Citizen Science Passage Report – Crossing the Pacific!

After a few weeks of intense preparation based in La Cruz in the Bahia Banderas, we set off in mid-March on our Pacific crossing, a 3940 nautical mile (7,296 km) passage between Punta Mita, Mexico and the Gambiers Islands in French Polynesia.

On the way we managed to stop in for visits at the marine protected area at the stark but beautiful Isla Socorro; the remote and uninhabited and beautiful Henderson Island, stunning except for the very present plastic pollution; and the historic and incredibly welcoming Pitcairn Island.

Henderson and Pitcairn sit in the Pitcairn Islands Marine Reserve, one of the largest on Earth.

Larissa, Duncan, Eden and Skye arrive at Henderson Island after a 2468nm passage from Mexico.

We arrived in the Gambiers, home of some of the healthiest coral reefs we have ever seen, in late April.

Our longest time at sea was 22 days between Socorro and Hendersen, a distance of 3468 nautical miles (6422 km), most of it on the high seas.

During the offshore passage we contributed to half a dozen citizen science initiatives with the intention of supporting multi-institutional researchers with ground-truthing, observations, and data collection. These took place on the high seas, beyond national waters.

FREERANGER on the north west corner of Henderson Island

However, as we were particularly excited to visit the Pitcairn Islands and their marine reserve, we wanted to engage with the Pitcairn community to ensure any projects that we conducted had permissions and were as useful as possible to the protected area. We had great engagement with the Pitcairn Island Governor and Island Council ahead of time, and a truly wonderful welcome once we reached the islands.

While it is always fun, conducting citizen science projects at sea on a big ocean crossing presented some interesting challenges and experiences!

Here’s a breakdown of the projects we took part in, what went right, and – also great for learning – what went wrong!

Plankton and Plastic Sampling

We were really looking forward to taking part in the Neuston Net Research Collective, which unites the academic world and the international boating community in an effort to conserve and understand our oceans through scientific research.

The collective spans a wide range of research topics with one common theme: they all utilise Neuston Nets which are fine mesh nets often towed behind boats to collect samples of neustonic organisms, algae, plastics, plankton, seawater, and more.

Unique access to these nets allows the folk at The International SeaKeepers Society to pair proposed or ongoing projects with vessels around the world to collect samples from a wide geographic range.

We were partnered to contribute to a project by Dr Rebecca Helm who studies neustonic organisms in remote gyres and garbage patches and whose findings help shape new Marine Protected Areas and high seas policy.

Duncan was slightly less excited when the net itself arrived in the mail, as on first sight it felt like a huge bit of kit to have on board our relatively small boat!

However once we had found a good spot for it, and coupled with the comprehensive onboard kits which allow boaters to conduct plankton survey-style transects, we were ready to go.

For our net deployments, we were concentrating only on areas in the high seas – i.e. beyond any country boundaries, which meant not requiring any specific permits. Our first deployments were near the equator, and second as we approached but well outside the boundary of the Pitcairn Islands, which also demarks the edge of the Pitcairn Islands Marine Reserve, one of the largest in the world.

A particular challenge on the days we’d planned for science was that the Nueston Nets need to be towed at speeds less than 2 knots, which is surprisingly difficult to achieve at sea (we hear that new versions of these nets are in development to be able to deploy at faster speeds).

We took advantage of the two calm days we had on passage to deploy the Nueston Net, but even so we had to lower sails and turn on the motor to achieve the slow speeds. We soon figured out a good towing configuration, and also learned quickly that the whole crew needed to be aware it was science-time so nothing ‘like’ food scraps could go over the side – the net caught everything!

Once the net was back on board though the real fun began. It was absolutely fascinating to see just the numbers and diversity of small sea creatures in each sample, from the highly active Copepods to tiny fish, and even a Halobate, the only marine insect!

Happy hours were spent looking at this incredible life with our magnifying glasses and recording it in spreadsheets. Less happy to see was that every sample we collected contained evidence of microplastics. Now we have reached shore, we are preparing to submit our report and many photos to Seakeepers.

