Recent advancements in the development of passive environmental DNA (eDNA) seawater collections along with metabarcoding enable species detection and biodiversity audits that can provide increased replication and may be better suited to the needs of management authorities. Such stakeholders are often limited in the number of available staff, time that they can spend in the field, level of expertise with genetic techniques, and dedicated clean spaces to process and store seawater samples for downstream eDNA workflows. Passive eDNA filtering, however, has mostly only been applied thus far while at anchor in sheltered bays or lagoons. In our study, we test whether eDNA can also be passively collected while drifting in the pelagic environment by submerging filter membranes from a vessel for varying lengths of time and comparing taxon detections with two standard eDNA filtration methods. We used a combination of bony fish, marine mammal, and elasmobranch metabarcoding assays to assess detections. Flow metres were simultaneously deployed to estimate the volume of water passing over the filter membranes. Our results are discussed in the context of enabling future monitoring of pelagic marine parks, particularly those at the boundary of tropical and temperate environments as well as within state and federal jurisdictions.