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"The frontiers are not east or west, north or south, but wherever a man "fronts" a fact", says Thoreau. Well since Thanksgiving we have sailed this ship in all of those directions and been blown around in a few more. Moreover, we have successfully fronted a few very unwelcomed facts.
It has been three weeks since we last spoke. The Esperanza did manage to trump three typhoons but in doing so, Neptune took the liberty of making a very important decision for our expedition. Prior to the storms developing we were amidst formulating a strategy-which course to steer for the southern ocean. Bearing in mind the hunting grounds are the equivalent of twice the land mass of the United States.
We were directly south of the Japanese islands and the whalers stalk as far west as Cape Town, South Africa and as far east as New Zealand. The bridge and campaign team were well into playing out all the scenarios and possible routes the hunters might choose. Would they go west of Australia and pass through the Lok Box Straights of Indonesia or would they pass Papa New Guinea and around the islands of New Zealand to the east? At the time it was the dilemma of the day, but it soon became a moot point. We had to change our course from directly south to directly east in order to penetrate the storms.
These two shots were taken at the moment when we realized that there was no way to run from the first typhoon.They do not do the ensuing storm justice but I didn’t have a free hand to take a picture with while we were in the thick of it. None the less we all made out relatively well and it was good practice for what the roaring forties and furious fifties have waiting for us.
This image was one that I saw many times in my head over those two weeks. What you see is a survival suit and abandon ship drill we did prior to setting sail.
Of course the image of a gallon of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream also occupies many moments in my mind so maybe I am being a bit dramatic.
So now we emerge from the holes we rode out the storms in to a bright beautiful ocean with water so clear you would swear you could see the bottom, but you know what? You can't. We were sailing over the Mariana's Trench. 6.8 miles to the bottom, it is the deepest place in the ocean on earth. It is here the ship had to stop, and I had to dive to the bottom.
No, just kidding I obviously didn’t do that. But I did get to go diving to repair the ship. Gavin, the videographer is also a diver and so we were tasked with diving on the hull of the ship to inspect intake tunnels where the ship brings in raw water to cool the engines. We were running the engines hard in order to make up lost time and the already hot equatorial sea water was providing little comfort to the massive machines. Also raining on the parade were about six million black mussels that had hitched a ride from South Korea in these tunnels. Apparently, they really liked the place because they proliferated like the plague and quickly carpeted the walls of the sea chest, starving the engines of what little cooling water they had to work on. First dive Gavin and I plopped over the side with his camera to survey the hull. Second dive we took along hand scrapping tools in a foolish attempt to exterminate these stow-a-ways.The sea was relatively flat, the boat was a drift and people were quite jealous that we were getting to enjoy such magnificent conditions, but privilege quickly turned to a very challenging responsibility.
As you can see the intake is about fifteen feet beneath the surface. However, what you do not see is that the roll of the ship is creating a huge undertow as it list from side to side. So, if you are clinging to the side of the hull, which you must in order to clean it, then one second you will be at 15ft and the next at 25ft. The vacuum created by the sheer girth of the hull pried both Gavin and myself of the grates more than once leaving us twenty feet deeper than we were a blink before, and with two ear drums that felt like they have blown twice over. A third cleaning dive finally did the trick thanks to one of many ingenious solutions by Gavin. He constructed an underwater vacuum by welding a valve onto a long metal pipe using air delivered from the ships air compressor. MacGyver would have been well proud and by the time we were done cleaning that sea chest, you could eat in there but mussels were not on the menu.
It had always been planned to bunker (take on fuel and food) just before heading into the ice fields. Equally as crucial, we needed to repair the helicopter that had been grounded since our departure from South Korea. I cannot express how valuable the helicopter is to two of the main aspects of this expedition, finding the whalers and bearing witness to the murders. Not to mention the role it plays in our direct actions and scope it brings to the science conducted onboard. We aimed to sort these things in Auckland, New Zealand in the most efficient and expeditious manner possible. Seeing as Greenpeace has a national office in Auckland we were able to coordinate seamless ground logistics prior to arriving. We knew we could get the fuel and food onboard within 48 hours but the helicopter was an uncontrollable variable.
When we came to rest along side at Princess Wharf in the heart of the city, there was a small gathering of around a dozen folks to greet us. It was bitter sweet. First, it was nice to see land and I could already taste the two banana splits I was planning on. However, the welcome party all had luggage, because they were replacements for several crew members whose three or four month tour had come to an end. I had grown quite fond of several of my colleagues in the engineering dept. They had been patient and gracious over the last two months and I was truly sad to see them go.
Crew change done, food loaded, fuel pumped and we are ready to go! Except the helicopter is not ready. Three days go by and no still no heli. Five turns to seven and now the natives are growing restless. In the process of fixing the original break in the chopper the technicians discovered yet another repair that needed to be made to the rear rotor. The parts had to be ordered from the UK and the helicopter service company was having their holiday party on Friday before they called it quits until after new year. We immediately began damage control and executed an exhaustive search for anything that could fly and land on the back of a ship. All the while the gap between us and the whalers becoming greater. Finally, the captain set a departure date of wed the 19th with or without the chopper. That meant three more days of purgatory. So, many crew members took advantage of unexpected shore leave and stretched their legs one last time.
I too was very anxious to get the show on the road. I could not sit still. So, I went and fulfilled a childhood dream.
I traveled to the Northlands with Remon’ (Fitter) and Paul (Electrician) to the Bay of Islands. It is there, that the original Rainbow Warrior ship was sunk after being bombed by the French military in 1985. The ship was actually tied up on the dock just next to where the Esperanza was currently moored when the French commandos detonated their explosives. The cowardly attack cost a man his life and sank the Warrior. She was towed north off the coast of Paihia Island and scuttled to serve out her retirement as an artificial reef, and what a magnificent reef she has become. The ship is both a garden and a grave. The wreck was the source of much internal dialogue as I made parallels between her mission and the one we were on, and how over twenty years later nations like Japan are still using their militaries to harbor acts of environmental destruction.
This is a picture of the monument that sits on the cliffs overlooking the ship it remembers. I left feeling very proud and very privileged and to say more wouldn’t do the experience justice. A nice four hour trip back south to the Esperanza gave me good time to digest the whole day. I woke up the next morning to a pleasant surprise, a letter from Robin Davey. Robin is the mother of Billy Greene for whom the boat I will drive in the Southern Ocean is named after. She reached out to me in a simple note saying that she was behind us all the way and how pleased she was to see that the Billy G was returning to help stop whaling. I was once again reminded of how many people are part of this expedition that aren’t onboard; Robin Davey, Billy Greene, the 13 year old boy who wrote me last week telling me he wanted to sail on the Esperanza and save whales when he grows up, people who are giving not only dollars but days of their lives. This is what we call “all hands on deck." So Wed. the 19th arrived, it arrived yesterday in fact. It arrived without the needed helicopter parts and thus we left without a helicopter. But believe you me; this ship has no shortage of tricks up her sleeves. A helicopter would have been very helpful but as the captain very matter of factly stated-we have found them before without the helicopter and we will find them again-and friends, at the end of any day, that is good enough for me. Not only have we compensated for the lack of a chopper but we have improved on certain things that were previously restricted by the use of a heli. I cannot say more in the unlikely event that some lonely sailor on the Japanese whaling ship is perusing my Greenpeace blog before he retires for the evening. And we are off! For me this marks the beginning of our expedition. We will find the whaling fleet, we will find them soon and we will do exactly what we came here to do. Of this I have no doubt, but I must go and sleep now for I need my rest I have a big day tomorrow! I have a date with a lady in red. Her name is Miss Piggy.
