Sailor in the Spotlight Interview - Marcus Eriksen of JUNK

As a US Marine serving in the first Gulf War, Marcus Eriksen stood in the middle of the burning oil fields, covered with soot and burnt crude, and was struck with the senselessness of it all. From that point, he decided that something needed to be done to bring attention to the ongoing issues of environmental destruction. He realized that if he could make saving the environment an adventure, if he could make it cool, then the much needed press coverage would follow. He reinvented himself - leaving behind the life of a Marine Commando to become a commando warrior on a different front.

 

At the forefront of his concerns is the problem of plastics pollution in the oceans. Plastic particles can now be found everywhere, in every ocean, and the North Pacific Gyre is one of the most heavily polluted. It's not a floating island of plastic as some have said, but a plastic soup - where everywhere you look, there's plastic floating just under the surface. Dr. Marcus Eriksen tells us that these non-soluble chemicals bond to the plastics, the fish ingest the small particles, and these chemicals then work their way up the food chain, sometimes ending up on our dinner plates.

 

So the problem of plastic in the waterways of the world is not just an issue of unsightliness or long-term environmental questions, it is becoming a real public health issue facing us all, here and now. This is exactly why Marcus invented the Junk raft, to get us talking about this issue - to get our attention. A tough-as-nails skydiving Marine and admitted tree-hugging adventure junkie who just sailed across the Pacific on a boat made of recycled bottles - now that's a YachtPal worthy of our spotlight.

 

We caught up with Marcus as he dismantled his raft JUNK in the Ala Wai canal on Honolulu.

 

YP: Congratulations on making it across the Pacific on that pile of JUNK!

ME: [laughing] Thanks.

YP: So, Marcus, why did you sail JUNK all the way to Hawaii?

ME: Well, I guess I should go back in the story to like 18 years ago. In the first Gulf war, I was in a fox-hole, next to another Marine, and we said, 'if we survive this war, let's build a raft and go down the Mississippi River.'

It wasn't until 2003 that I made good on that promise. I built a raft out of plastic bottles, and did the whole Mississippi, from Lake Itasca Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico. I kind of fell in love with the river, and the natural environment that it passes through. And once I got back to my home town of New Orleans, all I saw was endless plastic trash. I understood the environmental issue, and the health issue, but there was a huge moral imperative to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

So I came out to California, and that's when I met Captain Charles Moore, who's been studying the North Pacific Gyre for the past 10 years. I found out where that trash leaving America's greatest watershed is going - it's going into our oceans, and it's staying there. Working with Captain Charles Moore I discovered that if you go 2000 miles out to sea, where there are no people - where people seldom go - the most remote part of the world, as far from land as you can get, and that is where our trash is sitting. An estimated 3.5 million tons of it - all this plastic floating about. So very quickly I got a job working with the Algalita [Marine Research] Foundation as their director of research and education. I knew then that the foundation was doing the science, but I knew that a great way to get the science into the minds of the public would be to build another raft, and cross the Pacific.

 

YP: We've received many emails recently here at YachtPals from sailors crossing the Pacific, who report seeing a lot of plastic pollution in the ocean, but for some reason some people just don't believe it. One argument we have heard is "if there is a garbage pile in the Pacific, why can't we see it on satellite images?" Can you explain to our readers why we can not SEE the Pacific garbage patch?

ME: Well, you're not going to be able to see it from Google earth, you can't even see it from an airplane. The plastic very quickly photodegrades. It doesn't break down - it breaks apart into smaller plastic pieces. So, very quickly a water bottle, within a year becomes 5 or 10,000 small particles of plastic. So, what you are seeing is a blue ocean, but if you look at it closely it's a plastic soup. [...] There is no island of plastic out there, that is a misconception, what it is is this plastic soup from coast to coast - every ocean around the world.

 

 

YP: I have seen the research you were conducting as well as that of others, and it looks like the data backs you up. So, what can our readers do to reduce the plastic pollution in our oceans?

ME: The consumer can recycle, first of all. But the more important thing the consumer can do is to 'bring their own' - bring their own reusable bag, their own stainless steel water bottles, or coffee mug - that's a great solution. The consumer can also support legislation that the community and the government puts on the table. When you see these plastic bag bans, or plastic bag fees, or plastic bottle bans - that is a solution working around the world. That works far better than recycling programs, because as it is now, only 5% of the plastic produced actually gets recycled. [...] So recycling programs, though they are effective, they are a very small part of the solution.