We were also very excited to take part once again in the Global Ocean Environment Survey (GOES) project, which seeks to better understand the more than  60% of global biomass that is made up of tiny animals and plants less than 1mm!

These are the life support of the planet and are at a critical tipping point due to ocean pollution and acidification which has already reduced numbers to 50%. The project involves setting up a simple mini lab on board to collect and filter water samples for tiny particles and plankton twice a day, providing crucial data.

When Freeranger came up from New Zealand to Canada in 2o23 we collected and analysed 500 samples! Due to weather conditions and the shorter passage we were not able to take as many samples this time, but several collections were made and analyzed, and will now be submitted to the GOES project to add to their database.

Photos: filter deployment, looking at the microscope

Since we set off from Canada in July 2024, one of the two citizen science projects that have been a consistent in our lives has been the Secchi Disk Study, public science project measures the amount of phytoplankton - minute organisms at the very start of the marine food chain - currently residing in the world’s oceans.

To check the levels of phytoplankton in our ocean, they've developed a simple piece of equipment that you can order or make yourself and a free smart phone app for sailors and fishermen to use wherever they are in the world. The measurements are then entered into an easy to use app that the kids love.

Secchi disk being deployed on FREERANGER previously in BC

We were excited to do Secchi readings in the deep ocean, but enthusiasm and sea conditions did not align as much as we had hoped! Like the Nueston Net, Secchi disk deployment needs the boat to be slowed right down, and essentially at a stop, otherwise the disc flows away from the boat and you don’t get an accurate reading.

This was very hard to do in our sea conditions, both in terms of momentum of the boat and due to up and down wave action. This latter also proved to put huge strain on the measuring tape of the Secchi, and unfortunately at one point overwelmed it, snapping so we lost a disk.

Lesson learned, we have now made a more robust measurement tape using a thin line marked at 10cm intervals for deployment in more challenging conditions.

Seabed Mapping

While much of the journey was way beyond the reach of our depth sounder, whenever we reached one of our island destinations we continued to contribute to the Seabed2030 initiative, which allows boaters to increase global knowledge of the ocean by sharing depth measurements from our navigational instruments.

The project is a collaboration between The Nippon Foundation and the General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO), Seabed 2030 seeks to inspire the complete mapping of the world’s ocean by 2030, and to compile all the data into the freely available GEBCO Ocean Map.

Wildlife Reporting

Throughout the passage our paths crossed with seabirds and sealife of all description.

We dodged humpback whales as we left the coast of Mexico, snorkelled with very curious sharks in Socorro, and frequently had visits from boobies, many of whom tried to land on the boat – wonderful in the moment but you are not always so happy with what they leave behind!

One day we crossed paths with a pod of pilot whales moving at a furious pace in the opposite direction, another we were accompanied by an albatross who was only too happy to snap up the flying fish that daily were appearing on our deck.

In other parts of the ocean it went very quiet, and days would go by without seeing any wildlife at all, save an occasional glimpse of a petrel, those tiny wanderers of the seas.

Throughout however we took notes of what we saw, and reported them into relevant projects.

We have recently been enrolled in two courses to increase our knowledge and confidence as whale and dolphin spotters with the ORCA Oceanwatch project, which started collecting data on cetaceans in the North Atlantic but now works globally.

For turtle sightings, we are working with the Ocean Ecology Network’s Marine Turtles project to collect data including sighting locations, species, size, and entanglements (luckily we have not seen one of these so far, but we have seen a shocking amount of discarded fishing gear, especially on Henderson Island).

We’re now in French Polynesia, and all crew feeling happy and refreshed after what was a fast but often bumpy and wet passage. It’s absolutely beautiful, especially the diving, and we’re looking forward to time with friends and meeting new people in the boating and local communities here!

We’ll be doing some more of our on-board citizen science engagement events in the coming weeks, stay tuned!

Duncan & Larissa