One of the camera crew asked me if it was an artifact I found diving. Five minutes later she stopped working. So I gave her a Texas tune up and tomorrow I will take her down to the nice romantic spot you see here:
and together over twelve breathtaking hours we will pump 10 tons of sludge from holding tank 9 to tank 20. This is the kind of romance you can only find on ships!
I was just set to say goodbye here and I heard ear piercing screams coming from the center of the ship. I walked into a crowd of smiles and learned that the Japanese government had announced it will not hunt humpback whales this season. They left port with a quota to kill 50 threatened humpback whales in the sanctuary. Japan had done so at the request of the US government who will chair the next International Whaling Commission meeting this June in Chile. This is great news. However, they must stop all commercial whaling, not just one species for one season. They still plan to murder 985 Minke and Fin whales. This change by the Japanese Gov. is a very clear example of how nations like the US and Australia have the power to convince Japan to stop killing whales. Now they must do it.
The temperature outside is dropping quickly. We are sailing faster.
The time to put this killing to an end is near at hand.
I will write once we reach the ice. Fingers crossed.
-heath
There seems to be an outbreak of oil spills in the news lately. From San Francisco to Korea, Russia to Norway and Alaska to the Antarctic, oil spills are making headlines. What’s most aggravating to me is this notion that an oil spill can be “cleaned up,” and that an area can be restored to its pristine condition after an oil spill. Nothing can be farther from the truth.
I live in Alaska where the Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons crude oil that that blackened 1,200 miles of our state’s pristine coastline and killed untold numbers of fish, birds, whales, seals, otters and other wildlife. It also decimated local fishing and Alaska Native communities who rely on the ocean and its resources for their way of life. I have kayaked in Prince William Sound and seen firsthand the “bathtub ring” of Exxon Valdez oil still visible at high tide line. Scientists report that oil from the initial spill in 1989 is still being dispersed in the sound today, and could continue for decades. Only a few species have recovered since the spill, the rest are in decline or have not recovered.
All this against the backdrop of ExxonMobil declaring the spill “cleaned up” 16 years ago, while posting record profits and continuing to stall and delay the payment of funds to fishermen and communities still feeling the effects of the spill.
In short, “cleaning up” an oil spill is a misnomer. Even under perfect conditions - warm temperatures, calm seas, no wind and oil, and oil spill response equipment close at hand – only 15 percent of the oil is removed from the environment. The rest remains, smothering birds and other wildlife so that they die of hypothermia, suffocation or by poisoning themselves through ingesting oil in an effort to clean themselves. The legacy of an oil spill lives on for decades.
It’s just one more reason we need to break our addiction to oil. Phasing out dirty fossil fuels like oil and replacing them with clean forms of energy such as solar and wind will not only reduce and eventually eliminate the threat and impact of oil spills, it will also solve the issue of global warming.
Above photo is me, at the site of the Selendang Ayu oil spill on Unalaska Island, Alaska, December 2004.
-- Melanie
After a week of negotiations WCPFC with over 360 people from many corners of the planet you would think that we would be able to come to at least SOME agreements on how we're going to save the Pacific yellow fin and big eye tuna stocks right? Perhaps it was just me being naive but I was really expecting SOMETHING to happen. After endless days inside a huge room without windows and lots of serious people in suits, the two most valuable tuna species in the Pacific are no closer to recovery than they were before. The reduction in fishing effort that the scientists were recommending was totally ignored by Japan, China, Taiwan and Korea with Japan leading the pack and earning themselves not one but two "tuna destroyer" Greenpeace awards.
Yet again shortsighted economics continue to rule the day putting the environment, fish stocks, Pacific Island economies and the fishing industry itself at risk. This fisheries commission is now failing miserably just like all the others and as you can tell, I'm pretty frustrated about it! I came here with high hopes and of seeing measures get adopted that would ensure the sustainability of the last tuna frontier in the world. Tuna is very important to Pacific island economies and the last thing they need in addition to dealing with the effects of climate change is to have their fish stocks crash!
I have actually been dreading writing this update because it felt like all I had was bad news but there is a light shining at the end of this tunnel because the Greenpeace oceans team, as usual has a few tricks left up their sleeve :-)
One positive note at the meeting was a visionary proposal tabled by Papua New Guinea and the Cook Islands calling for the creation of marine reserves in three large high seas areas, which would close them to all fishing. While the proposal was not adopted, it is now on the table and this at least something we can celebrate. But the global politics of failing tuna management leaves the world no other option but to mobilize market forces. Greenpeace is now calling for retailers across the world to stop selling bluefin, bigeye and yellowfin tuna originating from illegal, unsustainable and unfair fisheries. The Pacific Islands livelihoods and economies that depend on this core resource will not be held ransom to consensus decision-making anymore. So there IS hope and although this flight wont be easy, having met the folks working on this campaign and seeing what they are capable of, I remain positive about the future of the Pacific.
I've created a photo set on my Flickr account so that you can get an idea about the kind of things we got up to at the meeting.
As the sun sets on Guam, this is SheSeeMe the disappointed but hopeful big eye signing off.
-- Lisa
Not too long ago I remember reading that fish stocks in the Pacific were relatively healthy and that it was the only region in the world where tuna was not being overfished. But a lot has changed in just a few years and scientists are now saying that Pacific tuna stocks are severely threatened from overfishing and that the situation is critical. The Pacific countries are now faced with a very difficult challenge and the fate of many economies is at stake.
I am in Guam right now at the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) meeting where more than 20 nations will be negotiating agreements on the region's fisheries, which mainly consist of 4 tuna species (yellow fin, big-eye, skip jack and albacore). The greatest concern is over the decline in yellow fin and big eye stocks which are the tunas that are sold to the sushi and sashimi markets.
Greenpeace has an observer delegation attending the meeting that consists of 5 oceans campaigners. Seni and Lagi are here from the Greenpeace Australia Pacific office in Fiji and Jason is here from the Sydney office. Sari is here from Greenpeace International in Amsterdam and Phil from Greenpeace USA arrives this evening. Inside the meeting they will be monitoring the negotiations and outside they are meeting with the delegates and encouraging the best solutions.
I am your trusty blogger for the meeting and will be letting you know exactly what happens here in Guam. You regularly get to see the heroic actions on the water but so rarely hear about the heroes who work long hours lobbying countries at important meetings like this. Of course the adrenalin levels aren’t quite the same but that doesn’t mean what goes on here isn’t exciting.
Pacific Island countries depend on tuna resources for income and food and this region has the most productive tuna fishery in the world providing over half of the total global tuna supply. Decisions made here will affect the lives of millions and determine the fate of a massive ecosystem. I don’t think you can get much more exciting than that!
