‘Junk’ raft

The raft was made of 15,000 plastic bottles and a Cessna fuselage….

Tanned, dirty and hungry, two men who spent three months crossing the Pacific on a raft made of plastic bottles to raise awareness of ocean debris finally stepped onto dry land. The raft was made of 15,000 plastic bottles and a Cessna fuselage. “We made it,” hollered Marcus Eriksen to a crowd of about two dozen gathered at Ala Wai Harbor on Wednesday. “Where’s the food?” Friends greeted Eriksen and fellow eco-mariner Joel Paschal with lei, fresh food and beer to celebrate the end of their 2,600-mile voyage on what they call the JUNK raft. “We got used to eating fish and peanut butter,” said Eriksen, who celebrated his 41st birthday at sea. The pair left Long Beach, California, on June 1. Their 30-foot vessel had a deck of salvaged sailboat masts, six pontoons filled with 15,000 plastic bottles and a cabin made from the fuselage of a Cessna airplane. While at sea they realized they were only traveling half a mile per hour and it would take them much longer to reach Hawaii than the previously anticipated six weeks.