North Pacific II · 13–20 August 2027
Hi, I'm Brogan
This August, I'm joining an all-women crew sailing the North Pacific to research ocean plastic pollution — from Vancouver to Seattle, via Vancouver Island and the Broken Islands.
I trained as a mechanical engineer and now work as a software engineer, mostly making large datasets easier to understand and use — and there's a version of that same instinct behind this voyage. eXXpedition isn't just going to sea to look at the problem, it's collecting real samples to build data that can be traced back to a source and acted on. That's the part that pulled me in.
I'm excited to join a crew of women from completely different fields — scientists, artists, engineers, teachers, policy makers — most with little or no sailing experience, all there for our own reasons and figuring out how to run a research vessel together.
I'm not a scientist or a sailor, but I do like building things, so I built this site myself rather than use a crowdfunding platform — meaning more of what you give goes straight to the trip fee instead of platform costs. (Code's on my GitHub, if you're curious.) Every donation goes toward the £5,490 fee itself, tracked openly on the donate page — I'm covering my own flights, accommodation and visas separately.
The voyage
North Pacific II: Vancouver to Seattle
13–20 August 2027
Leaving Vancouver, we hug the coast north into Vancouver Island — dense forest, quiet inlets and remote communities that have little to do with the plastic washing up on their shores. The North Pacific Current is one of the ocean's great conveyor belts, sweeping plastic from coastal cities, fishing fleets and container ships eastward before it arrives here — so sampling these shorelines helps trace that journey.
We sail through the Broken Islands — over a hundred forested islands within Pacific Rim National Park, largely accessible only by water — exploring and sampling as we go, before turning south into Seattle.
About eXXpedition
Who I'm sailing with
eXXpedition runs all-women ocean research missions, founded by ocean advocate Emily Penn. Crews sample and trace plastic pollution back to its sources, then bring what they learn back into their own work and communities. This mission — 10 legs, 10 teams, sailing through 2026 and 2027 — is building the first global map of where ocean plastic actually comes from. Last time eXXpedition opened applications, over 10,000 women applied for 300 places.
Full details on their mission, the science and the wider crew are on exxpedition.com.
Why this matters
Plastic in the ocean has gone from an estimated 5 trillion particles in 2014 to around 171 trillion today, and talks for a UN Global Plastics Treaty stalled again in August 2025. This mission's data is meant to help change that — mapped and published openly, and intended to feed directly into those treaty discussions. More on the science and the wider goals of the mission at exxpedition.com.
The science on board
Crew members use a portable FT-IR spectrometer to identify the exact polymer type of samples collected at sea — since each polymer has a distinct chemical signature, that's what makes it possible to trace plastic back to a likely source, rather than just counting fragments. It builds on eXXpedition's earlier Round the World voyage, where microplastics sampled off Antigua were traced back to paint particles from a local boatyard. Full detail on the scientific programme is at exxpedition.com.