The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) is a massive collection of marine debris that is floating out and about in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It is located roughly halfway between Hawaii and California, with its location the result of a variety of ocean currents that have converged to meet there. It’s a ton of detritus of various kinds—trash thrown from ships, trash left on beaches, and trash that has washed out of rivers and flown into the ocean. Over time, all that trash has ridden the ocean currents to this same spot, and the GPGP was created.’

In total, scientists estimate that there are about 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic and other trash that make up the GPGP. Much of the massive island-like floating patch is made up of bottles, containers, and fishing nets. There are also a variety of microplastics that make up part of the debris field, too. Obviously, it’s gross. And obviously, it’s a massive environmental hazard. And in this list today, we’ll take a look at ten disturbing, smelly, and unsettling facts about it! Here is everything you ever needed to know—and then some—about the infamous Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Related: 10 Surprising Uses Scientists Have Found for Plastic Waste

10 It’s All in the Current

You may be wondering to yourself how the GPGP can possibly stay in (mostly) one place despite being in an ever-moving and always-waving ocean. That’s because the ocean currents that converge on the area in the Pacific Ocean are precise and exact. In the case of the GPGP, several currents—most notably one called the North Pacific Gyre—are critical in accumulating and then trapping all of the debris in the massive field.

In the middle of the North Pacific Gyre, the water is mostly very calm and stable. Because multiple currents come from different areas and meet at that point, there isn’t as much water movement in the middle as you might think of with the rest of the ocean. Instead, it simply traps and holds small debris within the field forever after.

Take a plastic water bottle discarded off the coast of California, for example. That bottle will most likely ride the California current south to Mexico. From there, it’ll latch onto the North Equatorial Current, which tends to sweep bottles and other items across the Pacific Ocean. The bottle may go as far as Japan on its own, where it is captured in the very powerful Kuroshiro Current.

That wave then spits the bottle eastward again, where it typically latches onto the North Pacific Current. From there, the bottle is funneled without fail into the GPGP in the middle of the North Pacific Ocean. And that cycle happens again, and again, and again for countless pieces of other trash and debris, too.^[1]

9 A Soup of Crap

The GPGP may be a massive patch of trash and debris, but it’s not an island. You couldn’t walk around on it or anything—unless, we suppose, you found one really big piece of plastic trash that would support your weight. But despite the name of this patch, it’s not actually a landmass of any kind. It’s more of a massive trash soup or a stew of plastics and netting and bottles and the like.

Coming up on it in a boat doesn’t give you the view of a hill of trash or a mound of debris, like what you might find at a landfill. Instead, it’s more of a soupy mixture of trash particles floating all across a very large area. Think of it more as a debris field than a pile of debris.

Even though it’s a truly massive area filled with floating trash, the GPGP can’t be picked up on satellite imagery. There is often some watery space between little bits of trash, with the current merely bringing all the pieces together but not sticking them as one unit. And there’s more to be concerned about that you can’t see, too: microplastics.

The GPGP is made up in large part of tiny, often unseen microplastics. These small particles are not typically seen by the naked eye, but they are often more damaging to the environment than bottles and related items. There are billions upon billions of them, and they often get ingested into the human body via food and water intake. Gross!^[2]

8 Miserable Marine Life

The GPGP is an unsettling spot for many reasons, but one of the most notable is the effect it has on marine life. Marine animals, including birds, fish, turtles, and even dolphins and other larger swimming creatures, are attracted to the scents and sights of the GPGP. Unfortunately, once they get there, many of them peck and nibble and bite on what they think are bits and pieces of food.

Invariably, many of these animals end up ingesting small (and sometimes larger) bits of plastic. The plastic, in turn, works slowly in their bodies to kill them. It creates an indigestible mass in their stomachs, which in turn leads to major digestive problems, other health issues, and eventual starvation to the point of death.

Depressing, right? Interestingly, scientists found as early as 1966 that wildlife in marine areas was ingesting plastic at shockingly high rates. That year, researchers discovered that a series of dead Laysan albatross chicks had plastic container lids in their stomachs. And while that finding was both groundbreaking and unsettling at the time, it was made about two decades before the GPGP was first discovered.

So the oceanic garbage patch alone is not to blame. Still, biologists rightly recognize that the GPGP’s sheer size and attractiveness to marine wildlife make it ground zero for environmental issues in the Pacific Ocean. And with it growing larger year by year, things will only ever get worse in that region of the sea.^[3]

7 Daunting Debris Field

As we covered up top, the GPGP consists of roughly 1.8 trillion pieces of trash. How scientists took the time to count all that, and what methods they used for deducing roughly how much trash is inside the GPGP, we’ll never know. That’s a lot of zeroes! But what we do know is how big the actual debris field is—and we know exactly how scientists determined its estimated size even despite the fact that it moves around a bit in the ocean!

According to the experts, the GPGP covers a surface area of an astonishing 618,000 square miles (1.6 million square kilometers). For those of you who need a reference as to how big that is, let’s try this one: It is larger than twice the size of Texas or roughly three times the size of France. Imagine three Frances just sitting out there in the ocean, and it’s all just floating trash. Got that image in your head? Well, good, because that’s what the GPGP is right now.

As for figuring out that surface area, as we noted above, satellite imagery couldn’t offer much help. Instead, biologists and environmental researchers got together a fleet of nearly three dozen boats and hundreds of surface nets to “round up” the trash in an attempt to get some kind of handle on the mass’s size. Then, they had a flight crew do a few flying passes over the trash soup, too, just to be sure they knew exactly where to cover with their search.

