Lecture: Monday, April 6, 7 pm in the NHE
Admission: $5 members; $7 non-members

The man, who in the summer of 2008 sailed from California to Hawaii on a raft made of recycled and “junk” materials, including 15,000 plastic bottles for flotation, is making another type of journey this spring. He and fiancée, Anna Cummins, will pedal from Vancouver, Canada to Tijuana, Mexico, handing out Pacific Ocean gyre samples, giving presentations and talking with legislators. Eriksen and Cummins will visit 15 cities, with Port Townsend being their first US stop.

Eriksen is the Director of Research and Education at Algalita Marine Research Foundation of Long Beach CA, the group that has received international recognition for their on-going research in the NE Pacific gyre started in 1999. Cummins joined the Algalita team in 2007 as education adviser and completed a month long, 4,000 mile research expedition studying plastic debris in the North Pacific Gyre. Algalita’s work inspired the PTMSC to start our plastics education and monitoring program in 2007.

This will be Eriksen’s third trip to Port Townsend and this time Anna will co-present with him.  Please join us in giving them a warm welcome in recognition of the truly amazing and relentless work they are doing to build awareness about the health of our oceans and waterways.  We suggest you check the papers and the PTMSC website as the date approaches since they will be arriving by bike!