CetaNews Archive

Weather: SE 8kt, seas 0.5m, clear. First calm day since departure. Fuel: 94% main, 97% aux. Pod Status: All 12 accounted for. The Florida Pod is adjusting to open-water transit. Dash is handling it best — he's already scouted 2nm ahead of our course three times today. Throttle is holding formation 50m off our port quarter and has not deviated once. Crabby is at the stern platform reviewing charts on the display. He has been there since 0400. Operations: Transit day. No rescues. No contacts. Brandon is calibrating the sonar array. IceHouse is running a security drill that he did not tell anyone about in advance. I have received four complaints. He is not sorry. Maintenance: Brandon reports all systems nominal. He has given the starboard generator a name. I will not be recording what that name is in an official communication. — Caleb

Weather: NE 15kt gusting 25. Seas 1.5m. Overcast. Rain after 1400. Fuel: 72% main, 84% aux. Next resupply: Freeport, Thursday. Pod Status: All 12 accounted for. Dash has a scrape on his right pectoral — minor, monitoring. Kaylynn is broody. Crabby is in a mood (see below). Operations: 3 nets cut yesterday (purse seine, abandoned, ~200m). 0 entanglements. 1 whale sighting (humpback, bearing 220, range ~3nm, heading south). Maintenance: Brandon fixed the port bilge pump. Again. He has named it Linda. He says Linda is "testing his patience." Do not ask Brandon about Linda. Crabby Note: Requested internet access at 0300. Denied per operational protocol (satellite bandwidth reserved 0000-0600 for nav/weather). He was not pleased. He expressed his displeasure by clicking at the satellite dish for twenty minutes. The dish does not respond to echolocation. He knows this. — Caleb

Weather: Light and variable, seas 0.3m. Visibility excellent. The Pacific is lying to us — it looks clean from up here. Fuel: 81% main. Next resupply from Ocean Cleanup tender: Saturday. Pod Status: 10 of 12 operational. Crabby is restricted from diving until medical clears him. His sonar readings from yesterday's deep survey show degraded return signal. He describes the experience as: "The water is loud. Every click comes back wrong." Dr. Vasquez is running diagnostics. Dash volunteered for the replacement deep survey. He completed it in 40 minutes. His assessment: "Bad water. Hurts ears. Want to leave." We are not leaving. Operations: Joint sweep with Ocean Cleanup System 003. Recovered 2.4 tonnes of surface plastic (nets, bottles, film). The microplastic layer below 5m is the real problem. Brandon's sensor rig is mapping concentration gradients. Kitty Note: She found a plastic bag. It stuck to her face. She shook it off and looked at Crabby with both eyes. She said one word on the Token Encoder: "What." Crabby's reply: "That is what we are here to fix." — Caleb