I wouldn't say "Full", but the amount of plastic trash out there is hard to believe until you see it.
I've sailed between Hawaii and the US mainland and Alaska several times in a small sailboat and I can attest that in the area of the North Pacific gyre, it's pretty much plastic soup with plenty of large chunks. On a ship you may see the occasional large bit, like line tubs, floats and coolers. On a small boat, mine is 27 feet, you notice the large balls of line mostly submerged, hats, water bottles, soft drink cans, and millions of thumbnail size and smaller bits of plastic in the water. On our last trip we thought we must be following someone who was unpacking big screen TVs and tossing the styrofoam packing overboard. Those little plastic toothpick/floss things seem to be awfully popular too, along with foam coffee cups and aluminum cans
It's real. And it's appalling. We sailed through that garbage for weeks in 2007, 2010 and 2012. We recorded some of it Sailing from Hawaii to Alaska 2012 Day 17
I was under the impression that almost all of that floating debris in the gyre comes from Asian people littering in Asia.
Did you see evidence of that?
You know, like extra small condoms.