In the end, they came up with that large number. It’s inexact, of course, since trash is constantly added to the pile, and the currents move things around a bit. But though it may be ameboid in its day-to-day existence, that’s roughly how big the GPGP is as far as science is concerned.^[4]

6 There Are Others…

While the GPGP is the biggest trash problem in the world right now, it’s not the only one. In fact, there are several other marine garbage patches dotted in oceans all around the world. Thankfully, the rest of the currently existing ones aren’t nearly as big as the GPGP.

However, the very fact that they exist—and scientists have found evidence that they are all growing, as is the GPGP—means that the world has a very real trash problem on its hands. And with patches popping up in nearly every ocean where there are currents that converge into gyres, that means a solution must come quickly.

Major trash vortexes exist in both the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, for one. Gyres there lead currents into dead zones where trash accumulates quickly. Plus, heavily trafficked shipping lines have effectively funneled trash into certain oceanic locations elsewhere in the world. The North Atlantic has one of the most concerning and fast-growing garbage patches.

Amazingly, the relatively tiny little North Sea is even developing its own garbage patch, too. Heck, the biggest other garbage patch in the world is also in the Pacific Ocean! The Western Garbage Patch isn’t as large as the GPGP, but it’s significant. It is found on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, roughly halfway between Hawaii and Japan.^[5]

5 The Shocking Sheer Scale

Humans produce about 400 million metric tons of plastic every year. For reference, that is about the weight of every single human on the planet. In plastic. Every single year. And that scale only ever seems to keep growing as we consume more things that are packaged and shipped in plastic each and every year.

The thing is, though, that we do a pretty good job of recycling and/or properly disposing of most of that plastic. Of those 400 million metric tons of junk, only about 0.5%—or roughly 2 million metric tons, give or take—ends up in the ocean in a place it definitely shouldn’t be. Of course, 2 million metric tons is still an insane amount of plastic to have just floating around in our oceans. So let’s not pat ourselves on the back too hard when it comes to plastic waste.

As for the cause of plastics floating into the ocean, the main culprits actually seem to be middle-income nations with rivers leading out to coastal waterways—think areas like Central and South America and even some coastal sections of Africa and the like. That’s because, for the most part, these developing nations don’t have the same robust plastic recycling plants and infrastructure built out for their communities and residents as you see in the United States, Europe, or East Asia.

When plastic waste piles up in some of these developing nations, it can clog rivers and then be whisked out into the ocean, where it eventually falls into a current and is pulled into the massive gyre that leads to the GPGP and other garbage patches.^[6]

4 Fishing and Shipping Hurt, Too

We’ve spent much of this list talking about how the GPGP grows because of land-based plastic waste that is sent out to sea and slowly accumulates in the gyre based on ocean currents. And while that is true of much of the garbage patch’s contents, that’s not the whole story here. There is an entire second narrative to consider, too.

In fact, quite a bit of trash is produced by humans populating vessels that are traveling far out at sea, hundreds or thousands of miles away from the shore. We don’t often think of this trash simply because we see the sea as this vast, wide-open space that barely has anybody in it at any one time. And that’s kind of true, relative to its size, but the fact is that the ocean has quite a few boats, ships, and other vessels constantly moving about—and making trash.

While land-based trash can take months or years to float out to sea, catch a current, and be pulled into the GPGP, trash strewn from ships out on the ocean can get there very quickly. And sadly, both major shipping line vessels and fishing boats of all sizes and ports are complicit in creating trash. Littering has become a massive problem in the ocean, with sailors on large vessels opting to sometimes dump large amounts of trash in the water simply to get rid of it.

That, along with other moves of improper waste disposal, very often creates pools of trash that quickly pick up a current out on the high seas and are drawn into the GPGP. With no oversight commission on hand in person to watch these illegal dumpings happen, it is impossible to track or even begin to remedy these trash accumulations without significant changes to how shipping and commercial fishing are done.^[7]

3 An Accidental Discovery

Long Beach native and longtime sailor Charles Moore is the one credited with first discovering the GPGP when he came upon it completely by accident in 1997. Scientists had already been wondering how plastic waste might damage marine ecosystems. Still, until fate intervened and flung Captain Moore into the center of it all, nobody had any idea that there was a massive, hulking area of garbage out in the Pacific Ocean.

Moore himself was a longtime sailor who had grown up enjoying the pastime with his father. As he aged, Moore began to take more sailing trips to various parts of the world, including his favorite route of them all: between Hawaii and California.

But one day in 1997, hurricane winds blew his sailing vessel way off course. He’d been intending to travel from Honolulu to Santa Barbara, California. Unfortunately for him, the course correction delayed his journey home. Then, he began to notice something amiss in the water: tons and tons and tons of floating debris abruptly appearing around his ship.

After hours of spotting more and more trash, Moore realized something was very seriously wrong. “I said, you know what, this has got to be more than just Hansel and Gretel leaving a trail of crumbs just for me to follow home,” Moore recalled years later when asked about his unlikely discovery of the GPGP. “This is not what it is. This is gotta be a bigger phenomenon.” Indeed, it was.^[8]

2 New Ecosystems Take Hold

While the GPGP is both an eyesore and a major threat to the environment, its existence has actually allowed some very specific ecosystems to thrive. Specifically, coast-based creatures like certain crabs and anemones have been found by scientists to live and do fairly well on the outskirts of the trash heap.