We’re calling upon the WCPFC to get serious about protecting the Pacific’s valuable fish stocks by cutting fishing effort in the region by 50%, banning all trans shipments at sea (this is when fish is off-loaded onto another boat, which allows vessels to avoid reporting their total catch by not needing to come into port) and establishing a no-take marine reserve for species managed by the WCPFC. Indications suggest that some of the industrial fishing nations will block efforts to conserve the tuna and already it seems that some of them are making threats to cut the funding of the Commission if expensive measures are put into place to regulate the fisheries. If only they were as keen on cutting fishing effort as they are to cut the funding of the Commission, which only has 8 staff and costs, les than 0.12% of the annual value of the fishery.
The meeting officially starts tomorrow and I will be making a radical physical transformation that I will tell you about later. I'll be posting an update on Tuesday.
-- Lisa
The hunt is on! When I last wrote we were positioned just off the coast of japan awaiting the departure of the whaling fleet. They had already delayed their departure several days due to a meeting between the new Japanese Prime Minister and George Bush at the white house. The Japanese government wanted to avoid the tidal wave of negative media they knew would result when we intercepted them on their way to the southern ocean. Their commercial whaling program is a source of great diplomatic tension between Japan and the U.S. (a pro-whale conservation nation.) Once the meeting had ended the fleet delayed just a little longer so that they could leave port under the cover of darkness. We had sources to alert us when the mother ship threw off her dock lines. We got the word they had left the dock and we calculated their speed and came up with an ETA for them to reach the sea. The time came and they still had not arrived, a few hours past and still nothing. Then finally our radar detected a ship approximately the same size as the processing ship and moving at around the same speed. With no other means to confirm its identity we were forced to assume that this was the ship we were looking for. Then just as the ship came out of the channel our radar lit up like a christmas tree.
The Japanese government had strategically positioned a fleet of coast guard and navy vessels at the entrance to the ocean and all at once they turned off their AIS (Automated Identification Systems) and saturated our radar screen with a barrage of similar sized vessels all traveling at the same speed in every direction of the compass.
The Japanese military knew our exact location the entire time as they had used both coast guard air planes and helicopters conduct regular low level fly-overs of the Esperanza everyday for several days proceeding the fleets departure, not to mention our campaign had gone public and we were as always transparent and clear in our position and mission.
The captain was forced to use his best judgement and deductive reasoning to try and pick a needle from the haystack of Japanese decoys. at around midnight we made our choice and set a course to track down what we hoped was the mother ship of the fleet. We closed in just around day break and much much much to our dismay we could just make out the vessel on the horizon and confirmed that it was not our ship but one of the military decoys.
We immediately set our course for due south and began steaming full speed ahead to try and make up for time lost on the decoy. The Esperanza can sail faster than the mother ship and over the course of several days we hoped to close the gap between us.
If ever there was one iota of doubt about the illegitimacy and deception that is this so called ¨Research Project¨ it is gone now. This was a large scale military operation carried out at the expense of the Japanese tax payers. As Americans we are well aware of the operating costs of planes and ships and the Japanese government just served up a pretty hefty bill to its taxpayers all in the name of disguising a whaling program that 69% of the citizens adamantly oppose.
We are not a military superpower, we are just one ship, we have solid technology but nothing capable of trumping the Japanese navy. The fact that the government went to such great lengths and expense to sneak its whaling fleet past us in the middle of the night is bold testament to the fact that they are hiding commercial whaling and not conducting science at all. Were this a legitimate research operation then they should have nothing to hide and would be proactive in encouraging transparency and openness.
Their military operations have not stopped. Immediately after we altered our course south a high speed long range Japanese coast guard cutter began shadowing us. It assumed a position just on the outskirts of our radar and set a speed and course identical to our
own. They have remained there for four days now with no signs of leaving.
I will not lie. all of us onboard were very disappointed that the fleet got a head start on us. The next morning most folks spirits were down in their boots. So I did the one thing I know to do to cheer people up. I strapped on the the apron and headed to the galley. The cooks have Sundays off so myself and a few others took on brunch for forty hungry sailors.
If there is one thing in this world that can always cheer me up it is the smell of frying bacon and this ship has a skillet big enough for a whole hog. Note: we also made pancakes and veggies for our non carnivorous mates.
That was four days ago. Now it is Thanksgiving for me being fourteen hours ahead, and instead of a turkey I got something else that starts with a T, a typhoon.
Right now we are franticly scrambling to steer through a tropical storm that was just upgraded to a typhoon. Unfortunately, if we do make it through said typhoon we will be positioned directly at the meeting point of two other typhoons on a collision course for one-another. I cannot describe to you the motion of the ocean and the rolling of the ship. So I will just say this, I am writing this blog laying spread eagle face down on the floor. I have both legs wedge in between bookcases and one hand pinning down my laptop, typing with the index finger of my free hand.
But rest assured navy decoys and typhoons are no match for this ship and her crew. We are charged more than ever and have no doubt in our minds that we will find the whalers and keep them from killing. Peace, to you and yours on this holiday, to my family I miss you and am sorry I am not there to cook dinner, if anyone is pressed to find something to be thankful for today, let it be that the couch you are watch football on is not going to be flipped upside down by a wave twice the size of your house, as mine was this morning 
After you wake up from your turkey/tofu induced nap, prop yourself up in bed and go to greenpeace.org and sign up to be a whale defender! Also, stay tuned because we are going to launch a massive global cyber action in the very near future where you can demand that the prime minister of japan put an end to this senseless slaughter!
This is my first blog for this expedition to the Southern Ocean aboard the MY Esperanza, actually it is my first blog ever. I plan on writing many more over the course of the next several months. I will just say upfront that I am not very good with the flowery rainbows and majestic sunset stories so I am just gonna tell it how it is. Let me also add this disclaimer. This is a really long blog (two pages) but many things have happened over the last month and I was unable to share them with you as they happened, as to not announce the ship’s intentions or position to the Japanese. In the future I will write more frequently and more concisely now that we the expedition has gone public.
I joined the ship in South Korea where we were tied alongside at an industrial ship yard.
The ship had been there for a few weeks before I arrived and the crew had already begun tackling a long lists of repairs and maintenance that had been delayed for lack of parts and moreover, time.
When the ship is sailing everyone has more than their share of responsibilities and little repairs here and there fall to the wayside out of necessity.
