22 August 2010 Sunday
Latitude 34 degrees 33 minutes
Longitude 145 degrees 19 minutes
Sailing Master Stephen Mann has been using his ham radio expertise for phone patches that assist our mission. The Pacific Seafarers Net, the Manana Net and the California- Hawaii Net and the whole ham radio community have allowed us to have brief talks with our families, and to talk to the techs who are helping us get our satellite communications system up and operating. All of us on board extend our sincere gratitude for the time and assistance given to us by the wonderful ham radio operators. Ham operators are often the unsung heroes who save lives in medical emergencies through phone patches with doctors, and by helping people with important communications all over the world.
Today started out overcast but then cleared. The debris is similar that encountered in the last 72 hours. Today, we are doing transects for NOAA, charted by Captain Vince Kelly. We are continuing our debris logging and counting system. Everyone is working hard sighting and cataloging individual pieces of garbage. We have one person on the bow, and one to two people up in the rig who are spotters. Another person is stationed in the wheelhouse and via radio from the spotters they catalog all trash sightings. There are times when it’s challenging to keep up with reporting the description, latitude, longitude and volume of sightings.
After the two transects, at the end of the day, we set sails and headed SW with twelve sails flying. Another great night with moon, stars and a short rain squall.
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