If you've ever lost a shoe, it's most likely in Australia

Since my last blog post, I've made my way to the Northern Territory of Australia and have had some really incredible opportunities. This past week was spent on the Groote Eylandt Island in the Gulf of Carpentaria visiting the Anindilyakwa Land Council- an indignenous ranger group that works in association with the Carpentaria Ghost Nets Program attending to the derelict fishing nets that wash up on the shores of the gulf.

I wasn't entirely sure what to expect of Groote Eylandt, but was certain it was remote. Each time I mentioned the name of the island to an Australian, I received a very clueless look in response. And the 18-seater hopper plane I took carried 5 other passengers forthe 2 hour flight- most of which appeared to be researchers. Upon arrival, I was picked up by Keith and Navel- two rangers from the Anindilyakwa Land Council- and taken to a small market to gather grocieries before making the hour journey out to the villiage of Umbakumba. This is where Keith and his family live and where I would be staying for the week; a beautiful aboriginal community on the coast with red dirt roads and colorful homes.

At night, I joined the men as they spear fished by moonlight at low tide. Eager for me to try their favorite treats, we caught sea urchin after sea urchin- cracking them open right there on the shore and sucking the meat out raw. A bit gritty with sand, they weren't bad, although I certainly preferred the mud crab and small fish we steamed later.

During the day, I joined the rangers on their beach patrols. We'd drive the coastline in search for nets, stopping to collect and record each one. They use a booklet provided to them by the Carpentaria Ghost Nets Program to identify, when possible, the origin of each net. We'd measure the twine size and mesh size, count the strands, and identify the color as we paged through pages of foreign nets. Most of the nets we collected were trawl or gill nets from Indonesia, Thailand, and Taiwan. I should note that none of the nets that we were able to identify were from Australian fisheries.

Keith, and another ranger, Philip, also helped me out on a general rubbish clean up of about 2o0 meters of beach. Between laudry baskets, garbage bins, large plastic floats, lighters and light bulbs, the three of us collected nearly 1000 items with a total weight of 31 kilograms (just about 70 pounds). Over ten percent of the items collected were shoes. And I found the most interesting thing I've found so far on my cleanups: a pretty weathered shot gun.

Next stop: The Cobourg Peninsula in Northern Territory, Australia

The 100 shoes and flip flops collected on a 200 meter stretch of beach on Groote Eylandt

(That's about one shoe every 6 feet)

Two ladies taking a stroll through Umbakumba

Philip and I after a clean up on Groote Eylandt

Friendly locals living on the Darwin Harbor

To Cooktown and Back

After a night's stay at The Rocks in Sydney (although I wish I could have had much longer...) I made my way up to beautiful Port Douglas on the eastern coast of Northern Queensland. My next stop was Cooktown- the northernmost city on the east coast- to meet with a group of marine conservationalists. So I rented a car in Port Douglas and started on my journey across the Cape York Peninsula. The first 20 or so miles were on winding roads through lush mountains, which quickly turned to a straight-away two lane road through a very dry, tropical savanna. The dirt was a deep red and the grasslands looked nearly dead, they were so dry. Cruising at about 130 (km per hour, of course) I drove the nearly 300 kilometers north, stopping periodically for pictures and cattle blocking the roadway. With no radio, no cell phone service and only a handful of other cars on the road, I took the time to let it sink in that I was really in Australia. From bush fires to kangaroos and wild horses, I passed it all on Route 81. Even got stopped by one of the infamous road trains, which are semi trucks that can be up to 50 meters long. Although the one in front of me was only about 20 meters long, it was still a trouble to pass.

On the way up, I stopped at a small peninsula known as Archer's Point to do a beach survey. I'd heard it was a "hotspot" for rubbish and quickly found that to be the case. After about 2 and a half hours of cleaning only 200 ft of beach, I picked up nearly 800 pieces of trash, weighing over 10 pounds. Finding anything from plastic chess pieces to flip flops and insecticide cans in every language from English to Spanish to Japanese, I found that most of the debris was plastic and a significant amount was from Papua New Guinea. The sun was setting as I packed up all of my gear and as I ascended the bluff up to my car, I noticed a crocodile lingering in the mangroves. I cringed thinking about how long it had been there..

It was dark by the time I arrived in Cooktown, but it was certainly not hard to find my way around. The town had one main road which deadended into the harbor. The only building showing any sign of occupancy was the local pub, and I'm pretty sure the whole town was there. It doubled as a hotel, so I was able to book a room and buy a beer all on the same tab. After a bit of chit chat and a game of pool, I was off to bed to get up for the workshop in the morning.

Speaking with marine biologists and conservationists from all over Australia and New Zealand, I was a bit shocked by what I was repeatedly told. And I think Queensland's "King of Rubbish" said it best: "the Australian governments don't give a toss about the environment." I heard story after story about devastating environmental issues that the government refuses to get involved with.