They are thousands of miles from their original homes on beaches across the North Pacific Ocean, but the trash heap has amazingly been a reliable second home for many different creatures. One study found that there are dozens and dozens of species of invertebrate organisms and other tiny sea creatures that live within the plastic garbage pile. And scientists have reason to believe that those animals have been there for years!

Essentially, the matter and debris that has floated out to sea along with the garbage pile has re-created a coastal ecosystem. It’s obviously not natural or healthy for the rest of us—or for the vast majority of sea creatures—but for some invertebrates, it works. Species that wouldn’t normally survive in the open ocean, like crabs and anemones, are now thriving within the garbage pile.

There is enough organic matter—and goodness knows the trash heap itself is big enough—that these creatures can even thrive and multiply in time. “It was surprising to see how frequent the coastal species were,” one researcher told CNN after discovering the unexpected life that has bubbled up within the trash. “They were on 70% of the debris that we found.” How does that Jeff Goldblum quote go again? Something like, “Life, uh, finds a way,” right? Well, here’s (literally) living proof of that in action!^[9]

1 A Clean-Up Solution?

While the GPGP may be a crazy and unsettling situation going on out in the middle of the ocean, we aren’t powerless to stop it. Barges and trawlers have been tasked with cleaning up the garbage patch en masse since September 2018.

Early that month, the first set of collection barges was dispatched to the gyre to begin picking up trash. Called “Ocean Cleanup System 001,” the initial trial ran for four months. It produced such good results that the team behind the cleanup idea decided to put “System 001/B” into use soon after that.

By 2021, the Ocean Cleanup system had collectively picked up about 63,000 pounds (27,670 kilograms) of trash from the GPGP. Most of it was plastic, with plenty of metal and other materials among the waste they collected out on the high seas. Then, by July 2022, a milestone: the Ocean Cleanup crew announced that they’d picked up about 220,000 pounds (more than 100,000 kilograms) of GPGP trash during their “System 002” phase of work.

By 2023, that system transitioned into “System 03,” which the crew claims is about ten times more effective than even the pickup work they’ve been doing to this point. That’s a massive improvement because, with ten times the efficiency of past cleanups, the crew now believes they can get ahead of the GPGP onslaught and pick up more trash at a faster rate than what is being deposited there every year.

“System 03” will begin running at its heaviest in early 2024, and the Ocean Cleanup crew believes they will be able to clean up the entire Great Pacific Garbage Patch by early 2034. Obviously, there will be a lot of variables thrown their way over the next ten years.

That goal may not prove completely realistic. But it’s clear that there are major (and very necessary) improvements ahead. Here’s hoping they clean up a LOT of trash at a very high rate!^[10]

By Jessica Wang for Nca Newswire

Published: 06:56 EST, March 9, 2024 | Updated: 06:58 EST, March 9, 2024

The family of missing pilot Amelia Earhart have said the sonar images that explorers believe could be her plane are hopeful that the mystery of her disappearance may soon be solved.

Last month, a South Carolina-based deep sea exploration company released sonar photographs that they say may be the remains of the plane Earhart was flying when she disappeared over the Pacific Ocean in 1937.

The images were captured by an underwater submersible at a depth of 16,000ft after an extensive search in an area of the Pacific to the west of Earhart’s planned destination, remote Howland Island.

Now, days after the blurry images appear to have unlcoked the enigma around her disappearance, the aviation pioneer’s great-nephew Bram Kleppner has spoken out for the first time, revealing the family is hopeful to finally have answers at Earhart’s fate.

‘It’s in about the right place, it sure looks like a plane,’ he told The Times, adding that the crew at Deep Sea Vision (DSV), which carried out the expedition, say the wreckage is ‘roughly the right size’ to be the Earhart’s missing aircraft.

The 16-person exploration DSV team began its Earhart mission in September last year. 

The crew spent 90 days searching 5,200 square miles of the Pacific Ocean floor – ‘more than all previous searches combined’ – before finding the outline of what appears to be a plane on the sonar images. 

The firm has kept the exact location of the find confidential for now, only revealing the wreckage was discovered within 100 miles of Howland Island, and is planning further search efforts. 

DSV chief executive Tony Romeo, a former US Air Force intelligence officer, is reportedly confident that they found Earhart’s twin-engine Lockheed Electra and has since been in contact with the Kleppners.

Kleppner, 58, says if the discovery is indeed his great-aunt’s aircraft that the family would like to see the plane placed in the Smithsonian museum in Washington DC.

It is unclear what role the family could play in this decision given their could be questions surrounding ownership of the plane.

The pilot had purchased the plane using money raised by the Purdue Research Foundation and had planned to eventually return it to Purdue University.

But Kleppner believes the aircraft may ‘technically belong’ to one of his distant relatives, linked to the family through Earhart’s marriage to George P Putnam.

Dr Andrew Pietruszka, an underwater archaeologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California, argued that if the plane is in international waters than it would ‘likely be able to be claimed under salvage law by the finders’.

Pietruszka also told the newspaper he is not convinced that the plane found by DSV was the aircraft flown my Earhart. 

He noted how other exploration groups have previously come forward claiming to have found her plane and noted that ‘thousands upon thousands’ of Japanese and American planes flew through that region during World War II.

