Our 8th day on clean up 2018 turned out to be a day of contrasts. The morning surf crew got lucky this time and snuffled a sweet sunrise session with "Go Hard" Gerhard scoring wave of the day on a challenging right hander.
After a quick break the crew reunited on the south shore of the majestic Giblin River and continued south east from yesterday's clean up site along a sharp schist coastline, a big change from the expansive beaches we'd become accustomed to. What started as a cruisy wander along the nocks and crannies of rock pools and kelp filled challels soon turned different when we hit a little creek inlet which made the litter trap at Green Island Main look like a pristine paradise. It was quite the head spin to get lost in the details of picking the ropes, debris and micro plastics from the grains of sand and then looking up to take in the superb vistas of this otherwise seemingly untouched coastline, frame by a blazingly amazing sunny day.
Four hours we spent, some 20 pairs of hands picking plastics and filling bags like we'd not done before this trip, but at last the call was made to get what we could to the boats to start what promised to be an epic count, whilst others carried on along the shore to clear up some of the larger rubbish pieces that otherwise promised to be next years clean up micro plastic nightmare.
With the good ship Diamantina III headed back to Melaleuca to drop a couple of crew off to catch flights back to civilisation, the count took place on Rumours, with the rumours of a record breaking count that had been in the air all day proved true with whole buckets filled with micros contributing to a whopping Day 8 total of 38,400 pieces!
Count done, the surfers jumped at the chance to try their luck on a tantalising right hander, and caught a few, but in the end the session was stolen by a pod of dolphins picking up a sunset set way out the back, doing triple loops and leaps and surfing a wave or two themselves. Wow! What a day, what a trip!
