Overlooked by Marco Simeoni, the president of Race for Water Foundation, they are in charge of filtering a 60 cm square of sand by 10 cm deep.
It is hard to imagine the amount of micro-plastic Lou and Shadé collect in such a small amount of sand, representing the highest density of plastic collected so far by the expedition! When we put into perspective the fact that Easter Island is the most isolated island on earth with only a 5,000 people population that gives a good idea of how far plastic travels, how aggressively it has taken over the oceans and how long it is around for.
As far as one of the consequences goes, we all have seen the heart-breaking images of the decomposed bodies of thousands of Albatross. They suffocate to death in a hopeless effort to digest the numerous plastic debris they have mistaken for fish. Fish do the same thing and we, humans eat fish. In a way, one can find justice in the entire process: by going full circle, plastic debris partially ends up in human bodies that, in the first place put it in the oceans. Recent scientific researches on human body cells show presence of plastic.
“ These mysterious and huge sculptures would give chicken skin to any visitor before they could take their first selfie. That is a statement on how powerful the place is ” Lava bombs
After spending several hours in the back breaking activity we can’t resist the call from the crystal clear waters of the bay and we jump on our SUP’s for a long paddle along the north coast’s lava cliffs. As mentioned earlier, Rapa Nui only has two sandy beaches; the rest of the coast being more enjoyable from the sea which makes, once again, SUP boards a must-have. On the other hand the rough coastline makes most surf breaks hard to access. Apart from the waves in Hanga Roa, the island’s only town which holds the easiest and the most accessible surf and where Carine, Lou and I can share some rip-able waves together. All other waves on Rapa Nui are challenging: really powerful, fuelled by raw Pacific ocean energy, they break in front of lava rocks or cliffs that makes getting in and out of the water pretty hard and last but not least they are very often empty which makes it even more daunting when big.
