8. Rubbish in paradise 22-26th August 2008

22nd August 2008

Rubbish, lots of it. I was looking for a reason for our trip and Andy got the blues. It was all so futile. My little campaign I mean. Let me explain. Three nights ago we anchored in paradise, a place called Uvala Porat, on the West of O. Susak. To our West the first landfall was Italy. We were alone and the water was crystal clear. We could see hundreds of fish, sea urchins and sea slugs without snorkelling. This is the most fish we have ever seen in one small place.

Why are there so many fish here? Could it be that the water in the bay is constantly renewed so no suncreams, soaps or effluent accumulates here? Anyway we really enjoyed snorkelling and counting how many different species of fish we could spot (I counted 10 in five minutes).

My little campaign – oh yes, nearly forgot to tell you. Where-ever we go I try to pick up any rubbish I see so I convinced Andy that he should help me this time as it looked like there was a fair bit on the windward shore. We would do a beach clean. By this time other people had arrived in the bay in small boats and they were gathering on the shore. We took the tender to the part I had earmarked for cleaning and, armed with our bin liners and gloves we started to pick up the rubbish. However, it quickly became apparent that we would need a lorry to remove all the rubbish. The other people on the beach shrugged their shoulders and said “but there is so much”. It was literally a metre deep with polystyrene, plastic water containers and suncream bottles.

We filled the bags we had, which filled our tender, and I had to admit that we had made no difference. We also now had a problem – what should we do with all these bags of rubbish? We are currently island hopping and try very hard to leave as little refuse as possible for the islanders to deal with. Now we had a boat full! Andy called it the refuse boat. I had to tie it all down to stop it blowing out.

The next day we motored to the Eastern side of O. Silba. I wanted to go here because there are no cars on the island and very little tourist traffic. We arrived with our refuse boat in tow. We couldn’t continue to keep the rubbish with us, so had to leave it on the island. They had very ordered refuse collection stations where the waste is separated into plastic, organic and other. We felt awful leaving our sacks of unrecyclable, un-compostable waste with them. It was a very low point for us both. For Andy because of the futility of the whole exercise and mine because I could see that he was right!

We have decided no more bottles of water – not even the fizzy ones Andy likes so much. To make us feel better about this decision, we have been told, in hot countries, water in plastic bottles heat up and cacogenic molecules migrate out of the plastic into the water. The water here is good to drink. It is mostly free! So I guess why buy potentially poisonous water when there is good water in the tap?

Then there is suncream. We have noticed that where lots of people bathe in the sea, a slimy layer of suncream forms on the top of the water. This suncream filters out the UV for the fish and coral too. The coral needs the sun’s rays. It dies where none can reach where it is growing. Personally, we have found that suncream clogs your pores and makes you horribly hot. We stopped using suncream within a week of arriving here for that reason but now I am pretty anti suncreams. We stay in the shade as much as possible instead and we don’t suffer from any burning.

The long and short of this little adventure is that I have agreed to only do a litter pick where a bagful will make a big difference. I intend to find out what the best way of disposing of the results of a large litter pick before attempting one again. Also we will try to persuade other people not to buy plastic bottled water – starting with everyone who reads this! Please pass the message on! The plastic bottles blow into the sea and end up on beautiful beaches in places you like to go on holiday!

We are now back in another paradise – Kornati National Park.

26th August 2008

We do and see so much it is hard to know which bits to tell you and which to leave out. We meet interesting people, we have amazing sails (like the one two days ago at over 8 knots with our spinnaker up when we overtook a 42ft catamaran), seen an almost complete eclipse of the full moon from beginning to end, we visit the most beautiful villages and towns and eat some great food on board our little home. We have also had the most expensive and yet most inedible meal so far (it was just FAR too salty and slimy, the Croatians do not know how to cook anything except pizza), had the odd territory war (when someone anchors too close; or puts out an anchor buoy thus spreading themselves more than necessary; AND are naked into the bargain) and had to put up with friends who know nothing about making fast to a pontoon (Roger you know who you are!).

Croatia is a very clean and tourist friendly place – we have only seen three bays where the rubbish is like I described earlier and they are always the most inaccessible ones. But we all need to think about what we throw away. We see charter yachts fill bins with plastic and rubbish that must have been accumulated over just one day.

Today Piers arrives in China – we are thinking of him as he embarks on his big adventure. Fay has decided to remain on Windrose for the Caribbean leg at least. Paula and Pete have also just left on their big adventure and will be in Zim right now. We are looking forward to hearing from all of them.