The first goal is to get rid of single use disposable plastics. It makes no sense to use plastic bags and water bottles - use them for a few minutes, then throw them away, or recycle them. Recycling plastic is kind of a myth also. Although it is possible to turn a plastic water bottle back into a water bottle - like glass bottles and metal cans - but with plastics it's not so easy.

 

YP: Now, in addition to your obvious passion for the environment, you also have a real love for adventure. Have you always been an adventure junkie?

ME: [laughing] I guess so. I grew up in Louisiana, and my friends and I used to take hikes down to the swamp to collect alligators and turtles. I was always the one doing crazy stuff. I got bit by a cottonmouth [poisonous snake] when I was 15 years old - it put me in the hospital for a week. I've been in motor bike wrecks, and I sky-dive, and all sorts of silly stuff. So, I guess you could call me an adventure junkie - there's nothing wrong with that, I kinda like it.

You know I turned 41 when I was on the ocean just three weeks ago. When I made 30 it wasn't a big deal, making 40 was a bit of a mile-stone, 'cause I looked back on my life and I just said to myself "you know, it's no longer about you anymore."

This trip that I just did was a team effort, completely, and I get it. I get that you are a more powerful person when you are part of a team. And I like that, I love it. I could not have done this without Anna [Cummins], who helped to raise funds like crazy, and did all the work on the blog, and Joel Paschal, my co-navigator, who is a very able sailor, and can build boats. Without him, I couldn't do either - I don't have the experience sailing like he does, or what you need to navigate across the ocean.

 

YP: So you had a dream, and with a great group of people it all came together when you launched in California. Can you tell us a bit about that little JUNK raft, and how it handled the open ocean.

ME: You know, I had a chance to see it from afar, from one of the boats that towed us in. I hopped off for a minute, and you know, it's tiny! From afar, it's a little boat. It is like half the size of the normal size sailboats that greeted us into Hawaii, about the size of a boxing ring, and sits just 8 inches off the water. It's little, it's really stable though.

 

YP: But I guess it wasn't so stable when you started losing buoyancy a few days after leaving Long Beach.

ME: Yeah, we were sinking, the ocean was crushing bottles, and on the Nalgene bottles, the caps were coming off. So in the first week, we had at least 2,000 bottles that were losing caps, or getting crushed. We very quickly went from being just right on top of the water to about 12 inches lower, right on the water. So, yeah, we were sinking.

We had to have Anna [Anna Cummins - shore support] come and rescue us. Anna's amazing, she's a Tasmanian Devil when it comes to logistics. She got 6 people to come together, resupply us with 100 cans of spray foam, 30 tubes of glue, and they all came and worked for a day. We went ahead and undid a third of the pontoons, and remade 30 mini-pontoons with the caps glued on, the bottles filled with foam, and we raised the boat out of the water. Then Joel and I kept going.

Oh yeah, they also restocked us with food. I realized during those first few days, that we were not only sinking, but that we would die for hunger. We were moving slower than we expected. We planned on six weeks, and it ended up taking 3 months. So if we hadn't had Anna resupply us a month into it, we would have been living off of peanut butter and fish, which we were two months later anyway. But thanks to Roz Savage: She gave us tons of food, expedition meals, and turkey jerky, and we gave her a water-maker. So we both sort of saved each other.

 

 

YP: So how did you guys meet up with Roz in the middle of the Pacific?

ME: Well, her and I spoke on the phone a week prior to her departure. To say good luck to each other - and it was wonderful. So on a whim I asked Anna on the satellite phone to "check in on Roz, see how she's doing," and the word was that she was 200 miles from us. We thought, what a great chance to meet! So to find her position in the ocean, I called her mother in England on the satellite phone. Her mom said, "you know Roz is really out of water," and I said 'great, we have a water-maker, we need food.' Well Roz had food!

I took like four days to find each other, it was like two snails playing chase. It took FOREVER to catch up with each other.

 

 

YP: It must have been great seeing someone new on JUNK after all that time.

ME: It was crazy, and for her too. She had been alone rowing for two months, and then to suddenly see a couple guys. 'Hey Roz' - it was crazy. We spent two hours together - exchanged gifts, shot a bunch of video. Joel jumped overboard and shot a Mahi-Mahi, so we cooked a fish for her. Joel and I felt like we were two servants taking care of a princess. We were so jazzed to have a new face, it was awesome - it was definitely the high point of the trip, without a doubt.

 

YP: It's fantastic that you guys could help each other out like that; what a small world. So if that was the high point, what was the low point? Did you ever worry that JUNK would not make it to Hawaii?