Kleppner, whose family remains optimistic, revealed that Earhart’s relatives have considered what they would due with the pilot’s remains if they were to be recovered.

He said his 92-year-old mother Amy Kleppner – one of the few people still alive who knew the pilot – would like to see her Earhart’s remains returned and buried in her birthplace of Atchison, Kansas.

‘It was where Amelia was born and where she spent a lot of her youth being cared for by her grandparents,’ Kleppner, the chief executive of a pewter company in Vermont, told the Times. ‘With luck, it will end up in a place where anyone who’s interested can go and spend some time with it.’ 

Earhart, 39, went missing while on a pioneering round-the-world flight with navigator Fred Noonan.

Earhart, who won fame in 1932 as the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, took off on May 20, 1937 from Oakland, California, hoping to become the first woman to fly around the world.

She and Noonan vanished on July 2, 1937 after taking off from Lae, Papua New Guinea, on a challenging 2,500-mile flight to refuel on Howland Island, a speck of a US territory between Australia and Hawaii. They never made it.

One prevailing theory is that Earhart and Noonan, 44, ran out of fuel and ditched their twin-engine Lockheed Electra on the ocean surface near Howland Island. 

Aviation theorists suggest the plane later sank to the bottom, where it would have lay ever since, little disturbed by the light currents.

Romeo, who sold his commercial property investments to fund his search, managed to take a sonar image of an aircraft-shaped object on the ocean floor in December. 

He spent $11million to fund the trip and buy the high-tech gear needed for the search including an underwater ‘Hugin’ drone manufactured by the Norwegian company Kongsberg. 

The expedition launched in in early September from Tarawa, Kiribati, a port near Howland Island, with a 16-person crew aboard a research vessel.

In outings that lasted 36 hours each, the unmanned submersible scanned 5,200 square miles of ocean floor.

Eventually, around a month into the search, it had captured a fuzzy sonar image of an object the size and shape of an airplane resting some 5,000 meters underwater within 100 miles of Howland Island.

However, the image went unnoticed until the team found it when scanning the data, around 90 days into the trip.  

Romeo is now planning a return exhibition to get better images of the mysterious object. 

‘This is maybe the most exciting thing I’ll ever do in my life,’ he told the Wall Street Journal in late January.

‘I feel like a 10-year-old going on a treasure hunt.’

‘For her to go missing was just unthinkable,’ Romeo said. 

Adding: ‘Imagine Taylor Swift just disappearing today.’

Romeo is not the first to launch trips in an attempt to locate the missing plane, half a dozen adventurers an enthusiasts have spent millions on the unsolved mystery. 

Expeditions were launched in 1999, 2002, 2006, 2009 and 2017. 

The missions collectively cost at least $13 million when adjusted for inflation, the Wall Street Journal estimated. 

As dawn rose, Maralyn looked out at the emptiness. A clear sky, the Pacific Ocean, and themselves: a small boat, sailing west.

She left her watch on deck and went down to the cabin. Her husband Maurice was still asleep. The morning would follow the usual rhythms: coffee and breakfast, then all the checks and jobs a boat requires.

Except this morning — in March 1973. At the precise moment that Maralyn put her hand on Maurice to wake him, they felt a crack, a jolt, the sound of a gun going off.

The noise split the air. Books leapt off the shelves. Cutlery flew. The tearing and splintering of wood was like the pained scream of a child.

Up on deck in an instant, they discovered the cause. A whale was next to them in the ocean, massive and alive.

Water streamed down the dark cliffs of its body as it twisted and writhed. Its tail, 10ft across, was beating at the surface in a kind of fury. Blood poured from its body.

Maralyn couldn’t understand where it had come from. She’d just been up here and seen nothing but a fishing boat. You don’t miss a whale.

But perhaps you do. It must have risen from the depths just after she’d gone down the ladder. She couldn’t bear the thought that they had hurt the creature. It seemed uncanny that in the entirety of the Pacific Ocean, this would be the spot it chose.

A sperm whale, Maurice could tell, from the blunt, square block of its head. It was 40ft long, he guessed; a good 10ft longer than their small boat.

The whale was still thrashing, as if it were trying to shake something off, or escape its own body. It was dying, Maurice realised. These were its death throes.

And then it was suddenly gone, sucked into the darkness of the ocean. Great whites and blue sharks would gather, rip it apart and feast on its blubber.

Down in the cabin, water was already coming up through the decking boards. How many valuable minutes had they wasted up on deck, staring at the whale?

Maralyn worked the pump while Maurice searched for the damage. There it was: a hole where the creature had struck their vessel below the waterline near the galley, around 18 in long and 12 in wide.

Maurice was shouting to get the spare jib sheet, clip it to the corner of the head sail, lower it over the bow and drag it to cover the hole, then make it fast to secure it.

The pressure from the ocean should force the sheet into the hole, plugging it.

Maralyn kept pumping, hoping the water level would now go down. But the sheet wasn’t working. The water kept rising. She found clothes, cushions and blankets and stuffed them into the hole. That didn’t work either.

Perhaps there was another hole. It was too late to look for it now. The water was up to their knees and the cupboards were starting to spring open. Eggs and tins bobbed round them.

They looked at each other.

Maurice fetched the life raft and the inflatable dinghy, then collected as many fresh water containers as he could find. Maralyn filled bags with their things.