Well I just returned from a very packed pub here in Port Douglas to watch the State of Origin Rugby match- the biggest game of the year between Queensland and New South Whales. (Queensland won for anyone interested..) But I have an early morning of diving on the Great Barrier, so I'm off to bed!

Cattle along the roadway
View from Archer's Point where I did my clean up

Black Mountain National Park- basically mountain-size piles of big black boulders

Kangaroo Crossing

Bush fires on Route 81

Final Days in Hawaii

Well, my time in Hawaii is quickly reaching an end and I'll be headed off to Australia on Saturday. Thought I'd catch up on my blog before I left... It's been a busy 2 weeks, but really informative and certainly a great way to start of my trip!

I spent a long weekend on the Big Island, where I stayed with a retiree from NOAA- originally a civil servant for the US Navy and sent to the Northwest Hawaiian Islands in the late 1970's to look at the declining monk seal population. Finding seals entangled in anything from derelict fishing nets to life vests, his focus quickly turned to the issue of marine debris. He now coordinates a beach cleanup every couple months for the southern tip of Big Island. During a cleanup on Saturday, we recorded a collection of over 27,000 pieces (about 2000 pounds) of marine debris, the majority being plastics. Throughout Friday and Saturday, we removed nearly two tons of nets off the rocky shores. Through past cleanup participants' stories and pictures, I learned that the coastal litter situation on South Point has greatly improved since the cleanups began in 2003... hard to believe it could've been much worse!

But I have to admit, my time on Big Island wasn't all work! The couple I stayed with live at 4,000 foot elevation on Kilauea Volcano so I had plenty of free time to hike and explore the craters. Also spent a night camping on the beach with a couple graduate students from University of Hawai'i Hilo, although was awoken in the middle of the night by the painful bite of a Hawaiian centipede..

Back on O'ahu, I've been staying with the Pacific Island Marine Debris Coordinator for the NOAA Marine Debris Program and her husband, a geologist at the University of Hawaii. They're hospitality has helped me to do and see as much as possible during the last few days of my stay! I got a chance to go Scuba Diving yesterday and was lucky enough to see a couple endangered Hawaiian Green Sea Turtles, which were surprisingly sociable and swam right along with me for quite some time.

Today, after an early morning at the Honolulu fish auction (a really unique event where the night's catch is auctioned off literally one fish at a time to a refrigerated room full of seasoned buyers), I checked out the bin where any used or derelict fishing nets or lines can be dumped. The discarded gear is then cut up and incinerated to produce energy through the newly established and quickly successful Nets to Energy Program. Later this afternoon, after an underwater cleanup with a gentleman from the local dive shop, I fit in a final meeting with a few more marine debris experts.

Between work and play, I've had a really productive and rewarding time in Hawai'i. I could not have found more generous people to have come in contact with- their guidance and interest in my project has given me the insight and experience needed to confidently tackle the issue during my future stops around the globe.

See you in Australia!

South Point on Big Island- the southern most point of the U.S.

Cleanup on the Ka'u Coast on Big Island

Pulling in nets from the rocky shores

"Confetti"

Aloha

After being dropped off at the Detroit airport yesterday by my oh-so-appropriately dressed parents (My dad in a Hawaiian shirt and my mom with a lei around her neck) I made it to Hawaii in the early evening. I spent the day today at NOAA in Honolulu to meet with representatives of the NOAA Marine Debris Program and the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary. After a morning and afternoon of discussing marine debris, I was taken on a really nice tour of O'ahu by a gentleman from the local dive shop. He spends a lot of his time collecting lead weights lost by fishermen during his dives to melt and recycle them into dive weights. He showed me the lead "hotspots" around the island, which he'll take me diving to next week. I leave in the morning to head to Big Island for an extensive beach cleanup on the South Point- the area with the most accumulation of marine debris within the 8 main Hawaiian Islands. Should be a great way to start out my trip. Well, the internet cafe is closing and shooing me out!

Aloha!

Itinerary

My plane tickets have been bought and I'm due to leave May 19th, returning in mid-August. Here is my basic itinerary:

Hawaii- Oahu and Big Island (2 weeks)
Australia- Adelaide, Darwin, remote parts of the Northern Territory, and possibly the Great Barrier Reef (3 weeks)
The Maldives- Male and the western face of the Male Reef (1.5 weeks)
South Africa- Cape Town and along the Southeastern Coast of South Africa (2 weeks)
United Kingdom- Plymouth, the Jurassic Coast, and possibly Edinburgh (3 weeks)
Iceland- Reykjavik and Skaftafell (1.5 weeks)

I have chosen each of these regions due to their locations within an ocean current system that facilitates the transport of marine debris around the globe, inundating the coasts with trash.