I was a bit anxious upon my arrival. I am a first mate on a fairly large vessel at home in Florida, but this was my first expedition on a Greenpeace ship and something told me it was going to be a little different from what I was accustom to. I was right! For starters I quickly realized that I am the only American in a crew of now 34, soon to be 45. As I am sure you can imagine our countryś reputation for social irresponsibility and environmental negligence forged a skeptical (at best) reputation that well proceeded me. In addition to that I am the youngest member of the crew at ripe ole 27. However, I am far from a greenhorn when it comes to the sea and knew I just needed an opportunity to prove my metal. Well, I got it almost immediately. On my first day a quiet and pensive lad, shorter in stature but well salty and wearing the countanence of a man who had stared into a crystal ball (compass) for more days than I had been alive, approached me on the poop deck. He had only to say a few words and I realized he was the captain. We spoke briefly about my experience and skills and he immediately offered me an opportunity to be a member of the engineering department. I accepted and was introduced to a team of seven very talented individuals from all over, Germany, Sweden, Argentina, Ireland, and now the US. Each engineer has their own niche be it, fitter, electrician, mechanic. Mine would be to assist with overall operations of the engines and to focus on repairing and maintaining the small fleet of rigid hulled inflatable boats on board. It could not have worked out better. Now I could spend time working on my baby, Billy G,
Then it all became clear. I stopped at a busy intersection to gain my bearings and happened to see my reflection in a shop window. My t-shirt! I was wearing an old favorite raggedy shirt. It is blue and has an American flag in the center and beneath the flag reads, ¨BUSH - SATAN 2004¨
The simple little nutt became a needle in a haystack almost instantly. As I approached people sitting atop mounds of scrap and random pieces, I held out my pump and pointed to the bolt protruding from the top. Each time they would disappear and return with a five gallon bucket filled to the rim with fasteners of every size and shape you could imagine, and each time i sat on my knees and pillaged through millions of bits, but to no avail. It was getting dark and I was not totally confident I knew the way back to the ship, but I was not going back without this nutt. By this time I had become the equivalent of a traveling side show scavenging up and down alleys. I also had acquired a fan. A little guy probably eleven or twelve i would say. Every time I turned around he would dip behind a pile of old engines in a good ole fashion game of peak-a-boo. By this time he had disappeared, but as I was staring aimlessly at makeshift street signs that had no meaning to me, I spotted him again standing on the hood of a junker car. The car sat in front of a auto-body shop, so I thought, ẅhat the heck it is worth a shot. I crossed the street and entered an open garage bay. Turns out the kids dad was the owner and as he saw me enter the kid ran over and whispered something in his ear. They both had a good laugh, at my expense I am sure, but by this time I did not care I just wanted my nutt. The dad pulled out yet another huge bucket of bits. This time he took the initiative to begin the digging and pretty quickly came up with the closest match yet. It was the right diameter, but was too thick. He spun around, pulled down his welding helmet, and fired up a saw that looked like it could slice through a tank with no problem. Bare handed he held the nutt right up to the blade and from a shower of sparks came a perfect fit. Again, I graciously bowed and he instantly saw the look of relief on my face. I reached for my pocket and he waved his hands and bowed, again insinuating that it was on the house. I gave the little guy a high five up high, one in the middle, but of course he was too slow for the one way down low J
On my walk back to the ship I marinated on the last five or six hours, amazed by how different it had ended from how it began, humbled, embarrassed, almost ashamed at the impact of the t-shirt.
Upon returning to the ship everyone had called it quits for the day and were relaxing on the helicopter deck. When I produced the nutt and the metal screen there was silence. It turned out that several of them had set out on this exact same mission days before and all had returned empty handed. It wasn't until I returned the wad of cash just as thick as it was when it was given to me that a round of applause broke the silence. Everyone, demanded the story but I was exhausted and knew that I could not have done the day justice with words, and I really needed a cold beer! 
The next day we cast off the lines and set sail for ¨Jakarta.¨ I put in quotes because we never really intended to arrive in Jakarta we were using that as our heading to try and fool the Japanese fleet into thinking we were not there for them. A few days at sea and I began to really feel at home on the ship. Working from eight to five in the engine room
and draped over diesel engines on inflatables, preparing them for the extreme conditions they would have to perform in in the Southern Ocean. In my down time in the evenings I tried to make my cabin as homey as possible by pinning up pictures of my family and my girlfriend and two cats.
I share a cabin with a really cool guy from New Zealand. He is the Bosun on the ship. He is in charge of the deckhands, general maintenance, crane operator, etc. His name is Grant and he is 34.
His trade at home is that of an arborist for a conservation society that tends to national parks. Very smart man and we got along from the get go which was good because we were about to share a small and miserable space. Being a Floridian I was pretty anxious about going to Antarctica. Having not worn a pair of close-toed shoes in four years I packed every warm thing generous friends could dig out of the tops of their closets. My dad spent 30 years in the air force so he was the big contributed of cold weather gear. Little does the US military know but they sponsored me on this expedition, thanks Uncle Sam. But the joke was soon to be on me. I was so myopic in my wardrobe planning I failed to realize that sailing from South Korea to Antarctica required at least two months of sailing through tropical climates and crossing the equator. It was around eighty degrees out and getting warmer. The ship has air conditioning but in the name of fuel conservation the chief engineer elected not to use it. Each cabin has at least one port hole, but as you can imagine they are small and when the seas are rough, as they have been, you cannot keep them open for the water coming in. So imagine a steel can with 35 people sweating profusely all the while being shaken about in fifteen to twenty foot seas. It was miserable. People began sleeping on deck until it rained for several days in a row. Sticky sleepless nights resulted in cranky crew. But levity was soon brought to the irritable group, at my expense of course. Each night I began trying to sleep in my bunk but would retreat to a hallway or common area in seek of air circulation. One night I got up and climbed down from my sauna. The port hole was open so I decided to lay down on our vinyl couch that was next to it. I managed to dose off for a bit, but soon awoke for some odd reason. I opened my eyes and in the pitch black I could make out two bright white circles coming towards my face. Thankfully, at the last second my eyes came into focus and I realized those weren't circles at all, THOSE WERE BARE BUTT CHEEKS! Grant had awoke in a pile of sweat himself and had the same idea I did. He had stumbled over and was going to plop down on the couch aka my face. I screamed like a little girl and luckily scared him so bad he aborted his landing and jumped into the air. We were both definitely awake now and had quickly relocated to opposite sides of the nine by six cabin. We stood in silence for a minute and then at the same time began rambling about how hot it was and how we should go for fresh air. Laughing our ¨butts¨ off we made our way up to the bridge to see what was on the radar screen besides a full moon. I knew that I planned on working to erase the incident from my memory asap, but the next morning at breakfast I was greeted with uproarious laughter and applause. Grant had thought the whole thing to be so funny he shared it with the rest of the crew and again the Yankee provided the laughs.
Laughter soon came to a halt upon receiving word that the fresh water maker had a broken pump and there would be no more laundry washing and showers were limited to three minutes or less. Not what you want to hear when you have been sweating 24/7 for two weeks. In addition to that the helicopter mechanic had discovered a crack in the control box that could not be repaired on board. This meant that we would have to detour to a port and try and get a new pump and parts for the heli. The most logical choice was Taiwan. Two-thirds of the things made this planet come from this little island so we figured if we can´t find it there we probably aren´t going to find it. We spent three days alongside in Keelund, Taiwan. We managed to get what we needed and then were on our way again. We sailed for a week and then under the cover of darkness, we turned off our locating and tracking devices, becoming invisible and altered our course for the waters just south of Japan. There we would wait for the whaling fleet to leave and there we would begin to shadow them on their mission to murder whales in the international whale sanctuary of the Southern Ocean. As we sailed we conducted daily trainings on the inflatables. Practicing, launching and recovering, pacing, navigation, transferring passengers while underway.