Two plastic bowls, a bucket, passports, a camera, a torch, their oilskins, her diary, two books, a gas canister and stove, a saucepan, two dictionaries and Maurice’s navigational tools: his Nautical Almanac and sight reduction tables for navigation, his chart, sextant, compass and log book.

They worked fast and in silence, strangely calm as the water rose. It wasn’t easy, gathering possessions from a vessel filling with ocean.

Then they climbed off the boat into the dinghy. Maralyn watched cushions she’d spent hours embroidering float away on the waves. The boat settled low in the ocean, then lower.

She found her camera and took photographs as the vessel they had loved like a child tipped to one side and then disappeared altogether.

On a wet November evening seven years earlier, Maralyn had said to Maurice: ‘Suppose we sold our house, bought a yacht and lived on board?’

It seemed like a crazy idea. Why would they give up the home they’d only just managed to buy? Maurice Bailey, then 33, was a compositor for a printing firm in Derby, while his wife Maralyn, eight years his junior, worked at the city’s tax office.

Their story is one that I, a journalist, have been captivated by since I first came across it during the pandemic winter of 2020-21. Using their published works, interviews and a diary that Maralyn kept, here, I’ve reimagined their all-too real ordeal.

They’d created a comfortable life together: a bungalow, a vegetable patch, modern conveniences, weekends away indulging their passion for outdoor pursuits. But both were bored with what Maurice would later describe as ‘suburban domestic stress’. Gradually an ambitious idea took shape. What had seemed impossible, extraordinary, out of the question, started to become a reality.

They’d sail to New Zealand, taking in the Canaries, the Caribbean, the Galapagos. Maurice applied for a job in Wellington and had a tentative offer. ‘In short,’ he wrote, ‘her arguments finally won me over.’

They commissioned a Plymouth boatyard to make their dream vessel: a 31ft single-masted Bermuda sloop to their specifications. On board they would have no radio transmitters or extraneous electronic devices of any kind.

Everyone said they were mad. No radio transmitter? But Maurice wanted to rely on the same stars that had guided the great captains before him: Columbus, Cook.

Just him and Maralyn, needing no one but each other. So different as people, Maralyn popular and outgoing, Maurice shy and austere, their marriage worked. They named their boat Auralyn, a combination of their names.

For years they thought of little else. They sold their house, rented a small flat in Southampton, from where they would sail, and took new jobs. With friends they made practice voyages in Auralyn along the south coast and across the Channel to Normandy.

Maurice was captain, navigator and mechanic. Maralyn was in charge of the galley and stores.

Maurice studied books of ocean passages and pilot charts and reread the closest thing he had to a sacred text, sailor Eric Hiscock’s guide to circumnavigating the globe, Voyaging Under Sail.

They had to get used to bad weather, broken sleep and sea-sickness that could render people incapable for days, he read.

And solitude. For weeks, crossing oceans, they would be alone. You might see only one ship a month, warned Hiscock. So don’t expect help if something goes wrong. If someone is hurt, if you run out of water or a crew member becomes unwell, you will only have yourselves. Weakness is not an option.

Maralyn worked out the exact quantities of food required. Eggs: one per person per day, plus four a week for cooking. Sugar: one ounce each per day, and one and three-quarter pounds per person for cooking. Cheese: an ounce each per day. Milk: quarter of a pint per person per day. Biscuits or crackers: one packet a day alternating between savoury and sweet.

A 30ft yacht, she calculated, should be capable of stowing 500 cans of meats, soups, vegetables, fruits, drinks, powdered and evaporated milk. She removed each can’s paper label, marked it to indicate its contents then treated the top and bottom with clear varnish to protect it from rust.

On June 28, 1972, they were ready and set sail for the Canary Islands to catch the trade winds that would carry them across the Atlantic. Their new life was beginning.

As Auralyn slipped beneath the waves, they floated separately, Maralyn in the life raft, Maurice in the dinghy. Neither spoke.

The walls of the raft, 4ft 6in in diameter, were formed of two inflated rings. The floor was a single layer of rubber-proofed fabric. A semi-circular tube formed an arch supporting a bright orange canopy, like a floating tent.

On one side was the entrance, covered by a flap, and on the other a ventilation duct and a small look-out window. Only this flimsy structure, and the dinghy now attached to it, lay between them and the mighty Pacific Ocean.

Sitting facing each other, Maurice and Maralyn considered their chances. Maurice thought they were doomed, but didn’t say so.

They had no radio transmitter and no motor. He found himself wondering if they had enough gas in the canister to kill themselves.

Around them floated items from Auralyn. Maurice, rowing the dinghy, retrieved what he could: four containers of water, one of kerosene, one of methylated spirits, a jar of Coffee-Mate, a tin of margarine, two pencils. Everything they owned in the world was arranged around them on less than 5ft of raft.

Maralyn wrote an inventory. It wasn’t much: 33 tins of their original 500, a few dates and nuts. A Dundee cake for her April 24 birthday in seven weeks’ time. Surely they’d be rescued by then?

She turned to what needed doing. Establish a routine, she thought. Maintain order. Don’t let the structures dissolve.

It was morning. Morning meant breakfast. Maralyn spread biscuits with margarine and marmalade.

Then what? The day, like the ocean, opened out around them, empty and formless. ‘What on earth can we do to keep ourselves occupied?’ said Maurice.

Maralyn told him which books she’d salvaged: the Hiscock guide to circumnavigation and a biography of Richard III.

