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Odyssey 13 July 2017

Back at sea: Anne Le Chantoux checks in

 

After 47 days in Bermuda, we’re back at sea. First mate Annabelle Boudinot rotated off the ship for a well-deserved two-month break, and Annelore Le Duff is now on board to replace her. A sense of peace and calm has settled over Race for Water, under the wide-open ocean skies. I must admit that the feeling of it being just the five of us is a little odd. We have our own cabins; it feels like a family, and our days are punctuated by the routine we keep on board the ship. Our Bermuda stopover already feels so far away, but I can’t stop thinking about it. What an incredible experience, with the America’s Cup, giving tours for school groups, meeting local politicians, and our scientific activities. We definitely weren’t bored!

E D U C A T I N G   T H E   P U B L I C   I N   B E R M U D A

A highlight of our stopover was the seminar we presented at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute. For the entire week before the presentation, we spent every evening preparing: making a slide show, choosing videos, deciding who would talk about which topic, and what posters we should bring in order to raise awareness about plastics pollution in the oceans. When the day came, Quartermaster Olivier Rouvillois was in charge of taking pictures and video and posting to social media: he was running around like crazy! Logistics and stopovers coordinator Luce Molinier took care of the information table, and I (Anne) tested the microphones while Annabelle (Boudinot) and Engineer Martin Gavériaux took turns practicing their parts of the presentation. It was impressive: the Institute gave us a room that held more than 150 people. We barely had time to catch our breath when we were out on stage, with the projectors running.

 

Annabelle started things off like a pro—she described Race for Water and our mission to combat pollution in the oceans. She did a great job, then it was my turn. With all of the stress of the presentation, I misspoke and called the America’s Cup “the Bermuda’s Cup.” Everyone started laughing, and that helped me relax. Afterward, we took questions from the audience. Tons of people wanted to ask something, and the person with the microphone was running from row to row. But finally we had to wrap things up because the questions had gone on for so long!

P U B L I C   S U P P O R T ,   A N D   A   N E W   R E A L I Z A T I O N

Our Bermuda stopover showed me that the local populations support our mission more than I dared to hope for. They’re aware of plastics pollution in the oceans, and of the threat it represents to marine life and to humans—they’re excited to talk to us about it. Race for Water has become a magnet and a gathering place for people from diverse backgrounds who care about this issue. And we hope that they’ll continue to work together after we leave.

 

Out at sea, we’re all struck by the reality of pollution in the oceans. Between Bermuda and Cuba, the ocean water is dirty and we’ve seen lots of floating debris. But we’ve made lemonade of out lemons—we killed two birds with one stone by doing a man overboard drill that allowed us to collect a bunch of floating plastic bottles.

Anne

 

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