
By Ayesha Tejpar
CNN
October 29, 2009 9:29 a.m. EDT
-- For Mary Crowley, the sea is her second home.
She learned how to sail at age 4 and spent almost half her life running an international yacht chartering business in Sausalito, California.
But about two years ago, Crowley dove into a new project: helping to clean up the world's oceans. She set sail on a monthlong voyage into the North Pacific Gyre, parts of which are known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
The gyre, or area of spiraling ocean currents, is approximately twice the size of the continental United States. It isn't filled with garbage, but the region is known for accumulating large amounts of waste and debris that get trapped by its large clockwise currents between North America and Japan.
"I've been out to the same part of the ocean 30 years ago, and then, it was clean oceanic wilderness. And now, it's like a dump," Crowley said. "This is significantly worse."