One morning I came out to the poop deck to have my morning tea and I saw the captain and several crew standing on the side of the ship and pointing astern. They had spotted a Japanese navy cargo vessel, and if we had spotted them, they had surely seen us. There went our cover. The Japanese government and their whaling fleet now knew we were there and most certainly knew why. We continued on and just yesterday came withing 36 miles of the coast of Japan. Territorial waters of any nation end 12 miles out but Japan has decided that they have the right to extend that boundary by another 24 miles. So, in order to avoid the chance of being boarded and taken in to port and held until they whaling fleet could leave and get away we lingered on the cusp of their self proclaimed territory, and that is where I am writing from right now. We are ready, more than ready. There is no doubt that every person on this ship from the newest deckhand to the captain are determined to do whatever it takes to stop this senseless slaughter of these beautiful creatures. Whales face a endless threats, including being caught in nets, ship-strikes, and climate change. The Japanese government should not be adding research whaling to these threats, especially when significant research can be accomplished without harpooning whales. 300,000 whales and dolphins die caught in nets each year, that is one every 90 seconds - and countless more through other man-made impacts. To allow the Japanese government to hunt them for fake science is just madness and we won´t have it! Everything we need to know about whales can be learned without shooting them with grenade tipped explosive harpoons. The hunters are set to leave any moment know and I only hope that they are aware of the passion and resolve that drives this ship and its crew wherever we must go.
Today 6 whales riding segways went looking for Prime Minister Fukuda of Japan who was meeting with President Bush today in Washington, DC. Neo, a humpback whale and mother, penned a letter to the PM asking him to use his authority to cancel this years whale hunt and to end commercial whaling for all time.
Neo and her family had a sighting of the Prime Minister at the White House, but he was too busy with Bush to chat with the whales. She and her family then went to Japanese media outlets to try to tell their story, and then the US State Dept to enlist the help of the U.S. government.
Failing to find a way to meet the Prime Minister at these locations, the whales went to the Japanese embassy where a Japanese diplomat came outside, thanked us for coming and took the letter to the Prime Minister.
Japan’s new Prime Minister, Yasuo Fukuda, is in Washington, DC making the rounds and we wanted to make sure that he knows how Americans feel about Japan’s whaling practices—they totally stink!
Despite an international moratorium on whaling, Japan continues to whale under the guise of “scientific research.” We’re not buying it.
So, a bunch of us suited up in humpback and blue whale costumes and hit the pavement to see if we could find Mr. Fukuda and deliver our message. We were a pod of whales seeking sanctuary from Japan’s relentless whale hunting.
Not many people can say that they’ve been dripped on by a whale’s oil—but I can. I worked in New Bedford, Massachusetts for a couple of years and frequently visited their whaling museum. They had a gigantic 66-foot blue whale skeleton hanging from the ceiling. Even though it has been dead since 1998, it’s skeleton is somehow still exuding oils that drip from his nose (I think) and onto people walking around below. Pretty crazy, huh!
Walking around the museum, it was amazing and depressing to learn about the history of whaling and how it turned communities like New Bedford into major cities with economic riches. Once humans discovered that they could kill whales and then actually haul them back to land—whales were doomed.
Whales today still face many threats—getting tangled up in fishing gear, being hit by boats and swimming around in polluted waters. You’d think that in the face of all these threats, they’d at least be safe from whaling. We learned our lesson, right? Well, not our friends in Japan. They seem to think they’re above the law and can continue to whale under the guise of “so-called” research.
Yeah, right! What kind of research is Japan conducting that justifies the need to kill 1,000 minke whales, 50 threatened humpback whales and 50 endangered fin whales this year? I haven’t seen any new “scientific” journals posted about whale discoveries coming out of Japan. But, I have seen pictures of whale meat in Japanese markets and even in school cafeterias. Right, it’s research! Everyone believes that.
So, this season I’m following Greenpeace’s Great Whale Trail. It’s really sweet, actually. They are proving to the world that they can research whales withOUT killing them. You can follow too.
They have humanely tagged a bunch of humpback whales and will follow them by satellite as they journey to their feeding grounds in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. The best part about it is you can follow the journey too. They’ve made it all available online. From the looks of the map, the whales are heading towards New Zealand right now.
I understand that it’s not easy to change habits. We all fight against change—and are only compelled to move when we are made to, or don’t have the strength to fight against it any longer. I just hope we are able to convince Japan to stop whaling before it’s too late. The whales have had to change because of us. Let’s give them a break, show some compassion and make the oceans a safer place for them to live. I for one, have enough strength to share with them—so they can rest a little easier—why can’t the rest of the world?
I hope I can shed some light on how this North Pacific Fishery Management Council process takes place, of course from a position of bias and not so happy.
I have been attending the Council meetings, off and on, for about 20 years or so. Began back in the day when we were fighting for the establishment of the Community Development Quota (CDQ) program which we hoped at the time would benefit the villages. It was a long battle and one you can read about just by goggling it, if you are interested. I want to, however say a few words about that later, as it sorely impacts the people in the villages.
If you want to know the details about the Council process you can also get on their web page at www.fakr.noaa.gov/npfmc. That is an interesting site. So I will simply give you a perspective from someone who is from a village, and also from my position as a Campaigner, time and space allowing.
Lets see. If I were living on St. Paul Island and I wanted to submit a comment on some issue the Council was addressing, it would probably go something like this.
The issue. Crab. How much? Well this year, some 63 million pounds. Sounds impressive, but when I was the pastor on St. Paul some 10 years ago, the quota was 250 million pounds, and the entire season began 15 January and lasted sometimes into May. Now its just about 2 weeks before the quota is caught. So lets say, I am an employee of the City government. We are interested because of the raw fish taxes we get from the processing of the product and the additional services, such as fuel sales, dockage fees, grocery sales and additional other services. So the local economy benefits from this activity. Now, keep in mind that I am working for a municipal government which probably can afford the rest of the story. The Tribes? Probably cannot afford to do this.
So, I write a position paper and submit it to the Council for consideration. Then it is decided that I should attend the meeting to submit verbal testimony to support our written position. I have to travel. Well, so, from St. Paul to Anchorage, where the meetings are usually held; sometimes they are held in Seattle Washington or Portland Oregon. So I have to buy a ticket. A round trip ticket to Anchorage from St. Paul on PenAir is about $900.00. Then I have to get a hotel and food, and maybe a car, but certainly a cab. So additional $180.00 per day per diem, or there abouts. So for one week, at $180.00 per day is? Ya, $1260.00. So now, with the air fare that totals, ya, $2,160.00 just to attend! For one person! There are other costs too, like being away from home, family, incidental expenses, etc.
So, usually the Council begins meeting on a Monday. The SSC or the Scientific and Statistical Committee begins bright and early in the morning. Now I have to follow the issue and try to figure out where and when the issue will be addressed by the committee. Sometimes, and more often than not, the agenda is moved around, often without much notice, so I have to sit there throughout the entire day and listen to hours and hours of stuff I have not idea about. This report, that testimony. Lots of stuff. Oh we get breaks, and when that happens, I will try to corner someone from the committee to lobby. But I am relatively unknown, and often the members have buds or other people who are "council groopies" that are better known and more attuned to the issues that get the time and the ears. So, I try to wiggle my way into some conversation with someone. Then back to the meeting and more listening. Now, the issue on the crab is being discussed. First there will be staff reports, scientist reports, and others who signed up to testify. Then, if I signed up, my time will come. I am called to the hot seat by the chairperson. The committee are all sitting at tables arranged usually in kinda a circle, with table cloths shrouded on them, microphones, lots of papers and folders and notebooks, really looking knowledgeable. So I walk up to the table, sit down, introduce myself and say what issue I want to address. Now, figure. An entire table of experts. An audience of about 30 people. Bright lights. Microphones. And I begin to talk. Usually I will have about 3 to 6 minutes to say what I wanna say. Then questions from the committee, if any, and I am done. Whew...public speaking. Not fun.
But that is basically what happens, and happens both at the Advisory Panel (AP), which meets from Monday to usually Friday of the same week, and usually at the same time as the SSC is meeting, and sometimes the issue I wanna comment on is taken up at the same time there as in the SSC. Sometimes not. And all three meet in different rooms, and,yes, usually at the same times. But with the AP, the process is the same, and same set up, but this time with about 25 or so members on the panel. And 3 to 6 minutes to talk. And with the Council itself, usually the same. They usually meet from Tuesday to Saturday or Sunday. But here it is more intimidating, cause, well, they are THE Council. They have a bigger room with bigger tables and bigger chairs and more of an audience. And here, you get 3 minutes for an individual and 6 minutes for an organization to testify, and no more. There are green, yellow and red lights to tell you how much time you have. And, the Chair will say, "...thank you, your time is up." Any questions from the Council? If not, thanks. And its done. Here again, with the AP and the Council you try to lobby during breaks, but you also have additional competition from the other folks there. Lobbyists, processors, lawyers, fishers and long time friends who usually have the ear of the people you wanna talk to. And if you are lucky to get a Council member to talk to its usually really quick. They are on a break and have to go to the restroom or do something else. I personally have found some more approachable when I have followed them into the restroom, at least I can talk to them. So it is very difficult and extremely intimidating.
So, when John Hovevar wrote about our experience? Well, it was really something else. Imagine a person who lives in a village trying to do this. Imagine a person who's second language is english trying to do this. The expense? The intimidation? Ya, very little gets done if you are from a village. Unless of course if you are representing a CDQ organization, well, thats totally different. You will have bocoo bucks and paid lobbyists and lawyers to help you and speak for you. I have heard some of the executive directors of these organizations get paid upwards of $300,000 a year. They do this stuff. It is intimidating and really frustrating when and if you are a Tribal president trying to effectuate change. To protect your foods and your homes. It is nearly impossible to do it through this process.
This is why, it seems to me, the cultural heritage zones are the best chance to get protections for our families. We need to have a flag to rally around, an issue that makes sense. We need to help the people. We need support. For this, I am so grateful that Greenpeace is stepping up to the plate, not only to work to protect the oceans and habitat, but to help and support the Tribes on this planet we call mother earth.
This process is not fun. Not developed for people who live in villages, thats for sure. Too expensive and too foreign to our ways of living and communicating. But....?
George and I are at the North Pacific Fishery Management Council mtg in Anchorage this week. George has been to a lot of these week-long monstrosities before, but this is my first time to experience it firsthand. Imagine a process that involves six or more meetings a year, each lasting at least a week, full of nearly impenetrable jargon, at rotating locations spread all over the Pacific Northwest, and you can see pretty quickly that only professional industry lobbyists can hope to fully participate.
There are a handful of conservation-minded folks and small-scale fishermen that try to make a dent here, but for the mostpart it's by, for, and about the big money fishing industry.
I'm here to present preliminary findings from our canyons exploration, and to start pushing for these areas to be protected. I met with the Scientific and Statistical Committee last night, and things went well. Bob Stone came up from NOAA's Auke Bay lab in Juneau to provide expert assistance, which was great. Most of the SSC members attended, along with a handful of guests. There were quite a few constructive questions, along with some free-flowing discussion.
In additions to sharing our findings, I also made a case for why the canyons should be set aside as no-take marine reserves. It was a bit disturbing to see how little understanding there was of the existing protections along the Bering Sea shelf break (there are none), but this just helped emphasize the need to fill that gap.
If overheard hallway conversations are any indication, we've created quite a buzz here. I heard people talking about the canyons expedition three times yesterday, and we're not even on the public agenda until Thursday. One lobbyist paced back and forth through the hotel talking loudly on his cel phone, trashing our project at length to a reporter. It was useful hearing what his attacks were going to be in advance!
The real drama will take place Thursday evening, when I present to the N. Pacific Council and the general public. After more than a decade of failing to take action, the Council may finally be ready to move.
Wish us luck!
John H
Thirty six years ago this month, September 1971 President Richard M. Nixon said, perhaps from his oval office in the White House, “FIRE!” Suddenly the entire Island of Amchitka, in the Aleutian Island Chain, erupted. Boom! The ground heaved in sudden turmoil, ripped apart. Wildlife, unprotected and not even given a warning, suddenly were thrashed to the point that even the eyeballs of the sea otter slammed through their skulls. Birds ran, literally, and some flew, to find cover. The world shook and would never be the same. The largest underground nuclear test bomb in history was triggered on and in Alaska; on and in an Island Chain that is on the Great Pacific Ring of Fire. A big bomb, suddenly destroying a National Wildlife Refuge.
I was there last month as part of a team of people from Greenpeace to bear witness. I walked up steep unforgiving cliffs, slogged through deep tundra, crawling to the exact site of the test, of a nuclear bomb they called Cannikin. And it was….wow, lack of words. Scary. We did this on a National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. And today, although there is lots of greens, plants, berries and fresh water, we could not, dared not even taste of this dirge. It is, was, and perhaps forever will be dead.
Greenpeace went there because thirty-six years ago, we got started by a few people in Vancouver B.C. who felt, as we all do today, that this act was not acceptable, not in Alaska, not anywhere. We went there because we wanted to bear witness that we must not allow anything like this to happen anywhere in the world again. We must not build bombs to destroy anything; people, plants; animals; the earth, our Mother Earth.
While there, one has so much to think and meditate about. It is silent. Empty. It is alone. By itself. Not a part of any other thing. Not even a partner to its neighboring Islands. Not even a self-respecting jellyfish was seen. And we could not drink the water!
Now, we did this with the idea that perhaps we might be able to warn the Soviet Government of Russia that we have big bombs, that we are someone to be afraid of, that we are powerful. The result of that thinking? They built more and bigger bombs with nary an end in sight.
Sadly, being at Amchitka was like looking into a future devoid of life. Even more sad is that perhaps what happened there is in some sense happening again, but this time with another big bomb, and right under our noses. Like that bomb, legal and sanctioned by our United States Government, is the bomb of bottom trawlers, legal and sanctioned by the same Government. They are destroying the habitat of the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska, and are protected by our laws to do so. We saw that. We witnessed their destructive fishing practices by diving into the underwater canyons by the Pribilof Islands. Just like being at ground zero on Amchitka, by Cannikin lake, we were at ground zero in the Pribilof and Zumchug Canyons. They are almost totally devoid of life and history is repeating itself. It is happening in Alaska, on the most productive Oceans and Seas of the North Pacific.
We planted a cross there. We wanted, when doing this, and want to, express our desire that no longer is it acceptable to kill and destroy, no matter the form or manner. Once life is gone, as was evident on Amchitka, we cannot pray or will life back. We saw the future and we must not allow it to come, not in that form. So, now comes the marine cultural heritage zones. Perhaps these zones will be our cross, one which we are told to pick up and carry. Perhaps by establishing some protections for our foods to survive, we will not allow someone, five thousand miles away to say, “FIRE!” Perhaps we can learn from our history and put an end to building and enabling ways to destroy. Perhaps we can. But you must help by doing your part. You must join us in commemorating an awful time in our history, if for no other reason than to say, we will not participate.
We are pulling into Dutch Harbor/Unalaska for the fourth and last time during this whirlewind tour of the Bering Sea. And it is both an end and a beginning for me. We came to the Bering Sea to bear witness to the world, to ourselves, to what is happening not only to the beautiful ecosystem of water and fish and mammals and birds and plants, but as equally important, how change is impacting an ancient people. And what a vision we had, looking and listening.
And because of what we heard and saw, there is no doubt what so ever, even if there was any to begin with, that the establishment of the marine cultural heritage zones is the only moral, realistic and honest way to the survival of this incrediable gift to humanity all over the world. This gift to our people, to all peoples, is a gift given by our ancestors following centuries of daily sacrifices, learnings, insight and fortitude to pass on to their decendents a responsibility we must not take lightly. A responsibility to cherish life.
Other ways of doing things foreign to our ways are no less critical to similar goals. The phrase "work with what you got" is always used to somehow limit our imaginations, I guess. But in this case, in the case of the needs of the Bering Sea, we have to be more creative. Without a doubt, this is the last place on earth that literally has a chance to be cared for and cared for properly. Oh I am sure that statements such as that can and will be made to try to defend our oceans all over this planet we call Earth, but for me, for us, this really is true. We can only bump up to a line which says, this belongs to Russia, on this side of the line, and this belongs to America, on this side of the line. And each will go to war to defend those claims. We are stuck in between those two super powers, powers that make laws and enforce them with vigor.
We, on the other hand, must create an atmosphere of rightness to find a balance between the needs for these resources. The question is; can we find that balance before it is too late, not only for ourselves, but for the Bering Sea/Gulf of Alaska? For after all we are talking about the same person/thing here. There is no difference between the resources and the people. We are one and the same. We too are critical to the survival of this delacate system. We too must be respected as worthy of salvation. We too must be considered critical to the overall health of our environment, for it is afterall we who provide the balance to the question of resource development. We are making the arguement, and that arguement is what must be heard. We need marine cultural heritage zones.
As we approach our spot, a place to park our Esperanza, our hope, let us consider our place in this tour. Are we mearly voyours looking into someone else's plight or are we participants to finding solutions to our conditions. We each, all of us, have a stake. We must realize that for we ancient peoples to survive, all of us must survive. For afterall, our planet we call Mother Earth is waiting and waiting patiently to see what we are going to do.
Until Next Time.
George
It has been, as two reasonably famous songwriters once put it, a long and winding road, one that has lasted, on and off, for more than eighteen years now. And, theoretically, once we drop anchor in Dutch Harbor on Monday morning, it is a journey that—apart from a couple of days of post-expedition wrap-up and video editing—will come to an end.
Except that I have said as much many times before. It isn’t even the first time I’ve said it this year.
I remember distinctly a conversation with Lesley Scheele. It was November 1988, and she and I were sitting on the patio of the Fort Lauderdale house she shared with her husband, Ed Simmons. Ed and Lesley ran what was known as Greenpeace Southeast, which was the regional office for Florida and environs, and Lesley was also the coordinator for the international small cetaceans campaign (that’s whales and dolphins, for those who are wondering). I was at the time a neophyte environmental campaigner, the wide-eyed, 20-year-old director of the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society.
My visit didn’t start at all well. I had appeared a day before Lesley was expecting me (these were in the days when correspondence took the form of letters typed or printed on actual paper, and sent in envelopes via airplane across the ocean; occasionally such letters went astray or arrived late) and she was out of town. Ed, who had no idea who I was, nonetheless recognized me as the kind of person who might show up at his house to talk about dolphins with his wife, told me to make myself at home, and encouraged me to take advantage of the Florida sun.
All of which was well and good, but I was possessed of the pale complexion characteristic of denizens of the British Isles, and brief exposure to the elements of the Sunshine State turned me the approximate shade of St. George’s Cross. Ed, his generally impassive face allowing itself to register what I interpreted as a combination of pity and mild disgust, gave me some sunscreen. The sunscreen appeared to attract mosquitoes, so I applied insect repellant. The interaction between the sunscreen and the repellant induced a hideous rash.
I was sunburned and covered in a patchwork of hives and mosquito bites. I was not happy.
But Lesley showed up and, in her perpetually friendly and welcoming way, soon had me forgetting my various ailments. And I couldn’t have made too bad an impression because two months later I was working for Greenpeace, out of the organization’s international headquarters—which, at the time, were housed above a newspaper office in the small English market town of Lewes. (Yes, things were different then).
I didn’t realize that, as I sat (for the rest of my visit, in the shade) talking cetaceans with Lesley, I was being scouted as a prospect worthy of being called up to the major leagues (which, Lesley later confessed, I was). But I do remember two comments she made about Greenpeace.
One, as she lit up yet another cigarette, took note of the fact that she was far from alone in her addiction.
“You get three or more Greenpeacers together, you have to file an environmental impact statement,” she chuckled.
I don’t have any idea why the second comment registered with me so readily, given that at the time I had no inkling of ever joining The Firm. But it did, and it has proven, in my case, to be remarkably apposite.
“You haven’t really been with Greenpeace until you’ve quit or been fired at least twice,” she laughed. Or maybe it was three times. That detail, I’m a little hazy on. Either way, it’s the perfect description of my Greenpeace career, and the key, I suspect, to its longevity: I doubt I would have been around for almost two decades, on and off, had my involvement not been less on than off.
My most recent spell, two years with Greenpeace USA, came to a close at the end of May, but I leapt at this assignment for the chance to go to Amchitka. When this is done, I expect to return to the freelance world, and the joy of working only as many hours a day as I choose—which, given the lack of income security, tends to be about sixteen, but still.
And so, with this expedition all but done and dusted, and the ship quiet as we battle the swells on our way back to Dutch Harbor, the mind drifts back to those early days and all that has happened since.
It is frequently the way on ships. Different crew interact and sail together over the years, bringing stories of former shipmates and campaigns old and new, and the very presence of certain crew members immediately prompts shared recollections of past voyages. But this expedition has prompted historical reflection more than most.