ME: I guess that first week, when we were sinking, and we were moving south. We went south for over 800 miles before we actually turned west. In the first month we did 218 miles west, so almost nothing. So after a month we still had 2,400 [miles] to go. I thought then "we're not going to make it to Hawaii, let's just go to Cabo and call it a day. We'll apologize to our funders and go home." It was a horrible option. And in the first couple days I thought "we're not going to make it. This thing is going to sink, the plane fuselage is going to slip off the raft, we're - we're screwed." But it all seemed to work out - we're here!

 

YP: You sure are, well done. So 3 months is a long time to spent on a tiny raft with even the best of friends. How did you and Joel get along on your trip?

ME: We remained very mission focused, very professional. When there were any tiffs they were minor, and if there were we would just kind of suck it up and tough it out - not talk about it. Because think about it, there's no place to go! [laughing] If you're mad at each other, what are you going to do? Where are you going to go? Are you going to fight? You know that there is no place to go, you are stuck with the person for the next couple of months - might as well just be quiet and tough it out.

We didn't entertain any arguments. Now, if we were on land - we could have [laughing]. I think being respectful of each other's time and space was what made it work, just like any good relationship.

 

YP: Speaking of good relationships, I hear you have big plans with your shore-side support person. Aren't you and Anna Cummins getting married?

ME: Yep, I CAN'T WAIT! I just can't wait to marry her. We got engaged Valentine's day this year, in the middle of the ocean. About 2000 miles off the California coast, I popped the question - using a ring I made from trash in the ocean!

Anna and I are actually going to bike ride from Vancouver to Tijuana for our honeymoon, giving away hundred of samples of the ocean surface - all this plastic soup - to educators and policy makers. So she has this adventurous spirit too.

We were actually thinking of maybe making the bike trip on amphibious bikes. I'm trying to think of a way to attach two bikes together, with some metal bars, and put maybe 3 or 400 bottles under that, and call it a raft. So we can ride and raft! Like instead of crossing bridges, we would just pedal across the waterways.

 

YP: What a great way to start your life together. So, what are you up to right now?

ME: We're taking apart JUNK. It's amazing how fast it is coming apart. 2 months to build, and one day to completely dismantle it.

 

YP: Does it feel emotional taking it apart after trusting your lives to it for 3 months?

ME: NOT AT ALL! Every once in a while I kick it, just to say "I'm the boss now." [laughing]

 

 

 

YP: Very funny, Marcus. So, you learned a lot about the state of our oceans on this trip, what did you learn about yourself?

ME: I think the most important thing I learned was how to wait - how to wait and be patient. I would sit there for hours and hours with nothing to do, I mean very little stimulation, and be patient. Just sit there, look at the ocean, and just try to enjoy being THERE. The five most important words I learned were... Well, the first two were HERE and NOW. I would just repeat those words, HERE an NOW. The other three were 'CUT THE CONVERSATION.' I can sometimes get into these major internal conversations about this person, or that person, 'the past done me wrong,' blah blah blah, getting myself all worked up you know? Then I started telling myself 'cut the conversation, think of something else - look at the ocean, look at the bird, look at that fish down there.' And end that mental circus that goes on in your head. So, I learned out there that I am able to do that - to be patient, and cut the conversation.

 

YP: Any advice for people with big dreams who want to make a difference in the world?

ME: Start local and start small. I learned with this plastic raft, to build it took two and a half months of really working hard, but just taking it one day at a time - knowing what the big picture is. I mean I didn't start here, I began exploring the local issue, and incrementally - well, almost like the way we crossed the ocean. We only did sometimes five miles in a day - that's OK, that's five miles towards my goal. So my advice would be start local, and start small - but be persistent, be persistent and NEVER GIVE UP! And you'll get there. You'll change things - over time you'll change things in a big way. I mean: Ants build mountains one grain of sand at a time!

 

- Kim Hampton exclusively for YachtPals.com

 

Read More about the Junk Raft:

• Across the Pacific on a Pile of Garbage
• Junk Raft Completes Voyage to Hawaii

Read Related Articles:

• Roz Savage Completes Pacific Row
• Boats of the Future - Eco-Friendly Yachts
• Wave Powered Boat
• Eco-yachts
• Environment

 

Submitted By YachtPals on 01 Sep

junk, Hawaii, Pacific crossing, JUNK raft, JUNK boat, Marcus Eriksen, pollution, environment, plastics, sailing, sail, gyre, Pacific Gyre, ocean pollution

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