Artcetera: Beaufort artist uses sailing skills to tackle sea-going garbage

When Bailey Morris attended Beaufort High School way back in the 2000s, she motored her dinghy ("9.9 horse power," she recalled) to the Lady's Island Marina and walked the rest of the way to her art classes with Dan Brown.

She was teased a little about this, but only because those kids must not have realized a few things.

First, boating to school is a long-standing Sea Island mode of transportation (check, for instance, Penn Center's archive.)

Second, the watercraft skills that Morris acquired in her childhood-- living on a sailboat with her family, spending a lot of time at a fish camp and ninth grade in the Caribbean-- have translated into a job.

Third, the schooling she received in Beaufort in arts integration is synergizing her job skills into a career.

Earlier this month Morris departed Hawaii as a first mate in the Mega Expedition.

The expedition is a project of The Ocean Clean Up. Right now, Morris and a fleet of boats are covering 3,500,000 square kilometers between Hawaii and Los Angeles. They are deploying the world's first operational pilot array -- 2000 meters long -- to remove the plastic clogging the Great Pacific Gyre. The array is an anchored network of floating booms and processing platforms. The angle of the booms force the plastic waste in the direction of the platforms, where the garbage is separated from plankton and stored for recycling.

The system is a giant funnel.

The brilliance behind this design is that instead of going after the plastic with boats and nets, The Ocean Cleanup uses the natural movement of the ocean currents. The organization estimates that a single 100 kilometer cleanup array deployed for ten years will remove 42 percent of the great Pacific garbage patch. That equals, in their "conservative estimate," 77,514.5 tons of garbage removed from the ocean.

That's good news for artists in Beaufort who prefer to paint realistic seascapes-- otherwise our pristine views might fade into the fantasy and nostalgia genres.

The array was designed by Boyan Slat, a nineteen year old from Holland, which makes sense both design- and maritime-wise. If the project succeeds, the group be able to work on the other four plastic-saturated gyres, including the one that has engulfed Bermuda, our neighbor to the east.

"I'm on a 68-foot Nelson Merrick monohull sloop," Morris said. "This expedition is the first of its kind. Twenty-five boats will also deploy manta pulls." The manta pulls are compact surface trawls to catch smaller plastics.

"Weather permitting, we'll do six pulls a day," she said.

Her crewmates include environmentalists, researchers and marine biologists.

When Morris attended the Humanities School during her middle school years in Beaufort, she took "so many art classes" intertwined with other subjects, such as history and science. She is prepared for collaboration across disciplines.

"I'm all about it," Morris said. "This is about sailing and using my skill-base to get the scientists there and back."

When she talked about the technical aspects of her job, her voice got deeper and forceful-- a timbre acquired from years of training and a daddy who's been a captain for over thirty years. "We're all for the planet, but sailing is really dangerous, out there for a month. These trips are the best ground hog days ever," she said.

Art classes in Beaufort also inspired Morris' tradition of painting sand dollars, which according to her friend Samantha Campbell (a sea turtle scientist, wood-burning artist, and jewelry-maker) are quite sought-after.

"I also took art classes from Suzanne Longo," Morris said. "Art has always been a part of my life. I'm glad to take the skills my parents instilled in me so I can do my part."

Skills run in the family-- her mother Abby Morris is a pharmacist and volunteers for the Sea Turtle Project by inventorying nests and collecting DNA.

"My grandfather was the DIY type, and my Uncle Milledge does everything, he's most efficient," Morris listed. "It's great that all these skill sets are working together to accomplish the goal, because the plastic problem is only going to get worse."

Morris packed her sketch book for the voyage and acquired a ukulele, too.

While the dolphins and plastic roil around them, "we'll be a little band floating around," she said-- writing a new song of healthy habitats for all.

Lisa Annelouise Rentz lives in Beaufort.

This story was originally published August 20, 2015 at 9:39 PM with the headline "Artcetera: Beaufort artist uses sailing skills to tackle sea-going garbage."