At 24°22′30″ south latitude and 128°19′30″ west longitude lies their latest discovery. It took some time for Alaysia to gather her notes from this expedition — having been delayed not by scurvy, as an old sailor might claim, but from a relentless bout of seasickness. Their next destination, they believe, will uncover something staggering: a single place where the tides have converged the bulk of humanity’s discarded waste. They are determined to expose the truth.

Tomorrow, they’ll set sail at 4:40 a.m., just as the sun meets the horizon line at dawn. For now, she sits at the dock enjoying a bottle of Stella, watching over the port as workers heave barrels and move cranes. All in a day’s work, they’ll say, before using the last clean cloth in their back pockets to wipe their dust-covered faces and head home. The port becomes empty and tranquil. Alaysia breathed in the fresh scent of sea air, and felt optimistic about changing the rules of this game.

For a while, she enjoyed the peace. But all too quickly, the shipyard was animated with headlights. The night shift was beginning. Noise filled the dockyard once again and the workers prepared themselves to experience the loss of a sunlit day, traded for a measly wage. It was both beautiful and frustrating to watch what appeared to be a perfect system. What hurt was knowing its imperfections, the dystopia within the utopia. The exploitation of both people by people and the world by people. She took a deep breath and reminded herself that she, too, had a role to play in eliminating the injustices.

Just as she was enthralled in watching this performance, Henderson, her crewmate, gave her a nudge.

“It’s time to get going, we’ve got an important day tomorrow,” he said.

He knew that tomorrow’s escapade would be physically and mentally draining. Alaysia tossed her empty bottle into the bin and nodded farewell to the scenes unfolding before her. They headed back to their ship, anchored tightly to the dock. Henderson double then triple-checked the security of the rope before boarding the ship behind Alaysia.

Despite not having had a quality night’s sleep since this whole operation began, Alaysia couldn’t help but pull out her notebook. Everything needed to be documented. Even if their plan didn’t work, the thought of a young curious mind reading about this in the years to come gave Alaysia hope.

Two years had passed since she had left her work as a teacher of Geography at a high school local to her, along with her partner, whom she never talked about anymore. She was hoping he’d be supportive of her endeavours, but the nautical distance between them had become too taxing.

Having taught climate change to a bunch of ignorant teenagers for five years, Alaysia had realised that the globe wasn’t getting any cooler. It was time to do something. After all, the kids did not seem to care. Though there was always one student who showed an interest in what she was teaching, keeping her pushing on. The notion that if there was one student among the hundreds she taught who listened, matched her passion for the planet — that was enough. But, in her final year, the students came and went. Out of sheer boredom, Alaysia had created an online blog, hoping that it would bring her the academic fulfilment she craved. The blog had thrived: by posting her opinions on recent catastrophes or questionable governmental decisions on sustainability, she opened forums for discussion where users from all over would contribute their opinions — the kind of engagement she never got from the classroom. After a while, she realised that a particular user had revisited her page many times. It wasn’t until she exposed a local seaside town for reselling illegally sought fish that the user revealed that they were a member of Greenpeace. She was offered a position to work as part of a new initiative to eradicate the buildup of plastics in the ocean. Through her blog, she had, without realising, opened up a door of opportunity. Without a second thought, that same day, she left her resignation note on her office desk and flew swiftly from the school grounds without regret.

***

Now aboard Vision of the Seas, she writes yet another entry in her notebook, reporting in as much detail as her memory and the naked eye would permit. She wanted to comment on what she had seen at the port that day. Having seen that their work would ultimately result in current products becoming owned, discarded, and ending up back in the ocean — the same body of water that they had once been transported on. She frantically scribbled that they might as well have just emptied entire containers into the sea, it would have resulted in the same outcome.

The group that initiated the project decided on ‘Vision’ as a name with an intentional twofold. On one hand, to show that the group acted as the ocean’s eyes, looking for pollution on behalf of the sea. In another sense it was to scare, to provoke fear in those who were wrongdoers and make them feel watched — ‘Vision’ sees all. Flicking back through her blog to the start of the mission, Alaysia marvelled at how remarkable it was that so much good could be done in such a short space of time. She landed upon an entry in October 2011 when the group had gathered for the first time. When they met, the connection of devotion was undeniable. At this time, there was a unanimous uncertainty about what the project would entail. Dr Lambert, leader of the project, had prepared a presentation; she explained that the group would follow the pathway of product waste through the ocean — quite literally following by boat. There had been much speculation about where the majority of the ocean’s unwelcome waste had come from; conspiracies had circulated that a respected and renowned company had been discarding old fishing nets, baskets, broken appliances and anything else they wanted into the ocean. The group’s mission was to find out what was really happening, prove it, and prevent it.

