Cape Town – Four film-makers went on an epic adventure across the Indian Ocean, diving deep into the devastating world of marine plastic pollution while producing a revealing documentary film called Oceans Without Limits.
The film premiered at the Two Oceans Aquarium yesterday.
The journey took the crew,
comprising cinematographer Mark van Wijk, experienced skipper Mark
Gibson, executive producer Gert
Muller and second-year marine biology and oceanography student Tristan Muller, from Cape Town, up the East Coast to Durban and Richards Bay before crossing the Mozambique channel to the tip of Madagascar before heading up the West coast via the Barren Islands to Nosy Be.
From Nosy Be they visited the Amirante Islands before stopping at the Seychelles and, lastly, the Maldives via the British Indian Ocean Territories.
Aside from documenting ocean pollution, they also conducted a study to test whether seagrass beds cause an increase in the quantity of microplastic in the sediment in the Indian Ocean, where many people are reliant on the sea for both protein and income.
Said van Wijk: “The essence of the film is an epic adventure, but in a way that gives back to the ocean. Sailing into parts of the Indian Ocean that are all tropical, like the Seychelles and the Maldives, with their tropical beaches, is so beautiful.
"But what we discovered was the hard-hitting reality that the more untouched places are, the more plastic we found on the beaches.
“The Maldives had a lot of plastic pollution evident, not only on the beach but in the water as well. We sailed south and found these uninhabited islands with a carpet of plastic around them. It was devastating to see this.
“We spoke to government departments and we found a lot of hope in that plans were being made to deal with it.”