Maurice groaned. The life of a 15th-century king didn’t seem relevant, and what use was the guide when their boat was sunk? Surely there was barely enough room for food, let alone books?

But Maralyn said: ‘We can read them and analyse them line by line and discuss them.’

Maurice knew she was right. They’d need this kind of stimulation to occupy their minds. Keeping busy was essential. It limited the dangers of thinking too much.

Using his compass and chart, Maurice estimated they were 250 miles north of Ecuador and 300 miles east of the Galapagos Islands. Close to a shipping lane, but too far north for the current to carry them west towards the islands.

The dinghy had oars, he thought. They could row. If they took turns rowing south for ten miles a day, they would eventually reach the islands’ latitude.

He wasn’t sure they were capable of doing it with the raft in tow. Perhaps they should cut it off? But the dinghy had no shelter. And what if it sank? They’d have no back-up. Why did every problem seem to contain more problems?

He no longer felt able to make a decision. Maralyn would know what to do.

After lunch, a handful of peanuts each, he mentioned the idea. Maralyn was immediately convinced.

‘We’ll have to do the rowing at night,’ she said. ‘It would be impossible in the heat of the day.’ If it was too dark to read the compass they could steer by the stars. They’d start that evening, she said, taking turns to row in two-hour shifts.

As the sun dropped below the horizon, they ate their first dinner on the raft. One tin from their collection, which Maralyn heated over the stove. They passed the saucepan back and forth between them, taking one spoonful at a time. For ‘afters’, wrote Maralyn, they had a biscuit each.

The air cooled. Darkness fell. As they couldn’t lie down at the same time on the raft, they took turns, huddling under their oilskins. Maralyn curled up in a ball while Maurice sat up and kept watch.

When a boat sinks, it is the captain’s fault. There is no one else to blame, he knew. Captaincy is a series of decisions, and he’d made the wrong ones.

Think of all the things he could have done differently. Had they given up pumping too soon?

Perhaps if they’d gone on stuffing the hole they could have stabilised Auralyn long enough to get the water out. She’d been their home, their future, and he’d just watched her go down, helpless.

It was his failure. Someone else, someone better, would have known what to do.

What about the fishing boat they’d passed? Perhaps it had been a whaling ship. Perhaps it had been looking for a whale they’d harpooned but failed to catch.

Perhaps the whale had escaped, injured and angry, followed them for the rest of the night and collided with them in some sort of misguided revenge attack. It was somehow more comforting than the idea that it was all pure coincidence, pure misfortune. That their boat had sunk for no reason at all.

Any pretence that he was in charge had evaporated. All he could offer was doubt. Maralyn was captain now.

Under a high, clear moon, they began to row. Maurice wedged the compass between two water carriers to check they were going in the right direction.

Once the moon had sunk, he used the stars: the Pole Star, low on the northern horizon, Orion, Crux, and the seven bright points of the Plough.

The problem was not so much the rowing itself, but having to tow the raft behind them. It was like trying to drag a tired child up a hill, their reluctance almost pulling you back down.

They rowed, two hours on, two hours off, until the sun rose again. At one point, Maralyn thought she heard a plane overhead. But when she looked there was nothing there. Out at sea, as in the desert, things seemed to appear and disappear.

To keep them from dehydrating while rowing, Maralyn doubled the water ration. It didn’t help. Their thirst felt like an illness, a throb that infected every thought.

They were racing through their supply. Maurice wasn’t sure they’d be able to row far enough to reach the right latitude before they ran out of water. Maralyn refused to complain, or give in.

‘I could not disillusion her,’ wrote Maurice. Maralyn reminded him, instead, that it would soon be the wet season. The rains would come. Precious drinking water would fall from the sky.

Maurice took a morning sight with the sextant, eager to know how far they had travelled after their night of rowing. He worked out that they had rowed just over four miles south, and drifted nearly 30 miles west. Four miles! A pitiful distance.

They rowed for three more nights. Blisters formed all over their hands. They realised, through their exhaustion, that their strength was no longer endlessly renewable. The rowing might just take the rest of it.

At noon on March 9, nearly a week since Auralyn had sunk, Maurice took another sight. Four nights of rowing and they had gained ten miles to the south.

To reach the latitude of the Galapagos, they would have to keep going for at least ten more nights, but the current was carrying them west faster than they could row. By that logic, they would never reach the islands, however hard they rowed.

The whole effort had been pointless. They should stop, Maurice said, save their bodies and their last pints of water, and hope against hope for a ship.

After a string of blue days, the sky filled with fat clouds. The ocean became wild, waves frothing.

Thunder clattered around them and lightning jagged across the sky. If they weren’t being battered by wind, they were being hit by creatures, as if the storm had woken the ocean’s inhabitants.

Sharks circled and buffeted the raft. Danger lay in every direction.

Then, early on March 12 when the storm had passed, Maralyn saw movement on the horizon. Even in the morning haze, when shapes suggest themselves and then dissolve, the hard, dark outline of a ship heading east was unmistakable.

A ship! Here it was, and only about a mile away. It hadn’t taken so long, after all. They were saved!

She laid out the flares. Maurice shortened the line between the raft and the dinghy. As the huge ship drew level with them, Maralyn passed Maurice a smoke flare. He tore off the tape and tried to light it. Nothing.

‘It’s a dud. A bloody dud!’ he shouted and threw it into the sea.

They tried another. Same again. Then a third. No light, no smoke.

Waving didn’t work; they were too easily obscured by the swell. They needed blazing fireworks 40ft above them in the sky.

The ship kept sailing. The helplessness was horrifying. To be so close to people, real people, who had no idea you were there.

Maurice could almost swim after it, if it would only slow down. He wanted to try another flare, but they only had three left and the ship was now too far away.

They watched it shrink back into the haze. Maurice gave up and sat back down in the dinghy. Maralyn kept waving her jacket. She knew it was pointless, but she couldn’t just sit there knowing a ship was so close, even if all she could see was its funnel being sucked away into nothing.

They ate breakfast in silence. Maralyn wondered if it had been too early in the morning. Perhaps the crew had been eating below deck.

They’d left the ship on autopilot and there was no one on deck to spot them. That must be it. If someone had been up there, they’d have seen the raft in a second.

Next time it would be different; the ship would pass later. Someone would notice them.

Adapted from Maurice and Maralyn by Sophie Elmhirst to be published by Chatto & Windus on February 29 at £18.99. To order a copy for £17.09 (offer valid to 17/02/24; UK P&P free on orders over £25) go to www.mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937.

A radio disturbance was detected over the Pacific Ocean on Monday afternoon after an expected solar storm hit Earth.

Data showed that the incident occurred around 4:20 PM ET in the waters off the western US and South America, but lasted only a few seconds.

The poles were also influenced by the powerful stream of energetic particles, with the disturbance lasting about seven hours.

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) said there was a 60 percent chance the storm would disrupt the power grid.

Another storm will hit Earth tomorrow, which could also affect radios and aviation communications and affect the functioning of satellites.

But the events are expected to produce stunning auroras as far north as Wyoming, South Dakota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine.

Physicist Tamitha Skov told DailyMail.com: 'In terms of radio blackouts, yes, the risk is now increasing.

'We have already had two small M-class outbursts, which today caused short-lived radio disturbances at R1 level, but these could soon become longer and bigger.

“NOAA/SWPC is at risk of a 60 percent radio blackout at the R1-R2 level in the coming days.”

M-class flares are medium in size; they generally cause short radio blackouts that affect Earth's polar regions.

The two active sunspots, 3559 and 3555, produced coronal mass ejections (CMEs) just one day apart over the weekend – the first exploded on Saturday.

CMEs can eject billions of tons of corona material from the sun's surface. The material consists of plasma and magnetic fields.

“This storm will be followed by two, possibly three others, which will give us several quick hits through January 25,” said Skov, who hosts a space weather forecast at YouTube.

'A series of solar storms is now beginning (the first occurred only a few hours ago, but is slowly increasing).

“However, we can all rest assured that these storms will not be as powerful as to impact critical infrastructure.”

NOAA uses a five-level system, the S scale, to indicate the severity of a solar radiation storm.

Early Monday, there was only a 10 percent chance of a small solar radiation storm, but the chance increased to 55 percent after the CME hit Earth.

SWPC shared that “the general public should not be concerned,” but the storm will bring Northern Lights to several U.S. states this week.

'Solar storms are the cause of the beautiful aurora we see on the night side of the Earth. For the aurora lovers in your community, this week is a real treat,” Skov said.

SWPC has issued an official warning on its website about a geomagnetic storm impacting Earth, a temporary disturbance in Earth's magnetosphere caused by a shock wave from the solar wind.

The geomagnetic storm is currently a G2 event, considered moderate on the SWPC scale, and is in effect until Tuesday.

During G2 storms, voltage corrections may be necessary and false alarms may activate some devices.

Satellites and spacecraft in orbit may encounter resistance that could disrupt operations.

SWPC's warning also notes that potential impacts include impacting HF (high frequency) radios at higher latitudes.

“The radio waves (called 'radio bursts') affect our reception of satellite signals such as GPS and even HF radio communications,” Skov told DailyMail.com.

'It's like the sun is literally screaming at us during a solar flare.

'This 'scream' is much louder than our satellites can 'beep' and therefore temporarily drowns out the satellite signals.

“That said, the sun doesn't always scream at the exact frequencies that affect GPS signals.”

The warning is largely intended for frequencies used by aviation communications, government time stations, weather stations, amateur radio and citizen band services, among others.

“Those who may be affected are people who rely on GPS/GNSS services, especially at high latitudes, as well as precision farmers and anyone who uses UAVs for reconnaissance, search and rescue or aerial photography,” Skov told DailyMail.com.

'It could be that their drone is having trouble connecting to the GPS/GNSS [Other Global Navigation Satellite Systems] satellites, among others.

“Luckily, everything should settle down around the 26th, as long as the sun doesn't throw anything else our way.”

The coming year will be anything but ‘business as usual’ as far as aviation is concerned.

That’s because some of the most renowned airlines are introducing brand new business class suites, in many cases equipped with shiny new aircraft. Here, respected frequent flyer website www.headforpoints.com presents the 10 new business class suites that flyers can most look forward to.

Rhys Jones, who helped compile the information, told MailOnline Travel: ‘Airlines around the world are rushing to introduce new business class seats as 2024 becomes the year air passenger numbers return to pre-Covid levels. crisis recovers (and even surpasses).

“These seats will largely be introduced in next-generation aircraft. Thanks to improved cabin environments – with higher humidity and lower cabin pressure altitude – they should ensure that you get from A to B in the most stylish and comfortable way.

