Out in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean, hundreds of kilometres from land, Captain Charles Moore stood at the bow of his 50-foot catamaran and looked toward the horizon. But instead of gliding along calm, sapphire-coloured waters glistening in the afternoon sun, his aluminum-hulled Alguita carved through a sea of shiny, modern-day refuse.
For days on end, it was plastic, plastic, everywhere.
That was nearly 11 years ago. Capt. Moore was returning to his home in Southern California from a sailing race in Hawaii.
With some time to spare that Aug. 3, 1997, he decided to take a slightly longer route home, one that would see him sail through a stretch of ocean historically avoided by even the most weathered sailors. The 26-million-square-kilometre area known as the North Pacific Gyre is essentially free of wind – a kind of ocean desert – and its slow-moving, clockwise vortex of water is nearly impossible to plow through.
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