After a few weeks of planning, the crew set sail, starting their journey in South Africa, from where they would travel 3,150 nautical miles northward. It was Alaysia’s first time being a deckhand, and there were some essential skills to learn about sailing. Luckily, she was only one of two inexperienced sailors — the rest had the knowledge autonomously ingrained within them; it had become a natural instinct. In the first week of their travels, she would learn the terminology, and by the second week she would put the terminology into practice.

“Start tacking the boat to starboard using the East windward, Alaysia,” Yousef called out.

Yousef was a professional deckhand, having sailed since the age of thirteen. Many times on their journey, Alaysia would wander up to the deck and find Yousef sitting at the stern looking out over the ocean. He would be there for hours just watching the waves tenderly fold over one another. Alaysia had always wondered what he was thinking about, but deep down she knew. When one is out in the ocean, travelling through a body of water with no end in sight, the sea becomes limitless. It has a consciousness of its own, it has the power to create and destroy, and this is both beautiful and absolutely terrifying. Yousef found this out at a young age and had been inseparable from the ocean ever since – he would go out every day, fine-tuning his sailing skills and learning new ways of allowing the boat to become a part of the ocean instead of a force that fights against it.

At first, learning the sailing terms was like a foreign language, and Alaysia would often have to determine her left and right using the ‘L’ shape of her uplifted hand. In this instance, Alyasia had done quite the opposite and tacked the boat to port, to which Yousef called out:

“Yeahhh that’s not it. But nice try,” followed by a lapse of wind muffled laughter.

This is when she learned the difference between port and starboard and felt the truth in ‘we learn from our mistakes.’ After a few months, she found herself becoming quite the hand on deck, and even reached the point of being able to tack the boat or shift the rudder without being asked.

All the while, the crew would latch onto the trail of trash that had pummelled out of various estuaries in South Africa. It was a mix of used packages, cigarette butts, plastic bags and discarded fishing gear, which swirled around in the waves. Sometimes Alaysia liked to think that it was the ocean’s anger, a violent rejection.

While eating lunch one afternoon, Dr. Lambert was staring intensely into the unknown abyss.

“There could be Pirates out there,” Dr. Lambert said.

“What do you mean by that?” Henderson asked.

“Well, of course I don’t mean Captain Hook, I just mean that anyone who ventures out to sea and perishes is a Pirate in their own right,” explained Dr Lambert.

The crew considered this comment while finishing their lunch, then they unleashed the sails once again and launched forward, hoping to cover at least another 75 nautical miles before it became dark.

Through it all, they focused on the task at hand. There had been word of mouth from Greenpeace Africa that a fishing boat called The Symmetry had been throwing unused gillnets overboard. Upon learning that a group of young adults on a speedboat joyride had spotted and reported The Symmetry polluting, Alaysia smiled to herself, feeling hopeful that there were still sea life lovers out there. Using the coordinates given by the speed-boaters, they had deduced that The Symmetry was two days ahead of them.

Finally, after a sluggish two days of sailing parallel to the west coast of Africa, the crew landed on the coordinates, noting that The Symmetry could be close as long as they hadn’t drifted too far. They tacked the boat to starboard and allowed the heavy winds to carry them to the right; the whole crew was on deck with Yousef manning the cockpit. All eyes on the sea. Where was The Symmetry?

“There!” shouted Henderson, who pointed to the left of the bow.

Without hesitation, Yousef shifted the rudder slightly. It still wasn’t clear if this was the boat they were looking for, but they charged towards it anyway. Alaysia whipped out her binoculars, looking for any sight of the printed name. Then – she saw it. Written in italics on the starboard side of the boat was The Symmetry.

“That’s not symmetrical at all,” she laughed.

It appeared that The Symmetry had taken a hit to one side, resulting in an obvious indent. Knowing this gave them the upper hand, as The Symmetry would have lost speed. Using a megaphone, Alaysia called out:

“Stop your vessel immediately, you have violated the MARPOL Convention and Clean Water Act!”

