nice if these could be easily addressed, but they simply are not in many places. So called grey water (shower and sink drainage) and black water (pee and poo) go overboard when pumpout facilities are not available. In almost two years of cruising outside the US, we’ve found and used a pumpout facility exactly once. This dark side reality of cruising does require certain decorum. Before pumping out the holding tank, exit the marina or anchorage and get at least a couple miles offshore. Everybody knows if you don’t. Discharging oily bilge water and


overfi lling fuel tanks are obvious and simply shouldn’t happen. Oil absorption mats are cheap and effective. We’ve also made efforts to use biodegradable soaps, detergents, and cleaners, such as those from Ecover and Seventh Generation when available. We make many of our own basic cleaners from basic products on board like vinegar and borax. Unfortunately, most of the nastier items that come off a cruising boat in distant places end up in a landfi ll or burned. Recycling batteries and proper disposal of items like fl orescent bulbs,


which contain mercury, doesn’t exist in most places. One bright spot we’ve found in Mexico and parts of French Polynesia is the ease with which we’ve been able to properly dispose of engine oil and fi lters. Otherwise we store the waste oil until we can fi nd a place able to take it. When recycling where pumpout,


and garbage facilities are not available, we do leave behind more than footprints in the sand. Composting toilets could reduce that, but we didn’t fi nd they met the output requirements of a family of fi ve. Banning plastic from the boat altogether could be the answer. It would be more than a little ironic considering that we live on a plastic boat fi lled with plastic gear. Or perhaps the answer is to manage our waste as best we can and then look beyond by collecting plastic debris found on the shores of the world. We do this when a bag or bottle fl oats past. In so many places we could have collected mounds of plastic beach garbage, but what to do with it? Burn it? Pile it up back from the beach where it is less likely to reenter the water and become whale food? Maybe an eleven year old boy that


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48° NORTH, AUGUST 2010 PAGE 39 Mainsail


doesn’t care about plastic trash in his atoll means we shouldn’t worry about it either. When I was about the same age, I dreamed about the South Pacifi c when I read about Captain Cook sailing to Tahiti to witness the transit of Venus across the sun. The same location, named Point Venus by Cook, was also the site where Captain Bligh and Fletcher Christian fi lled the Bounty with Breadfruit plants. The crew of Totem reached a milestone when we sailed past Point Venus. As we approached the point after a squally night the fi nish line to my dream became clear. It was a long line of plastic debris carried by the changing tide.


This month, “Totem” is passing


through the Cook islands to Tonga. Come along with us at www.sv-totem.com!


Suggested reading Sylvia Earle: The World is Blue www.5gyres.org wwwfakeplasticfi sh.com search: Wikipedia Great Pacifi c Garbage Patch TED talk Charles Moore


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