Hello everyone. Pat here and thanks for following “The Cleanup” expedition.
Today I flew in a plane from Sydney (New South Wales) to Hobart (Tasmania) where I hopped on a fishing boat called “Rumours” and met Captain Adam and the rest of the crew. There are seven of us on the boat, but there are also three other boats going on this expedition with us. I think there are about thirty of us in total.
All four boats are planning to sail the remote Southwest coast of Tasmania to clean up all the plastic litter that has spoiled the wild beaches in this amazing part of Australia.
We are also going to gather some important data about the types of plastic litter as well as information about the plants, animals and special places.
I really hope you can follow the daily reports and photos that I will be sending out every day to this website. Maybe you can even organise your own expedition to investigate and clean up a beach or creek in your local area?
When everyone was on board Rumours we untied from the busy wharf in Hobart and sailed for a few hours to a little town called Southport. Along the way I enjoyed talking to Theo (who is in year 8) and his dad, We are all excited about the challenges and adventures that lie ahead.
Tomorrow will be a big day, we plan to sail all the way around the bottom of Tasmania to get to the wild Southwest coastline that we are going to investigate and clean..... but Uh-oh, there might be a problem? The weather forecast for tomorrow looks pretty bad. It seems the wind is going to blow very strongly from the direction we want to head in and that will make the seas dangerously rough. Below is the forecast from the Bureau of Meterology for South West Coastal Waters for Saturday.
Winds: Northwesterly 20 to 25 knots, reaching up to 30 knots during the afternoon.
Seas: 2 to 2.5 metres.
Swell: Westerly 4 to 5 metres.
Weather: Partly cloudy. 90% chance of showers. The chance of a thunderstorm and hail.
I hope we can make it, maybe if the weather is too bad we will have to anchor the boats in a sheltered bay and clean the each there. Wish us luck, I hope to send another report soon.
