Making a difference

A Bahamian storm said "hello" to us on Wednesday evening. We were greeted by strong winds, rain, thunder, and lightning. It was pretty awesome! However, because of the storm there were large white caps on the ocean and this is not something a group of snorkelers gathering research wants to see. So, we were unable to get into the water on Thursday for data gathering, but we were able to participate in water testing of samples we had taken from the three testing sites: Rocky Point, Rice Bay, and Lindsay's Reef. I was able to run an oxygen test, but we also ran tests to check the magnesium, boron, calcium, silicate and pH content, among many others, of the water we gathered.

Mrs. Sheri, Ms. Denise and Ms. C.C. testing water samples in the lab









In the afternoon, we headed over to East Beach (where the water was a bit calmer)and did a beach clean-up. On San Salvador, glass and aluminum are the only items recycled, so we had to leave plastics behind. As you will see from the pictures, pretty much all of the debris on the beach is plastic. The majority of these plastics are actually from other parts of the world. We found things from Spain, South America, North America, & Africa and we only combed about a 1/4 mile down the beach! Plastic trash is a HUGE problem in our oceans and on our beaches. Needless to say, I am inspired to reduce my use of plastics at home. Can you believe that 80% of trash in our oceans are from households?


ALL of the items on the beach in these pictures are plastics


Why should I care about the amount of plastic trash in the ocean you ask? Well, to sum it up, plastics are unable to bio-degrade. Instead, they photo-degrade meaning that when they are broken down to molecular levels, they will always be plastic. Though there are many reasons to try and cut down on our consumption of plastics, these two stick in my heart: Over 1 million albatross (a beautiful bird)die each year from ingesting plastics, and of course being the turtle lover that you all know I am, it breaks my heart to know that thousands of sea turtles die each year from eating and becoming entangled in plastic bags and balloons floating in the water. More pertinent to the research I am invovled in on this expedition, plastics wrap around coral reefs and in turn are suffocating them. This of course leads to their death.

If any of you are interested in checking out websites of companies that are manufacturing Bio-plastics (plastic-like material that break down when disposed of and go back into the earth), please let me know, as I have many resources. We all can make a difference!