Greenpeace

Saturday morning at about 6:00 a.m. we crossed the equator just east of the island of Nauru.  It was rather unceremonious for something that would seem significant, and I'd heard from more than one source that crossing the line at sea has historically been a rite of passage.  So I did a bit of research on the matter, and apparently the traditional ritual is often brutal, humiliating and on more than one occasion fatal.  Okay, I was looking for significance, not savagery.  I keep hearing whispers around the ship that something's in the works for those of us who crossed the equator for the first time (Pollywogs, according to Neptune and his court), but to date nothing's happened.  My speculation is that the masters of ceremony have a desire to use creativity and cleverness instead of sheer brutality to mark the occasion, and imagination is far more difficult to utilize than ruthless force.  With that in mind, could it be that our world leaders are simply suffering from a lack of creative thinking?

It's now Wednesday on this side of the dateline, and we've been at sea for nine days.  Upon leaving Pohnpei our route initially took us southeast towards Nauru.  We sailed north then southeast around the island nation Friday evening, crossed the equator Saturday morning and passed Banaba Island around noon.  Banaba (also called Ocean Island) is part of the Republic of Kiribati.  We did a fly-over with the helicopter to get photo and video documentation, and saw a stark contrast between beautiful reefs, a small community concentrated in a corner of the landscape and extensive devastation caused by the island's history of mining operations.  Phosphate mining from 1900 to 1979 stripped away 90% of the surface, and for an island of only 1500 acres that was once lush tropical land, only 150 acres remain unexcavated.  The majority of the island has been left with unsightly towering limestone pinnacles, which rise to upwards of 80 feet in places and make the island's interior impassable.  Today Banaba stands as a monument to the devastating effects that mining and an insatiable appetite for resources can level on a once pristine and vital ecosystem.

We continue to look for illegal fishing operations, and whereas we have a lot of data available to help with the search, it's still a vast ocean.  Pirate fishing contributes considerably to the problem of overfishing, as it currently accounts for up to 30% of the global catch to a tune of roughly $9 billion a year.  Even with so many tools at our disposal and a perpetual influx of useful information, finding them is still a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack.  There's some comfort in knowing that most of our successful campaigns at sea, which collectively comprise the lore of Greenpeace, had their moments where the size of the ocean and blankness of the horizon seemed like overwhelming hurdles.  At one point many years ago, while looking for the Russian whaling fleet, the crew became so desperate that a wind up toy was placed on the map and the course for the search was determined by the direction of the toy.  Guess what.  They found the fleet, and we ultimately stopped Russia's whaling operation in one of our greatest victories.  Maybe there's a lesson in there somewhere, like we should be a bit more Jedi Knight about all this and not so technological.  Don't worry, we're not turning off the radar in favor of the I Ching or pulling out the Ouija Board.  We'll keep searching for illegal vessels and pushing to expose the scandal of pirate fishing.  Maybe one will appear on the horizon right after I hit the send button.  Come on, Neptune, a little help here.  The Pollywog stuff can wait.