GIS Day! – Billabong Seaplane Rendezvous
"The Albatross" on final approach
Happy GIS Day everyone! Today was a big one for us on the Baylis. We celebrated our official event Tuesday on the SRV Derek M. Baylis, off the coast of Newport Beach, CA. A crew from Prikett Films www.prickettfilms.com/portfolio flew in on the Billabong Seaplane to meet us and film while we conducted an at sea lesson for a group of students, parents and professional athletes. Mike Prikett’s current project is a documentary about marine debris, and what various groups of people are doing around the world to remedy the problem. Nice to know we are showing up on that radar!
Surfrider Exec Committee member Jeff Coffman watches the dinghy launch from the seaplane
The plane landed close to us, and taxied right up to our stern – Capt Mark kept us close while the seaplane crew tossed out an anchor off the nose of the plane. Port-side hatch opens on the plane, and out pops heads, and then a dinghy, an engine, and over came several people, including professional big-wave surfers Mike Parsons, Grant Baker “Twiggy”, Greg and Rusty Long. These guys ride REALLY big waves (60′ plus) and they are committed to learning about and sharing a message of responsibility and sustainability among the surfing community.
Capt Dave leading a discussion on marine debris - he is holding a tube containing the stomach contents of a dead juvenile albatross
We had three main components to our GIS Day Celebration:
- a lesson on kelp forest from our naturalist, who explained how these unique communities thrive and evolve over their life-cycle
- a plankton-tow, to investigate the microspoic members of this ocean comminuty, and
- a major discussion and demonstration of the GIS and GPS work we are doing around marine debris mapping
The overall goal is advocate attention to the careful considerations we need to make as consumers of plastic. Hard to believe how much technology and time goes into making products that some of us only use for a few minutes, or maybe even seconds… The film team will provide footage to us for use on the website later…
We also had a long and calm visit from a large pod of Risso’s Dolphins, which was a great teaching opportunity
Getting late over here, so I’ll sign off with a video of the plane landing and taking off….
Hey bud – looking good! Must have been quite a rush to have that plane fly so close to the boat.
Cheers,
Brian
ps… T-2 days!
Great work! Gettig it out on the web page really brings it home.
Dean
I really admire this project and its goals, but was it really necessary to have the corporate surf giant Billabong fly in on a fossil fuel burning seaplane, with a bunch of pro surfers? Seems like it defeats the overall message here?
Thanks for the comment – yes, we thought about the fuel used by the plane, and considered that with the millions surfers who are subscribed to surfline, or who see the Billabong message. In the end, we agreed that the fuel cost is worth have that many more people aware of our work, and the problems around plastic marine debris.