The Symmetry tried to make a break for it, but just as the crew had anticipated, the boat was slow. It did not take long for them to be caught, and likely realising that they weren’t going to win this chase, they stopped their boat. Vision pulled up parallel to The Symmetry, and the crew began questioning the opposing crew. One man walked up to the edge of the boat.

“We’re just trying to make a living,” he mumbled.

“You have violated the Clean Water Act, leaving you liable for boat license suspension,” Dr Lambert pronounced.

“Fine. You caught us, but that will be hard, seeming as we don’t have a license to suspend,” replied the man smugly, thinking that he had outsmarted the Vision crew.

“Perfect, we will just report you to law enforcement,” said Dr Lambert.

The man frowned, searching for a reasonable response that wouldn’t land them further in the pit they had created for themselves.

“What law?” he said. “The ocean is a free-for-all, we can do what we want with it.”

Alaysia shivered at his response, noting that this was the kind of narrow-minded thinking that allowed pollution Pirates to be so relentless and unforgiving. It reminded her of a time when she had given her class of students ten minutes to complete an activity in silence. Likely feeling restless, one student asked why it mattered if the earth was dying since they wouldn’t live to see it. Alaysia had told him simply: For us. We inherit the fight, just as others once fought for us. Knowing that she could only do so much inside the classroom to alter the thinking of students like these, she left it at that. Having this man stand across from her now, vessel against vessel, she felt the same urge to school him the same way she had her students.

“You are welcome to venture into the Ocean, Symmetry, but only if it is with respect. We will report you to law enforcement and it is up to them what they decide to do, but you don’t have to fish illegally and pollute the ocean to earn your way,” Alaysia added.

Then, she whipped out her camera and took some snaps of the boat and the people within it for documentation. As activists, they weren’t legally allowed to enforce anything upon the other boat, but they could attempt to educate, persuade and capture all the information they needed to report them to law enforcement. The whole group felt frustrated with their lack of authoritative power as activists; if they could have, they would have arrested The Symmetry crew on the anchored spot. Upon parting from The Symmetry, Alaysia pondered in her thoughts for a while, considering the informative exchange, and guessed that this was what Dr Lambert meant when she mentioned Pirates. The type of people, stealing from the ocean, the very ocean that would go full circle and steal from the people their land. A robbery within a robbery, a loot within a loot.

Coming across boats like The Symmetry was only just the beginning of what would be a long two years. The search for waste and illegal fishermen would be a wild goose chase, sending them from ocean to ocean. Atlantic, Indian, North Pacific, South Pacific, but never the Arctic; that wouldn’t have been productive — especially as Vision wasn’t built for such cold waters.

***

Alaysia closed her notebook. There was something magical to her about seeing a facet of each ocean, the body of water that could itself engulf the land from which their ship was built, where the laws preventing them from touching base at most countries’ harbours were created. One starts to think about society differently, people differently — shifting their loyalty to the ocean whilst never losing sight of the fact that their loyalty to the ocean comes from a will to save the future of humanity.

At promptly 4:40 am, just as the sun was rising, Henderson unravelled Vision’s anchor and directed a thumbs up to Yousef, giving him the all clear to set the boat in motion. That morning, they left the port in Chile where Alaysia had been overseeing the shipyard workers just the night before. They would travel 2,500 nautical miles through the South Pacific Ocean to the uninhabited, unnamed Island, which would hopefully be the most staggering of all their discoveries.

“Have you got the coordinates Dr Lambert?” asked Yousef.

“Yes, we’re headed 24°22′30″ south latitude and 128°19′30″ west longitude,” replied Dr Lambert.

It would take them approximately thirty-six days to arrive. In the meantime, the group would pass the time with made-up games, writing, reading and the occasional scuba dive. Most of all, they would spend a significant amount of their time just staring out into the ocean seeing nothing and no one. The closer they got towards their destination, the further away they were from any form of civilization. Alaysia thought it ironic how they were fighting for humanity, all while being nowhere near it. Spending such a large amount of time on a floating vessel hovering within an endless space with only the company of each other was the perfect recipe for an implosion. They maintained professionalism, and had in the two years learned a great deal about one another, becoming in sync and in tune. Although, there had been moments where they’d want to throw each other overboard.

Regardless, they found inevitable trust in one another, sharing an undying passion for the cause that they were sacrificing everything for. They became one with each other, with Vision and with the sea, becoming adaptable to blend in with the environment that surrounded them.

“Everyone get up on deck right now, we’re twenty minutes out, I can see the Island in the distance,” Eric called out.

