Posted by nicole on 01/16/2006 09:55 am

Today I woke as usual: clueless to the state of the water and sky. Our porthole lids are down so we can sleep because of the unending light.  A great surprise was waiting for me on the deck: the sun.  We have seen the sun late in our evening a few times, poking below the cloud line at the horizon, distant and cold, but for the most part we haven't really seen or felt the sun in nearly two months solid.  Long ago we resigned ourselves to the overcast, rarely even seeing distinct cloud forms. Today the sun was up and out in full, framed by bands of thin, long, vertebral-shaped cloud spines floating slowly in a gentle wind above a sea made deep blue from the sky above, the sharp horizon broken and defined only by distant brilliantly lit icebergs scattered in all directions and the silhouette of ships.  And a living sky of pure white Snow Petrels on the wing.

And into this we launch again.  I take the helm at noon, after a morning effort where someone runs in and reports that two whales were spotted breaking off the hunter's course and heading our way. The hunter didn't see them because the sprayer was soaking their spotting nest.  THIS is the news that makes your day.  Eventually they made their kill but it took them over three hours and we know others got away.

When we launch the sea is picking up from the morning breeze which has been slowing building.  It's going to be a rough ride.  Again we head towards the Kyo Maru, again we rinse her flying bridge and crow's nest.  And after some time, it's clear the hunt is on.  We spot two large minkes side by side ahead and move to block, but the sea is heavy and once again we're pushing the edges of the boat's limits.  Stuff is crashing around in the boat, straining at their lashings.  A fire extinguisher nearly goes off.  The safety kit's lid is being battered and breaking loose. You can hear the sound of crunching and stretching all over the boat. The boat wants to leave the water on the tops of the chop.  Water is flying everywhere as we try to keep ahead of the Kyo Maru; these large animals can make great speed and it's clear the Kyo Maru is going for a quick kill.  But Andrew is directing the sprayer well considering the wild seas and the harpooner has to step back out of the mist several times.  Again it feels for a moment like they might lose them among the whitecaps and waterwall we're making, but eventually the all too familiar boom splits the air as the pair rise to our right and the one closest to us takes it inline right in the back. Once again the shot is just along our starboard side, striking the whale as it's alongside our bow, no more than ten feet to our side.  This time there's no commands necessary: I've already got the wheel hard over to port as the cable descends and snaps the water as the whale makes for it's last dive.

We stay out and follow the hunter to the mothership, but it's becoming clear that the sea conditions are making another attempt questionable.  Just as we begin the assessment of conditions we are called to return to the ship; news from the Arctic Sunrise is that a harpooner has shot over one of the inflatables and the boat was caught in the rope from above, and that there is at least one person in the water.

We are plucked from the sea on the crane amid confusion about what's happened. As we lift the boat over the railing, it's clear we've sustained more damage, this time from the sea: the bow protection we rigged before has been punched in from the hard pounding we took at the peak of the hunt and we've taken a lot of water into our forward compartment from a previous crack in the hull that's been aggravated wider. It will be long hours again tonight to make the boat ready by morning, involving welding, draining and the dreaded fabric repair.

News from the Sunrise is that no one has been seriously injured, but it is still unclear where things stand.  Until more is known, we will stand down: since they control when they take the shot, deliberately shooting over a boat is a new, dangerous development and we have to consider what it means, to what extent they're willing to risk killing someone to kill their whale.

From what I can see, it looks like the fleet is standing down too.  It appears that all boats are stilled in the waters now but I can't account for all the catchers at the moment.

And all the while the sun stood as witness, staying out with us all day.  Amidst all of this, the crew is in good spirits: the sun has that kind of effect.  It almost feels warm out there, even though we're all still in several layers and it's only the lee side that sees any crew on it.

At this point, there are four fuels that power me: the unrelenting beauty of this whole ecosystem that pleas for peace and solitude, the messages from you folks back home, the determination of this crew to carry on and the knowledge that we in America are directly connected to this, not through me but through Gorton's. 

