Day 1 of the 2025 Clean UP!

The crew on Rumours made it into to Schooner Cove before dark last night after a heroic steam by Skipper Bucky and deckie Grant. A mix bag of experiences with some crew sleeping off the journey comfortably and others suffering the effects of big seas and wild conditions. A floatila of boats met us, also sheltering out the storms in Schooner Cove. It was a relief to get into calm waters and see the majesty of Bathurst Harbour before dark. 

Woke early to meet Velocity in Spain Bay to coordinate the plans for the day. With such a small team this year it was logistically easy to get us from our respective boats and onto the easterly corner to tackle the micro plastic build up! The first day is always a shock as we're always confronted by so much marine debris in this wild and precious place.    

Wild weather with hail was the order of the day with 2 fab storms coming through, drenching the crew and causing some wardrobe malfunctions and readjustments! Luckily we had a few breaks where the sun came out and we could take in the beautiful views of Mt Stokes and Breaksea Islands.

Small plastic bags pieces, bait bags, bait straps by the hundreds and rope of every size and shape was collected. A few interesting items were bagged, such as drift card from CSIRO, circa 1970's. If we  post the card back we'll be rewarded handsomely with the princely sum of 70cents. We also found half a toy soldier, a canon printer cartridge, a syringe with needle intact and the usual paraphenalia that floats on the ocean currents and winds up on our coastline.

We started the count once rafted up back at Schooner Cove with all the new crew getting the rundown from the veterans of how it works. With 11 beach combers we had less to categorise this year and got the job done. Micro counting on Rumours brings out the hyper focused individuals  to finish off the day's work.  

Total count for day 1 - 8676! Good job team!