The crew hammered up the stairs, dropping in an instant whatever they had been doing,  desperate to see a sign of life, an alternative to their own. It was there, proud and outstanding, lodged between the bow end railings: the Island. They gathered their equipment: cameras, notebooks, small containers for sample extraction, gloves and glasses. Getting ready to start as soon as they docked. They had waited thirty-six days for this. Pulling into the Island, the crew stood at the railings and took in the sight. It was magnificently devastating. What they saw before them was a small landmass with an insurmountable build-up of anthropogenic debris. As soon as they docked, the crew filtered out of the boat, taking a few moments to regain their balance after having not touched land since the port in Chile.

“Let’s not waste any time,” pronounced Dr Lambert.

With intent, the crew scattered around the Island, and explored the kind of plastics, trash and objects that had landed here. What they found was a bit of waste from every corner of the globe. Not one country was guilt-free — every part of the world had a role to play in the destruction of such an innocent piece of land. Henderson had found at least three plastic dolls in the space of twenty minutes, and one of them had the body of a crab. There was enough plastic here to build an army. What once was a tropical paradise had become indistinguishable from a wasteland. The trees had receded and the multicolored plastics had proceeded.

They remained on the Island for two months and started to put together a story. They examined the various different items and their supposed place of origin and drew what they thought the pathway of the object through the ocean looked like. The figures were almost triple what they had expected. On a 37.3 square kilometre Island lay 18 tonnes of plastic containing 99.7% of the world’s pollution plastic and 68% of this wasn’t even visible having been buried below the surface. In their time, they saw 13,000 new items wash up on a daily basis. It was uncontrollable, unmanageable — unimaginable. In their entire two years out at sea, they had never seen a piece of land so catastrophically engulfed by the remains of human activity. It was heartbreaking, but they were proud of themselves for being the ones to discover this, because now they could finally do something about it.

Seeing the ruination of this isolated Island brought Alaysia to a confrontation with the world. Day by day, she asked the essential questions and wrote them in her notebook. Who do we hold accountable for such a mess? Who is responsible for clearing it up? How has the world allowed such calamitous damage to occur? These were the questions she would pose to the world in her blog and in her book. The truth behind what they had discovered hurt the entire crew; at times they felt helpless and resentment towards humanity’s existence. It made Alaysia angry and disappointed that she was made from the same biology as the people who had allowed this to happen. But no, they weren’t the same as her, they were monstrous, they stole life, they were — Pirates. The Pirates of Pollution. This is what she would go on to call them in her book, seeing this Island and being a part of it for months, had allowed her to undergo an enlightenment.

When the crew was comfortable and satisfied with the evidence they had collected, they boarded Vision once again.

***

In the coming months, they would travel 2280 nautical miles towards South Africa, docking at the port of Cape Town. The group would say farewell to Vision, not forever but for a while. Then they would work intensely at the Greenpeace office in Africa, compiling research profiles and releasing periodic articles on their findings, blaming the countries that were the biggest perpetrators. They would point fingers at the most persistent wrongdoers and attempt to hold people accountable. This blew open an astronomical public and worldwide discussion that brought their discoveries to the brunt of the news. It would aggravate government officials who viewed their attempt to shed light on these issues as a mutiny. Thus, in their own right, the  Vision of the Seas crew was labelled as mutineers. With this, they became known and the supposed mutineers would rewrite the traditional understanding of piracy and change the global view — looking deep into the true meaning of the stereotype and retyping it. People were finally responding, noticing and making changes to their lifestyle. With fewer people purchasing plastic-centric products, companies had to rewrite their logistics as the production process slowed. The shipyard, like the one Alaysia had watched that one evening before they set sail towards Pollution Island, had eased up. The workers were relieved — the work was finally manageable.

Three years after the expedition, Alaysia published her book, entitled ‘True Vision.’ Within the first two weeks, she had sold 3 million copies and had been named as a New York Times bestseller. Schools like the one she worked at in 2011 added the book to their curriculum and students were inspired. Alaysia was immensely proud, and reveled in the fact that she could indirectly make a change to these kids’ ways of thinking without directly having to stand in a classroom.

The group had maintained their bond and knew that whilst they’d made an impact, there was always more to be done. In the following years, they jumped aboard Vision of the Seas once again, and allowed it to take them to every corner of the world, finding Pollution Pirates and fighting for ocean justice.