TV Interview when we got home

Click the play button to play the news clip.

Art from Trash - Island Style

My good buddy Jon Hizzard has been playing with some of the bouys we collect on the cleanup. Check out the photos below of his creations. The drums are great hear his sounds at his myspace page. http://www.myspace.com/chinobwa

Paper Mach'e Drum - Cast from fishing bouy

Funky Light from Fishing Bouy

Djembe from Fishing Bouy and recycled timbers

Floor Lamp from Fishing bouy, Dif casing and headlight

Statistics from the Trip

Depending on which way you look at it this years trip was a outstanding success as we collected more rubbish than ever before or a dissapointing result in that people are still polluting this wonderfull planet. The statistics are the result of many hours of beachcombing and then painstaiking counting and tallying. The numbers provide insights into trends and likely sources of rubbish.

Below are two sets of graphs. The first are the 2010 graphs and below them are the 2001-2010 combined survey graphs. Click on the graphs to enlarge






The below graph shows the items collected for the Dirty Dozen between 2001-2010. Note that in 2009 the numbers are generally lower than other years. 2009 was the year we experienced the worst weather of any trip and spent the majority of the survey inside the protected waters of Port Davey. This meant we were unable to survey the west facing beaches that generally 'catch' most of the rubbish.

It is also worth noting that in 2007 we also surveyed 'Beercan Bay' and we see the same if somewhat smaller spike in Aluminium Cans.


More stats to follow in the coming weeks.

Home with a Record Haul

Loading the bags onto Haydens Truck

More Rope than you can poke a stick at

Unloading the large ropes, drums, bouys and larger items.

The large sorted bags ready for removal from the boat.

The good ship Velocity returned to port late yesterday with the full compliment of volunteers after a very rolly trip down Tassies SW coast. We left the Cheiftan G and Miss Carmen at 6 am Friday morning to finish fishing along the south coast before the next patch of weather hits early next week.

With the addition of the rubbish from Ketcham Bay and New Harbour (Beercan Bay) our final tally for the week was 17714 items. This is a new record haul by nearly 3000 items and a testament to the hard work of the team throughout the week.

We were met at the Dover wharf by Hayden Abbott and Dave who loaded the 2 tonnes rubbish onto Haydens truck with the forklift so it could be transported to the Huonville tip/recycling centre.

A big thanks to Patagonia and Pennicott Wilderness Adventures for their financial support and the Wursthaus, Gillespies Ginger Beer and Cascade for the help provisioning the troops, who along with the help from National Parks and Wildcare the cleanup could never have taken place.

I am slowly updating all the blog entries with photos from the days collecting including the daily immunity items which granted a night off from the dreaded rubbish count.

Velocity is at Dover unloading the booty!

Matt and the Crew have stepped off onto the Jetty at Dover and are busy clearing all the debris from the deck. They'll be back in the bright lights of Hobart this evening and no doubt be keen for a little celebration! So give them a call!

Matt will fill you all in on the totals and details of this years trip once he gets back to home base!

Thanks for following the blog, this is Jimmy signing out.

Last remote Blog from the Sou'West

Part of the 599 cans collected at Beercan Bay

Dara removing rope from Ketcham Bay

Southwest cape in fairweather. 2008 Cleanup

Transcript Eight – Guest Bloggers Dara Penfold and Hamish Renwick. Sent 11 am April 9th 2010

“Dara Penfold and Hamish Renwick reporting here this very fine day Thursday the 8th. Woking up to skipper Harry pulling up the anchor and off we went at 7am. We started steaming from the beach in the lea of Low Rocky and four and a half hours later arrived at beautiful Ketchum Bay. It was a rolly trip, beating us back to bed for a morning siesta. Once at Ketchum, we got the day on the road with a strong coffee and off we went to the foreshore. It was a challenging up hill rope climb leading us to the true South West bush walking path to Ketchum Bay. We then ran into a bunch of bushwalkers that soon told us where the rubbish was, and off we went. At Ketchum Bay and new harbor we collected the most aluminum cans with 599 and roughly another 225 pieces, making a total of 824 for the two beaches. The day was ended with a mean Wursthaus lamb Lyonnaise on the BBQ with roasted carrots, potatoes, pumpkins and sweet potatoes. Oh and BBQ mushrooms and capsicum washed down with some Gillespies’s Ginger Beer. On behalf of myself and Hamish, we would like to thank Matt “the Gator” Dell for all his work, the 15 volunteers and also Davey Wyatt, Nic Harris and Dean from the lovely Miss Carmen. It has been an awesome experience, the lovely South West is amazing, and we recommend it to anyone that has the chance to see it by sea to latch on and take the ride!.”

“P.S.: When we weren’t emu bobbing the beaches, life was spent in the ocean or in the galley, underneath the spell of an ipod and creating “all-time-next-level-legit-dance-moves”: “the Sliding Palp”, “the Content Head-flip-bob”, “the Tanglefoot” to name a few. Life was fun!! Back to reality tomorrow though…. Siiick! [much laughter]”

Catching up on the remote Sat-phone blogs from the coast between Sandblow to Low Rocky Point

Rest before the last haul to the dingy landing spot

Rope walk

A long drag at the end of a long day

Transcript Seven – Guest Blogger Dayna Trevaskis. Sent 1 pm April 8th 2010 detailing the activities of the 7th of April

“This morning’s wake up call came through from Dave at about quarter to six. He called for the crew swap over maneuver. Dara and I hauled ourselves out of bed [on velocity] and grabbed a couple of crumpets for the dinghy trip over to the Chieftain G for a spot of early morning Cray fishing with Captain Davey and Spikey, our mentor crayfish “hauler-upperer” and general “tell-ya-what-to-doer”. The day could almost not have started better with ‘bolt blue sky and albatross wheeling above and around the boat. We rocked the pots for a good couple of hours in our funky blue ad bright yellow wet weather overalls, while the rest of the crew were whisked into the beach and checked the Sandblow out for rubbish. By the time we’d thrown the pots back in and a few [red shelled] beastie boys below deck [in the cray well]. The remainder of the Cleanup fleet had moved north to the next beach [in the lea of Low Rocky] targeted for our surf/cleanup assault. The surf report was fun, but not perfect, which matched the beach rubbish situation. Today’s scrutineering was accompanied by our first touch of “shock horror” RAIN! Once the beach was clean we were all ferried back to the mothership Velocity by Captains Davey and Harry for an epic rubbish sort, followed by a few beers and an on board fry-up for dinner. Life is tough. Over and out”

Marine Debris collected:
The SandBlow = 632 items
Beach in the lea of Low rocky = 1640
Running total for the 2010 cleanup trip = 17 067 items