When Jeff and I rolled into Boca Chica we turned the corner at Carlos’ marina and were immediately drawn to another little boat with faded red topsides, an almost comical skull and crossbones painted on its hull and a url marching from for to aft: www.coastalfootprint.org. There is no shortage of abandoned boats out here, but very few of them have a means to probe their past. To sate our curiosity about this vessel we pulled up the website as soon as we had internet. That’s some effective advertising right there.
The Jolly Roger when she was still looking fresh. Source: http://baggywrinkles.wordpress.com/
This tiny 24 foot boat (see above), was sailed all the way down from Alaska by Captain Hoock (he was destined to captain a boat), organizing beach clean ups all along the way. In total, the crew collected and disposed of approximately “22,500 pounds of trash from the beaches and acquired data about the concentration of plastic in the ocean.” I don’t know what’s more impressive. That they collected that much trash…or that they sailed a 24 foot boat down from Alaska. Taken together, it’s one heckuva story
This story doesn’t have a proper ending though; we have no idea why Panama was the last port of call (they were originally bound for Chile). I suppose that’s true of most stories…I’m sure our story will just fizzle out or fade away because ultimately life just kind of happens. Ironically, the boat has been essentially abandoned…becoming tethered flotsam. Perhaps someone will adopt it and breathe life back into her sun baked bones, but for now she swings on her mooring as the tide rushes in and flushes out, like a pendulum marking the passage of time. Regardless of how this vessel came to rest in Panama, the coastal footprint crew has done some incredible work to clean up our ocean; we applaud what they accomplished and admire their renewed mission.
Our first introduction to the coastal footprint project came around the same time that we started seeing greater and greater amounts of trash in the water and on the beaches. It started in the Gulf of Fonseca where I watched countless plastic bottles flow past Serenity with the outgoing tide. At Islas Tortugas the amount of trash threatened to outnumber the fish we saw while snorkeling. We couldn’t even traverse the beach at Isla Uva due to the multitudes of garbage stacked precariously on the beach.
So, we’ve decided to help carry the torch, in a manner of speaking, along with other boats that are cruising in the wake of the original coastal footprint campaign.
Our first clean-up was at Isla Gamez in the Gulf of Chiriqui where we filled two gigantic trash bags with more than 30 pounds of trash. The most profuse offenders were beer cans, soda bottles, plastic plates and baby diapers (gross). The most toxic offenders were batteries that had been scorched in a beach fire, a propane bottle that had been thrown into the same fire, and a half full bottle of 40% DEET bug spray. That last one was particularly sad to see.
Isla Gamez is a gem of an island, loved and enjoyed by many. Keeping it that way is going to take more than just the sporadic beach clean-up; it requires a cultural shift. And that’s the hard part. In the mean time, we’ll do what we can, when we can, figuring it out as we go along.
Great work! Is there going to be an Uva clean up? That would take a barge to haul all that trash away.