Radioactive Sargassum Vortex

Part 1. It was a surprise to those who watched, when these three gigantic entities met in the middle of the Pacific and ate Hawaii.

The three entities floated around the Northern Pacific. People who watched such things, oceanographers, marine biologists and fishers, assumed they moved with the tides and currents, at the mercy of the mighty mass of water. Directionless, with no motive or destination. The three entities were very different. They were made of opposing elements. A result of, or reaction to human interference with the planetary ecosystem. Inconvenient and unsightly, but of no danger to the people of the Pacific. So, it was a surprise to those who watched, when these three gigantic entities met in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and ate Hawaii.

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Yoshimi was a rarity. A female longliner. It was a male dominated industry, but Yoshimi was good, she knew where the fish were. She always landed the biggest, fattest Ahi and the occasional Bluefin. Her reputation at the Honolulu fish market was impeccable and the Hawaiian fleet had grown to respect her after years of jealous resentment. Nowadays, some of them even followed her boat, the Kula Kai, and tried to replicate her technique. She had a salty sixth sense, ocean water in her veins, she could smell the Tuna, she could read the ocean. She could also read the news, but she preferred not to. She found it too depressing.

Taka almost slapped her with the tablet. He shoved it in her face as she sat in the wheelhouse and ordered her to read. She swore, then sighed and focused on the text. August 2023. Japanese authorities release 900 million litres of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean. The water had been used to cool the superheated shitshow of Fukushima after the devastating tidal wave destroyed the nuclear reactor. The water had been treated and passed as safe by Japanese authorities, but no-one believed them. It only required a quick google search to find the water contained radionuclides, tritium, carbon-14, strontium, caesium-137 and plenty more exotic toxic isotopes with their thousand-year half-lives.

After proclaiming it safe enough to drink, the minister responsible for the water dumping refused a glass when confronted by a journalist. Yoshimi was not surprised, Japanese authorities had a history of cover ups. Saving face was more important than saving people.

Taka stood next to her as she read. Arms folded and frowning. She handed the tablet back to him and scowled. They were a long way from Japan but despite the distance, this dumping would be bad for business. People don’t want radioactive sashimi. Taka took the tablet, swiped a couple of times and handed it back to her with another article.

“I don’t want to know Taka, go away,” she said handing the tablet back. Taka pushed it in front of her face without a word. He never said much. He didn’t need to.

 Yoshimi sighed again looking at the screen. “I know about this shit.” But Taka refused to take the tablet, so she continued reading.

Sargassum seaweed had been a problem in the Atlantic, ten-thousand-kilometre blobs of it washing up and rotting on the beaches from Florida to Maine, and now it was growing rapidly in the Pacific. The Sargassum was moving against the currents into the middle of the ocean. And it was moving quickly. Or was it growing? The scientists couldn’t explain. The samples were just clumps of green slime. As soon as it was taken out of the water it rotted within hours. It couldn’t possibly be moving under its own power, but there was a map showing its growth extending like a fat finger from the Oregon coast, glowing green up to Vancouver Island and reaching out towards an area of open ocean north of Hawaii.

“Yeah, that’s weird,” said Yoshimi. “But it’s seaweed for fucks sake, not a submarine.” She waved the tablet back at Taka and put her feet up on the wheel.

Taka furiously swiped the tablet again and handed it back to her. The sensationalist headline screamed at her, ‘The Trash is alive!’ Yoshimi shook her head. “Clickbait,” she said dismissively.

Taka pushed the tablet in front of her face again. The Pacific trash vortex had apparently taken on a life of its own. Floating in contradiction to the prevailing currents and trade winds. The trash had been there for decades, growing bigger and bigger, relentlessly polluting the southern shores of the Hawaiian Islands. The gyre of marine debris, plastic and floating waste from the Pacific Rim had been spinning around like a giant filthy whirlpool. All kinds of crap had accumulated, a lot of it from Japan after the Fukushima wave receded. There was polystyrene from the Philippines, plastic bags from Mexico and water bottles from New Zealand all held together in a microplastic soup. Everyone had contributed, but it was in international waters, so no one cared. The vortex was bigger than Texas, and it was floating where it shouldn’t.

“This isn’t news Taka, it’s sensationalist clickbait. Why do you waste your time on this shit?”

Taka grabbed the tablet back but stayed where he was close by. Yoshimi could smell him. They hadn’t started fishing yet but no amount of washing could get that oily Tuna smell out of their clothes. He tapped the screen a couple of times and handed it back to her. Yoshimi didn’t protest. She knew it was a waste of time.

The tablet showed a map of the North Pacific. Taka had highlighted the radioactive water dump in red. The Sargassum seaweed spread in green, and the trash vortex in orange. He leaned over her shoulder, the oily smell even more pungent, and pressed play on the screen. The three highlighted entities all moved towards a point on the Pacific north of Hawaii. They were on an interception course and moving fast. The map played through, showing the three entities converging. Where they met, the three colours combined to make a sickly yellow.

Taka reached over again and tapped the screen, but Yoshimi knew what she was going to see. A little icon of her ship, the Kula Kai. They were steaming straight towards the convergence. Yoshimi swore and pushed Taka away. She grabbed her cold coffee and went out onto the deck. The two deckhands, Kai and Noa were getting the longline gear ready. They were good boys, they loved fishing. They were both laughing.

“Sorry Yoshi, it was Noa,” said Kai.

“Was not. It was Kai. Your farts stink bro!”

Yoshimi could smell it immediately, a pungent, sulphuric stench like rotten eggs. It was on the wind, coming from the north. She put down her coffee, grabbed her binoculars and went to the bow. The northerly breeze was warm and foul and totally unnatural. She peered into the horizon and could see a weird shifting haze over the water like a rotten aura. A sickly yellow and putrid green miasma. The currents were all wrong too, the Kula Kai should be sailing with the ridge current not against it. She adjusted the binoculars and thought she could see a strange bubbling on the ocean surface in the distance.

Yoshimi had grown up in Honolulu, but her parents had come from Japan. She loved all the Kaiju stories. Godzilla and the other fictional monsters awakened by nuclear radiation. She pulled her shirt up over her nose and stared at the strange currents, running like a river towards the bubbling in the distance. It was then she decided she might have to turn the boat around and abandon the trip. Forget the fish and flee back to Honolulu. Something weird was happening out there, the smell was bad enough and the authorities had to be warned about the toxic combination of these three entities. Someone would have to deal with it.

To be continued….