It can be easy to forget the bigger picture that frames all of this down here: we KNOW that whaling will not come to an end directly from what we're trying to do here alone, while we are here, but it's still easy to get drawn into the blood and the steel here. I know that the Gordon's aspect probably doesn't seem as compelling or dramatic as the scenes of suffering and death, but the name Gorton's keeps rising more and more to the fore of MY mind.

They're an American company connected to this mess and damn it: if an American company is involved then we all are involved.  It simply strikes me as, yes, UNamerican for them to say that you can't do anything about it, or that it's not your problem, or say nothing at all.  We know that in America people are overwhelmingly opposed to killing whales, and yet, despite a direct connection between an iconic American company and these harpoons, the company stays silent. It's outrageous, really. 

I want to bring them back the hearts and intestines and carcasses we're having to weave around in these boats, I want to bring them the harpoons and the hauling lines.  I want to bring their executives here to see it for themselves, to hear the grenade explode and see the burst of flesh in the air. I want to bring them to within a dozen feet of a harpoon striking hard into a whale and I want them to drift in the wake of blood afterward. 

But that is not going to happen, so the link feels more abstract between them and this.  But it's not.  This fleet runs on money: it takes a lot of money to bring these ships here, fuel them, re-supply them. These boats run on money.  The only way to quiet these vessels for good is for that money to stop flowing.  So long as Gorton's is making money for their parent company, these boats will carry on their grim work, and the pure waters of Antarctica and those she nurtures will know what should be theirs by birthright: peace, beauty and solitude.

- Nathan

Posted by nicole on 01/16/2006 09:33 am

Yesterday, the Billy G and the big orange unnamed boat (that's another story there) launched in support of something the Sunrise wanted to try on the mothership during a transfer. I helped 'em launch from the deck then went to work on doing a little camera work on board for the campaign. The boats stayed near the mothership, but there was not a lot of activity. After lunch I suited up to join Zeger in the orange boat so that our bosun, Phil, could take a turn at the Billy G with a hunter. So the orange boat came back, we made the crew change, and drove up to pace just off the side of the mothership. The Sunrise was cycling her boats and crews as well so we hung out for a while, no hunters coming in for a transfer. Eventually a hunter did come in with a whale to transfer, and we decided to monitor the transfer (if practical we check each transfer to see if any fin whales have been taken; they're the second largest whale species and are endangered. The fleet is planning on taking 10 this year, which is a new development).

While we CAN interfere with the transfer, it's a VERY wet proposition, because you have to put your boat just off of the whale tied alongside the hunter's port side, who has five or six water cannons going full blast at you to discourage you. When she pulls up and off to the stern of the mothership after receiving the transfer cable, you have the added four or five cannons on the mothership to deal with, two of which are just unbelievably HUGE in volume and pressure. To block the transfer, you have to make it so they can't release the weight of the whale onto the transfer cable - when they do, the whale moves backward until it's weight is on the cable, so if you're to the side, the whale would come into and potentially under you, which could result in damage to the boat as well as the whale what with all the cable, whale and boat all moving around.

As aggressive as the fleet crews have been at times, they're not going to do this because it would certainly end in tragedy, but, more importantly, may very well end up damaging the meat they've worked so hard to get. It is amazingly difficult to keep your boat into position in all that watery mess, because you literally can't see anything but water (but I wrote about all that before). Point is, if we wish to go thwart a hunt, it's generally better to not start off soaked to the bone in freezing temperature sea water from the cannon. Trust me: this I've already learned from experience.

But Phil hadn't, so just as the hunter was lining up, in comes the Billy G, blazing right on into the cannons. They foiled the transfer for a while to get a taste of what it's like in there. In the middle of it all an opportunity presented itself and off the whale went. Then the hunter peeled off to the starboard; the Sunrise wasn't ready to try their idea, so off we went in pursuit of the hunter, the Kyo Maru, who we now know very well.

