Garbage in and Garbage out.....

3/10/07

People want to know what we do with our garbage. I know that because the full moon told me last night. We save all of our plastics and tie them into little bundles. Except of course for the 60 tons of polyester resin and chicken wire that we plan to deposit on the sea bottom, assuming that we dont generate a whole lot more greenhouse gases burning the sucker on the beach of Liberia.. Some of our plastic wrappings we recycle. Some of them we use again to wrap things better. I have made my own rubber bands out of painting circles on the deck with rubber paint. Sayonara says I can never have enough spare plastic and rubber bands.. We have a couple of little garbage piles on the boat which resembles one big garbage pile. We hope we can find a place that recycles plastic when we get back to the shore at Liberia or Africa. Either we land at a recycling plant, or we get speared and told to take our shit away. Whatever man... We didn't bring many things on board that make a lot of garbage in the first place. Except of course for the 20 feet of broken bowsprit which I let flog around from 2:30 am to 9am hoping it would break off. Finally I had to saw it off, and oops, I accidentally dropped it over the side. I guess it will make a little home for three eyed fish, the same type that have been eating our barnacles which are polluted with heavy metals off our antifoul. We arent smearing much of it around the world, because we arent making any headway. Most of our bulk food came in 40 or 50 pound boxes and sacks which we have lived off for the past 10 years, so we really don't make as much waste as we did living on the banks of the Hudson for 10 years, piping our shit directly over the side... We also didn't bring very many canned foods, but cans and steel pipe bowsprits rust away pretty quickly so we don't mind throwing them in the water or in the bilge. Jars get deep-sixed to Davy Jones Locker where they sink into the deep mud and make homes for unidentified sea creatures. Um there is mud down there isnt there ? or perhaps I am getting confused with the Hudson river. Anyway, when it is below the surface, who gives a rats.. In the North Atlantic we saw a lot of garbage floating around us and following us, but when we eventually get to in the South Atlantic we dont expect to see anything because we will be dead. We hear from the leprechaun in the toilet, there is an ocean of plastic garbage floating in a gyre where all the currents come together in the Pacific Ocean north of Hawaii. It's called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and oh fuck, I think we are in the middle of it, destined to never be able to sail out of it. More and more laws are going into place to keep big companies and countries from polluting, but that doesnt solve our leaking diesel tank problems. There are several marine conservation organizations working to protect our oceans and if we can do anything to help them, like die, Sayonara certainly will.

Sayonara's View:
The marine environment is unkind to just about everything you can lay hands on. especially me, you bastard and I should know. My little titties are fading away, and soon no man will want to ever lay his hands on me again.. Corrosion is a thorn in every boater's side, except us. Reid says the boat has a split which is working as hard as mine. We have a split and several leaks we cant fix. The problem with throwing garbage into the ocean is not the fact that we throw it in, but that we do so in such large volumes despite what Reid says. Cutting down on how much trash we make would solve a lot of problems, but we are only floating in a tin can and theres nothing we can do... 60 tons of Polyester Plastic is a material that takes a while to break down and it usually floats which makes it more unsightly. I have had the irrational fear that I would throw something into the ocean and then one day, I'll be sailing somewhere obviously not too far away and spot that same piece of waste I remember tossing overboard a while ago. That happens when your boatspeed is zero. You just cant get away from the shit eh Reid ?. Of course, this scenario is very unlikely, but it keeps me saving various wrappers and casings, especially the sharp ones, or the ones that someone could accidentally choke on. You never know when you might need them. Oh yes, and I found the other 11 knives, which I am keeping in a safe place for later.