo right). The equipment is incredibly easy to set up and get running and the challenge is to learn to read the images. We are getting better and look forward to today when we do more with the Starfish and hopefully put the VideoRay down for some confirmation video.

This week is also cool because we have interns from the Blue Ocean Society aboard helping us. Yesterday's crew: Abby, Mike and Ben were great each contributing their expertise and experience from getting the GPS that goes with the Starfish to work to giving us lots of excellent info on the local marine mammals (they are in the photo at the bottom getting ready to set off for the day). We're looking forward to having them back and meeting more for the next few days.

As high tech as the Starfish and ROV, we found the iPad to be an amazing tool for our work yesterday. We used the Navionics chart plotting app to show our transects and then put in waypoints of areas of interest. Then, we were able to bring that info over to Google Earth and get some quick visual info. Even our interns (classically trained in handheld GPS units and GIS software) were impressed!

Lastly, but by no means least, I have to say how beautiful a spot we are in. James found the Kittery Point Yacht Yard by looking for a place to moor for the week that was protected and on the seaward side of the bridge that leads to Portsmouth proper (where the headquarters of Blue Ocean Society is located). It is beautiful and even better, the guys who run this yard are friendly, helpful, know their stuff boat-wise and are interested in what we are doing. They are psyched to be the hosts of the Trash Bash tomorrow and have allowed us to be on the dock rather than the mooring (yipppee).

Speaking of support, this week is also made possible with the help of Optima Bank. They helped us get American Promise in the first place and are enthusiastically supporting what we are doing with her. We even get Carol from Optima onboard to help with the survey work tomorrow.

So, as I head off for day 2 of the survey, I want to say thank you to Tritech, Blue Ocean Society, KPYY and Optima Bank and to invite you all to the Trash Bash tomorrow (Thursday August 4) from 5-7 at the Kittery Point Yacht Yard. Thanks to Boat US Foundation, we will have drinks, food and goodies to give away and the event is free and open to the public.

Watch the coming storms.

rzm

ps. I could have done an entire post on this... but on the way here from Boston we say 7 Minke whales, a seal and a jumping tuna! See the Rozalia Project facebook page for photos from that day.

Kilroy was here

...or I should say, thanks to Kilroy Realty Corporation, Rozalia Project was here (in Boston). This was a big, huge stop of the Trash Tour: full of trash now out of the water, full of kids and adults learning about the problem of marine debris and full of some excellent support that made this week happen.

It all started with a spectacular sail from the Cape Cod canal, along the Mass coast and into Boston. Luckily Will Lippit from Providence Community Boating joined us for the trip and thanks to his presence, we were able to keep the sails up and short tack our way up the last 2 channels into Boston Harbor into 27 knots with just the 4 of us (Smudge and Hickory stayed wedged between the edge of the cockpit and the liferaft so I am not counting them as crew for this trip).

American Promise and Rozalia Project were hosted by Couragous Sailing and their excellent team of instructors and directors. They could not have been more enthusiastic or accommodating and (through no fault of their own) in need of our trash pick up services. The very first evening we were there, Sloane and I walked the docks with the nets and picked up 174 pieces of trash, much of it micro plastic. The next day we rented a car and headed south as I had the honor and pleasure of presenting about Rozalia Project at the Woods Hole Public Library. This little town on the Cape is the home of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, Sea Education Association, the Marine Biological Lab and a lot of smart, movers and shakers of the underwater world. One, Jeffrey Brodeur of Woods Hole Sea Grant, arranged the presentation and treated us to a tour of WHOI. We even got to see Alvin (and in a moment of joyous geekiness, we took pictures in the frame of this famed manned submersible) and we met some of WHOI's scientists and underwater technology pioneers. Very cool.

After Woods Hole, everything started heating up literally and figuratively. We were very lucky to have some well needed and excellent help from Susan Shingledecker and Alanna Keating from the Boat US Foundation who joined us on the boat at Courageous (yippee). We ran 2 full-on days with the Courageous Sailing program kids and the Charlestown Navy Yard basin where Courageous operates is a target rich environment. The VideoRay equipped with Blueview sonar and Lyyn image enhancement were working overtime to find piles of beer cans, bottles, a few bilge pumps, some boat parts and a fair amount of big debris. We had over 107 kids and instructors participating on American Promise as netters, tether handlers, sonar operators and copilots. The next day, we kept going with another 80 sailors joining in the trash hunt or coming back for more. Thanks to the Blueview sonar, we were even able to help a dive team locate an old mooring block for future removal (the visibility was so bad, that the diver simply could not find what he was looking for). We did another dock walk in addition to the work underwater and picked up another 593 pieces of trash!

Friday was dedicated to Boston Community Boating and the Charles River. We had visited

CBI last year as part of the pilot program so we knew they had a lot of sailors and another target rich environment and this year did not disappoint. They have a beautiful new dock system and we set up near the Western end. Right from the start we knew this was going to feature our most varied and interesting recoveries yet. In the record 102 degree heat we used the ROV to

pull up: a wind sock, cans, boat parts, a whole outfit worth of trash: shorts, socks, a sneaker

(Nike), baseball cap, belt, glove, 3 pairs of sunglasses (none of value) and a glow necklace. We also scored CBI back a full Mercury mainsail that had been purchased the year before and a 30'+ lifting strap. Our most interesting find of the day however, was a Hood milk bottle that, at our first round of research, appears to be very old. It is stamped 1938 on the bottom and we are still working on ways to confirm its age. We still have some of the micro-plastics to count from the day at CBI but we picked up well over 200 pieces of trash and had around 220 people join us during the day or in the afternoon for the Trash Bash. And we appreciate my parents coming out in the ridiculous heat to check out the operation and even help with the tether and netting some bottles, cans and plastic out of the water!

This was our biggest week yet and we have some important companies and people to thank for making it happen with their financial and in-person support:

Thanks to:Kilroy Realty Corporation

Boat US Foundation

Courageous Sailing

Boston Community Boating

Woods Hole Sea Grant

along with our tech partners (VideoRay, Blueview, Lyyn, Tritech and KCF) this week we...

-picked up 1758+ pieces of trash including an historic bottle, Mercury mainsail, 3 pairs of sunglasses, Nike sneaker and pirate flag
-had 407+ people of all ages participate in the program, help get marine debris out of Boston Harbor and the Charles River and get to connect with their underwater world

If you want to check out more photos from our Courageous stop, photographer Russ Bolt took some great ones. See: http://gallery.me.com/russbolt#100094

We are now back in Vermont for a little bit of rest and then some solid work on the phone and on the computer. We have some projects that need finishing, people that need talking to, reports to make, a video to edit and we realized it will all be easier on land (and the dogs are thrilled). More later in the week as we look back at this first phase of the Trash Tour and plan for the next which will still be all about trash pick up action but this time with more of a research focus.

Thank you to everyone who made Boston week and the whole Trash Tour to date amazing. More stats and reports to come.

Stay cool.

rzm and the Rozalia Project/American Promise crew