Journey to the center of the trash
More on the mind-boggling Great Pacific Garbage Patch: it’s now the object of a grail quest across the ocean. Scientists from the Algalita Marine Research Foundation and videographer Drew Wheeler have set sail on a two month voyage to study and sample the Patch and document its impact on marine wildlife. Wheeler has been keeping a video log of the journey as well as blogging regularly for Scientific American about it. New vocabulary for the day: ‘ghost net’.
A ghost net is a ball of assorted debris, mostly fishing net, left floating in the ocean that can be very dangerous to an unsuspecting ship’s prop or get snagged on the centerboard (a retractable keel which pivots out of a slot in the hull of a sailboat).