‘Ten years on since the announcement of the first business class suites with fully closing doors, they are now almost standard. Only three seats in our roundup do not have this coveted privacy feature.” Read on for the full list…

American Airlines – Flagship Suite

US airlines, headforpoints.com notes, introduces not one, but two new business class seats – both called the Flagship Suite.

The site explains that they will be introduced this year on new deliveries of the 787-9 Dreamliner and the single-aisle Airbus A321XLR.

Functions? ‘[They will] promotes privacy doors, more personal storage space and a chaise longue seating option,” says headforpoints.com.

Something else? A few things, with the site adding that the Dreamliner suite will have wood-effect doors, marble-effect tables and a pop of color via a red literature bag.

Were excited. And that includes the insider at American Airlines – the world’s largest airline by fleet size – who told us he had a sneak peek at the suite, and it’s “fantastic.”

Air India

Air India’s new business class seat, headforpoints.com notes, will be arranged in a 1-2-1 configuration and feature “warm gray upholstery and sound-deadening edges, as well as copper-colored accents.”

When can passengers try it? Headforpoints.com says: ‘The rollout of the new seat will begin on the airline’s existing Boeing 777-300ER aircraft, but will span its entire fleet, with up to 22 percent of the long-haul fleet expected to be completed by March 2024. .’

Lufthansa – Allegris business class

There are many reasons to be excited about it from Lufthansa Allegris business class seat, which should make its debut this summer.

Headforpoints.com says: “Allegris features no fewer than seven different business-class seat options, ranging from middle throne seats to honeymoon couples and unique bassinet seats. Conspicuously absent is a privacy door, except in the front row business suites.

‘They are immediately recognizable by Lufthansa’s navy and chocolate color scheme. But what’s really impressive is the technology they have in house, with a world’s first heating and cooling system that is adjustable on every seat.’

Rhys from Headforpoints.com adds: ‘This handy technology, inspired by luxury cars, will be a game changer for anyone who finds it too hot or too cold on board with a fully adjustable microclimate.’

Japanese airlines

Japan Airlines is introducing Airbus A350-1000s to its fleet, and with it comes a brand new business class, which will feature the world’s first built-in audio entertainment without headphones.

Rhys says: “Japan Airlines is the first airline to introduce headphone-free audio entertainment in its seats.

‘Specially crafted speakers built into the headrest combine with noise cancellation technology to ensure every passenger can listen or watch their favorite entertainment without the hassle of headphones or earbuds. It’s a feature I’d like to try out.’

The seats are presented in a 1-2-1 configuration and also feature 24-inch 4K screens.

FlyDubai

FlyDubaisay headforpoints.com‘makes its first foray into business class seating with all-aisle access with the launch of what can only be described as an impressive cabin of its upcoming Boeing 737 Max aircraft’.

The site adds: ‘The chairs feature a beautiful coral-coloured fabric with sand-coloured edges and silver edging reminiscent of the deserts of the UAE.’

Air New Zealand – Business Premier seat

This year Air New Zealand is taking delivery of brand new Dreamliners, which will feature new business class seats to replace, headforpoints.com reports, the Virgin Atlantic-style herringbone seats.

The site continues: ‘The premium-heavy aircraft will feature 42 Business Premier seats and eight Business Premier Luxury suites with even more personal space and legroom, as well as the option for communal dining.

“Although there is no door, an adjustable privacy screen is available.”

Saudia A321XLR business class seat

The first of Saudias According to headforpoints.com, 15 A321XLR aircraft will arrive in 2024, and they will feature Thompson’s VantageSolo seat, which is also found on JetBlue’s A321LRs.

The site adds: ‘Optimized for single-aisle aircraft, this business class seat features an aisle-facing herringbone layout in a 1-1 layout. It appears that Saudia will also offer a business-plus front row with more space and the option for buddy dining.’

Cathay – Aria Suite

Cathay Pacific is introducing its new Aria Suite to its existing fleet of Boeing 777-300ER aircraft this year, headforpoints.com explains.

It adds: ‘Teaser photos suggest a warm color palette with a sand-coloured woven seat and wood-effect console table. A clever slide-out tray ensures storage is accessible even when the console table is in use, while a personal lamp provides adjustable lighting in the seat.”

Emirates’ new business class

‘Emirates benefits from an excellent reputation thanks to its impressive A380s,’ says headforpoints.com, ‘but the Boeing 777 business class is less impressive (to be polite) with no direct aisle access and angled seats.

‘That will change in 2024, when the airline begins a fleet renovation program with the introduction of an all-new business class seat. New aircraft deliveries, such as the A350 and 777X, will also receive it.

‘Details are still being kept under wraps, but aircraft will go from an industry standard 2-3-2 to an industry standard 1-2-1.’

Malaysia Airlines’ new business class seat

A fleet of twenty new Airbus A330-900neos is expected to arrive in the Malaysia Airlines fleet by the end of 2024, notes headforpoints.com, ‘and the airline is using this as an opportunity to introduce a brand new business class product’.

It resembles the British Airways Club Suite, the site says, and “features beautiful dark blue fabric and a characteristic batik pattern embossed on the seat surrounds.”

Images of the suite are currently unavailable.

For more visits www.headforpoints.com/2024/01/02/10-business-class-seats-to-look-forward-to-in-2024.

By Levi Parsons for Daily Mail Australia

Published: 08:34 EST, December 7, 2023 | Updated: 08:51 EST, December 7, 2023