Shortly afterward they fired up the water pump on the Billy G and went to work on giving the open bridge a good soaking. The first thing the hunter ships do is start scouting for signs of a pod. They do this from a high 'crows nest' as well as from a wide, open bridge. They all use binoculars. Once they see a pod, then they send up the harpooner. If we can get our obscuring spray high enough it makes it pretty hard for them to see any whales. They spend a lot of time wiping down their binoculars instead. If they can't use their binocs, then they won't see the whales and won't be able to send up the harpooner. We know when we're being successful because you'll see water streaming out of the bridge scuppers, the instruments will be covered with tarps, and you won't see any heads popping up out of the monkey island or the bridge, as they're all taking cover. THAT's when you know they're not going to be able to hunt. And that makes all this work worth it.

Phil was doing a pretty good job on the ol' Kyo Maru: they just kept a straight course amid a steady artificial rain storm and hardly had a chance to see anything. Our job in the orange boat was to help spot him with the water's direction, look for ice or other hazards in the water before him, and generally be his eyes for everything beyond what he was immediately dealing with.

Hours passed. The hunter led us into a scrappy ice field composed of slushy, repeatedly-reformed chunks of ice, so we had to fall in behind for a while. Shortly thereafter we began to experience problems with the 'bucket' on our jet drive in the orange boat. The lever was becoming more stiff and the bucket less responsive. Eventually, we lost control of the bucket altogether, and thus had no forward thrust.

The way a jet drive works, in the most simple terms, is this: the engine turns an impeller that draws seawater into a device that pressurizes it and sends it shooting out the back of your boat. You can determine how much thrust you want by how much throttle you give the engine, thus pressure. A big metal object, called the 'bucket', hangs above the stream of water coming out the rear of your boat. If you lower this bucket, the thrust will be slowly directed downwards and eventually forwards if you put it all the way down, because it's roughly shaped like a scoop. With this, you can bring the boat to a standstill, called "stasis" (bucket directing thrust straight downward) or go backwards by bringing the bucket fully down. The steering controls tilt the bucket to direct the stream to one side or the other. In our situation, something failed in the bucket controls, leaving it hanging fully downward. Thus, we could only go in reverse. We could still steer, but not go forward.

Generally, it's a bad idea to drive a boat in reverse out on the ocean.

Zeger and I decided to see if we could fashion a rope to hold the bucket up to allow us to go forward. If so, we'd resume the chase if we could because, if you've got reliable thrust and steerage then hey; you can keep on going. We had two other folks in the boat, Jeremy, a photographer, and Yuko, a campaigner, so Zegar hopped into the sea at the stern of the boat while I got the rope. There is a platform as the sternmost part of the orange boat (as in the Billy G) which covers the bucket mechanism, so I stayed up on the platform to work from above. In our survival suits, with all the layers we wear inside them, their ability to trap air and thus allow you to float, and their watertightness, it's quite safe to hop in the water. When I looked at him, I noticed just how stunningly clear the water was; I could see his boots so clearly down below the surface it gave an indication of just how pure these waters are. Since it was awkward to deal with the rope from the platform, I decided to just hop in as well. I wouldn't have wanted to stay in for too long, but it was pretty sweet to get into this ocean we've spent so much time on top of and getting tossed around on.

Eventually we couldn't get a rope to stay on the bucket due to it's shape, so I just lay down on the platform, one hand up on the transom to keep me on while I leaned over the edge and held the edge of the bucket with my gloved hand; we could move forward so long as I lifted the bucket all the way up, and with Zeger telling me when to ease it down to halt forward momentum, we were able to bring her back alongside the Esperanza and get lifted back aboard for repairs. We weren't going to be chasing hunter boats with me hanging halfway out the back of the boat with half of me in the water.

I didn't like leaving the Billy G out alone, but the Espy serves well as one great big rescue boat, so we realized our day on the water was probably done. In the end it got a bit hairy, but everyone came home safe.

This is a tough place for humans and human-made things to be asked to work hard. None of these things should even be here at all; none of us should be here. From the sublime grace of her whales and winged creatures, her wild waters and cloak of winter permanence, and her cold, cold sun, Antarctica whispers a mesmerizing yet clear mantra: LEAVE ME AND MY SEAS IN PEACE.

I hope someday soon she gets her wish.

- Nathan 

Posted by nicole on 01/16/2006 09:28 am

When I last wrote, we were a few days into a heavy rotation of driving off the bows of the catchers to thwart the hunt.  Then, right after I sent the last update and went to bed, some rather strange events happened in the "night." (If I didn't mention it before, we've been in 24 hours of light for the past month.  Night is almost a vestigial reference at this point.)

