Kayla Yesu
Monson, MA
2015, Junior, Creative Writing

Hi, I’m William the whale, but you can call me Will for short. Here’s my story. I would say I haven’t had the easiest life of all whales, it’s been rough. But I’m just glad I made it this far! So, when I was a little calf I lost both of my parents. My dad had accidentally eaten a few plastics and my mom got trapped in a huge fishing net, so I’ve had to grow up alone. At first I didn’t understand what really happened until my old friend Walter explained it to me. I was devastated for sure, I thought I would never get over it. I mean I’ve gotten a lot better the past couple of years, but not a day goes by that I don’t think about them. But that was a long time ago.

Anyways, here’s the actual story. One day a few months ago I was swimming along in the Pacific Ocean going to find myself some food, when I started to see lots of big pieces of plastic. I could even taste the plastic everywhere. Then I started to think, ‘what’s happening’? Nothing came to mind until… it hit me I’ve heard about this place before, but never thought it was actually real. I had swam into The Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

If you don’t know what that is, it’s basically a huge trash vortex. It spans all the way from the West Coast of North America to Japan so it’s pretty big. The zone kind of acts like a highway that moves trash and plastic from one patch to another. It’s made out of four currents that move clockwise. The craziest thing to me is this garbage patch takes up an area of about twenty-million square kilometers (7.7 million square miles). Now if you’re wondering how I, a whale would know all this, it’s because my parents used to tell me about it all the time. I also would over hear fishermen or boaters talking about it. Some other things I heard was that almost all plastics do not wear down they just break into tinier and tinier pieces. These garbage patches are almost entirely made up of the tiny pieces of plastics called microplastics. All the microplastics that are in the garbage patch make the water look like a really cloudy soup. But within all those microplastics are bigger objects such as fishing gear and shoes. Now back to the story. Once I realized I was in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch I got scared, like really scared. When I went to turn around all I saw was garbage. I guess I was already too far in to turn around.

I don’t think I’ll ever forgot what I saw that day. All these turtles, fish, seals and many more sea animals had died here. The sea turtles must have mistaken plastic bags for jelly fish. Seals and many others were tangled up in nets. Sharks and even my own kind had gotten caught or fooled by plastic. A few times I started to think I wasn’t going to make it out. There were little fish swimming around trying to find a way out, just like me. I just kept telling myself I can do it, I can get home. I figured going further down would help so that’s what I did. I took one huge gulp of air and went down. Little did I know seventy percent of marine debris actually sinks to the bottom of the ocean. So when I got down there it was ten times worse, I could barely see. It looked like lots of others had the same idea as me because there were even more sea animals down there. This was unbelievable, what did I get myself into? Then I started thinking. ‘If I turn around now it would be way shorter than going all the way through. So I turned around but as I did I saw the most surprising thing yet. It was a whale that had a fisherman’s rope tied all over it. It was indented into to the whale’s skin. I also saw a turtle that had a soda can ring stuck around its shell. It had to be there for a while because the shell had grown around it. All those animals gone, I didn’t want to end up like them, I couldn’t.

So I swam back up and took a few breaths and started swimming. I swam faster than ever before. I was doubting myself more and more. As I swam I made sure to be extra careful not to accidentally get caught in any plastic, or nets. Which was hard because you can’t see all the little, tiny microplastics. It’s like every little tiny bit of water I inhale is making me sicker. It felt like I would never escape. It was like it was never going to end. I didn’t think I had swam this far in. then I could see it, I could see and smell the clear, healthy water. There were happy, safe fish swimming around. The best thing was there wasn’t any trash! I got so excited I made it out alive. This was great only a few more inches… I was out. Finally now I just needed to get home safe. But I was not feeling very good anymore. My tail started to feel very heavy. But, right then all my focus was on getting home. I could see my home, as long as I get there I would be okay. Once I got home I turned around and saw that my tail had a huge gash in it. But I wasn’t very worried about it right then.

I needed to try my best fix this fast. I started thinking. Then it came to me. I could use the crabs and hermit crabs for this. I went over to Cam, Carrie and Carlos crab’s house and asked them for a favor. I asked them to write a note in the sand with sea shells saying- please do something about the trash vortex in the Pacific Ocean, it’s killing many animals. After they did that I also asked them to look out for people who saw it. They came back a few days later and told me two people saw the note and told each other they were going home to do more research then they were going to go to the environmental police. They were going to tell them that they needed to do something about this very soon because it’s a very big problem and even the creatures are crying out for help. Now they are working on it and trying to figure out a quick way to clean as much up as possible. Even though it’s almost impossible because of how much trash there is and how big it is. I really, really hope they fix it or else, I don’t even know what would happen if it didn’t get fixed soon. I can even imagine. But, that’s all I have for you for now but when I find out more information and if they’re going to actually do it or not I’ll let you all know right away.

Share Gallery

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch