Once more we sailed over the waters where Sensei’s ship had gone down, or very close to it. I never tried to look for her; I knew she was down there. She would have found a spot in darkness and silence—a place of the sea’s own keeping. The sea was a jealous keeper of secrets.
I wondered if the plastic in her holds would stay there for a thousand years. What would archaeologists think if they found it? Would plastic be an ancient artifact by then, just another example of our peculiar habit of creating things that turn around and harm us?
Or will we have destroyed ourselves by then, and the planet, too? Will the ship be discovered in a million years by aliens, who will think that plastic must have been so valuable as to have been sealed up inside a ship, like a treasure?
I had come to Japan to see if the hearts of whalers could be changed towards the most gentle creatures of the sea. Instead, I met a man who had spent one half of his life spreading plastic all over the world, and the rest picking it up. In a way, that answered my question. If one man’s heart could change so completely, then anyone’s could. These were the thoughts I had as we sailed two miles above his ship.
And one more: Sensei was living his last years in the company of loving family, on the island where he was born. He wasn’t lying dead in the belly of the ship below us. For this I felt immensely grateful. It filled me with hope—hope that we could triumph over all the forces that threatened the sea, no matter how strong they were.
I climbed the portal with Hollie, and we leaned against the hatch as the stars began to appear. Seaweed rode on the hull below us, shaking his beak in the spray. The Pacific lay ahead of us so wide and infinite it was hard to believe it could ever die.
“We will save it, Hollie,” I said as I leaned down and nuzzled his furry forehead with my face. “We will save it because we will never give up.”