While I was sleeping

First of all, the Oriental Bluebird, the bunkering (refueling) ship for the whaling fleet, reappeared on the horizon.  We were quite south of the border of the Antarctic treaty waters (which prohibits bunkering at sea below 60 degrees south,) so at first we were a little surprised to see them again. The Bluebird and the Nisshin Maru (the mothership, or processor boat) then tied up together.  We sent the heli up and found out that the Nisshin Maru was transferring pallets of boxes labeled "whale meat" to the Bluebird.  Further investigation revealed that the bunkering ship is actually a specialized bunker/reefer ship, tied directly to the fleet and is based in Japan even though it's flagged out of Panama.  Conjecture here is that since the fleet doubled it's quota of whales to kill this year, they need the reefer ship to take some of the meat back to Japan because they don't have the space on the single processor ship, despite her great size.

I don't think we've ever seen this type of activity, so we documented it.  It drives home the sham of the “scientific” mission of the fleet and exposes the endeavor as what it is: commercial whaling.


While the transfer was happening, the Arctic Sunrise crew pulled off an impressive impromptu labeling of the Bluebird. They hopped in their boats, loaded up the paint and rollers and wrote "WHALE MEAT FROM SANCTUARY" on the side of the boat in large letters and "WHALE MEAT" on the stern as well.


While finishing this up, the Sea Shepherd ship Farley Mowat appeared on the horizon.  About this time, the Nisshin Maru hurriedly dropped her lines, pulled away from the Bluebird, made a full turn astern of the reefer and set a collision course towards the Arctic Sunrise.  This was quite unexpected. The Sunrise kept her slow speed and course as per the maritime rules of the road, but then went full astern when she realized the Nisshin Maru was bearing down on her, in an attempt to avoid colliding.  But the ships collided, bashing the Sunrise in at the bow pretty hard. Then the Nisshin Maru steamed north at near full speed, with the Esperanza in pursuit while the Sunrise assessed damage and made repairs.  The whole thing appears to us to have been a deliberate act on the part of the Nisshin Maru captain, staged in a way to make it look as if the Sunrise rammed the processor.  Given these guys some credit: they're a clever and treacherous lot.


Then I woke up

We followed the mothership north all the way to 62 degrees south, the upper limit of the 'box' they set to whale in before the hunt began.  Then we traveled west a bit, then eventually turned to southwest and have returned to the waters just off Antarctica, below 65 south, last night.

I have to admit, it was nice to have two days off from boat driving; it was wearing us out pretty thin.  Our "days off" are spent repairing boats, cleaning the ship and working on new things while the ship pitches and rolls and corkscrews around, meaning you get tossed around into the walls and don't get much real sleep.  

Then when we return to the whaling grounds, we're right back in the boats.  This is pretty fatiguing stuff; you just never get a break one way or the other.  That said, the stamina of this crew has really been impressive and the focus remains tight. All are committed to staying as long as we can to carry on the activities of the campaign.  This is certainly the most physically sustained effort I've ever been a part of, and I'm just astounded about how capable this crew is, and it seems to just get better and better as we go.  

We've got our launch and recovery maneuvers down so well it just flows with efficiency, feeling a lot like a pit row operation at times.  Meanwhile, if you're not on deck or otherwise involved in whatever activity of the moment, you're bringing people tea and hot chocolate or doing their laundry or picking up the daily cleaning chores, or helping the engineers.  All the while the boats are out on the water, all this other stuff is always going on.  And you can still find someone in the lounge from time to time, having a beer at the end of the day, swapping stories and jokes, playing the guitars.  While we pursued the mothership on her most recent run, the captain graciously gave us a full day off; I took the time to fashion a mount out of scrap aluminum for the harmonica I brought along so that folks can play the guitar and harmonica at the same time.  For those of you concerned about our mental and emotional states, we are still having fun, still keeping sane, still keeping a good eye on each other and still hungry to do what we can to stymie this fleet.

- Nathan