In no small measure, that has been because of our most westerly (and easterly) destination: Amchitka, the grail of that very first Greenpeace voyage. Steaming west along the Aleutians on board the comfortable Esperanza, thoughts frequently turned to the entirely less forgiving circumstances of the Phyllis Cormack’s journey in these same waters.
As an adjunct to that, the presence of Barbara Stowe on board has not only added a delightful character, it has also exposed us to first-hand observations of the minutiae of those earliest of Greenpeace days. Whatever issues I have been working out on what may or may not be my last Greenpeace voyage, they are as nothing compared to what Barbara has been going through and feeling. I admire her tremendously for joining us and fitting in so easily; and on a personal level, seeing Barbara battling with her emotions as she did what her father could not and stood at the Cannikin test site was a tremendously moving experience, and one that made my own trip worthwhile.
But it is also impossible to avoid thinking and talking about the past in the company of a captain like Pete, whose history with the organization is not only long—he has been a Greenpeace skipper for the best part of 25 years—but eventful. Pete was the skipper when the Rainbow Warrior famously sped into Russian waters to document whale meat being fed to farmed mink, and during the evacuation of the people of Rongelap from their radioactive atoll to the nearby island of Mejato. And he was captain when the Rainbow Warrior was bombed in Auckland harbor in 1985.
Pete gathered us in the wheelhouse the other evening to share his memories of the Rongelap campaign and the Warrior’s bombing—and, like Barbara’s less formal tales, told in the lounge during breaks in Scrabble games, or over dinner in the mess, they left an impression on those who heard them.
At the end of his talk, there was a brief back-and-forth about the nature and evolution of the organization, and how the Warrior bombing, combined with a concomitant surge in interest in environmental issues, led to a massive expansion in Greenpeace. While that expansion was followed, particularly in the United States, by a subsequent contraction, the organization has never been the same since.
Whether that is for better or for worse is a matter of opinion. But Greenpeace is clearly a different outfit than when I joined, than when the Warrior was bombed, and certainly than when Jim Bohlen, Bob Hunter, and ten others set out in the Phyllis Cormack in 1971. There are few clearer signs of that change than the vessel on which I am presently writing this blog.
There’s no two ways about it: The Esperanza is an impressive ship. There was a time in the past when the organization would never have countenanced buying such a large craft, would have considered it somehow unseemly or inappropriate. But, equipped with diesel-electric propulsion, it is surprisingly, even shockingly, fuel efficient, and it is also hugely practical: comfortable, quiet, and extraordinarily maneuverable. I confessed to Pete last night that I hadn’t even noticed that we had pulled away from the dock at Adak the other evening, so smooth and quiet had been the operation: a stark contrast to the rumbling and snorting that would have accompanied that maneuver on any number of past Greenpeace ships.
For both Pete and me, this has been our first time on this newest Greenpeace vessel, and it stands in sharp contrast to my first Greenpeace voyage, on board the MV Sirius: a ship much beloved by everyone in the organization who didn’t actually have to sail it out into the open ocean. It had character, sure enough, especially if character can be defined as lurching from side to side in a gale. I would not want to be on the Sirius during the weather we are experiencing right now. I certainly wouldn’t want to be typing this blog.
Another sign of organizational change, also for the better, is having the foresight and commitment to run an unconventional, ostensibly low-key and long-term campaign such as the one it is running in the Bering Sea.
This has in many ways been an unusual and not always comfortable experience for me, in that my previous on-board experiences (except that first trip on the Sirius) have been as expedition leader or lead campaigner, and frequently for three months or more. I am not accustomed to hopping on for the final couple of weeks and playing a bit part. But it has been instructive and informative, and it has been a real pleasure to see George at work, not so much talking to villagers as gently reassuring them that, bleak as things may seem, everything can be OK. I don’t know what the future holds for these Bering Sea communities; it is difficult, frankly, to feel optimistic at times. But if they do survive and thrive, it will be in large part because of the work done by this wise and decent man over the next few years.
I will be back to the Bering Sea, of that I have no doubt. I will be back because Alaska means so much to me, because I care about the region—and because Amchitka, to my surprise, has become my white whale, leaving me feeling, in some ways, less fulfilled than before I got there and needing to return to put those feelings to rest.
I don’t know whether I will still (or again) be a part of Greenpeace when I make that return journey, whenever it may be. But after nearly twenty years, I’m quite certain that Greenpeace will still, and will always, be a part of me.
After seeing Amchitka, one really wants to drink like a sailor. A bottle of rum would come in handy around now. But no. On this ship, we drink only wine and a brand of beer from Korea which promises "Fresh Taste Brewing System". If this is fresh, we would hate to see stale.
The Korean beverage is a brand called "Hite". We only need to add the 19th letter of the alphabet before "Hite" to title it even more appropriately. No doubt this extraordinary drink was scientifically concocted to function for drinkers just as the nicotine patch functions for smokers.
There is also something called "wine", but that is even a sadder tale. The really frightening aspect of all this is when admittedly, after consuming a liberal portion of dark chocolate, which seems to alter taste buds considerably…the Sh…I mean, the Hite, starts to taste not so bad. We may drink like Espy sailors, but we hope to soon drink like landlubbers.
There are other peculiarities on this boat. Why are there only butter knives in the mess? Is it dangerous to have a little serrated knife for cutting your apple, because if the sea takes a sudden notion to mess your boat around on the ocean, you might slice your neighbour’s eye out? Or is it because ALMOST everyone here has massive muscles and cutting slices of cheese for a snack or chicken for dinner is not exactly a problem for THEM? Why are everything from the mirrors in the cabins to the giant can of peanut butter in the mess placed at a height that, for those not over 5’4", necessitates toe-dancing? (Note to balletic niece Rachel: it will come in handy). Why are there only large plates, no small ones? Why does the toaster toast on one side only? What does the cryptic instruction in the mess to "clean the elephant skin on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays" mean? Why would a Greenpeace boat be carrying elephant skin? What does the scrawled note "Might as well jump" on the board the morning after the zombie party in the bar in Adak mean?
Despite these unanswered questions, newbies soon fit in around here. They swab decks, come to understand what bulkheads and bullards are. One day they realize they haven’t sat in a chair for days, only on the benches in the mess and (sprawled across) the cushioned benches in the lounge. They walk like Charlie Chaplin. As for swearing, some may never catch up with whoever has written on the Campaign Room blackboard: "Individually we are one small drop…Together, One Big F…ing Drop" (there was no "…" but my mother-in-law might be reading this). They smoke like sailors, i.e., whenever they want to enjoy the fresh air. And they miss the land when they’re at sea, and the sea when they’re on land.
I looked out of my porthole this morning and found myself channeling Martin Sheen.
"Adak. S***. I'm still in Adak."
Then I stripped down to my underwear, drank too much whisky, and cut my hand on the mirror while practicising kung fu.
OK, not quite. The "Apocalypse Now" analogy was undercut by the accompanying background music: instead of "The End," the boat deck groaned to the sound of Foreigner. George, woken by Brent and me for no better reason than that we were bored, has taken to wandering around the lounge to the strains of "I Want to Know What Love Is."
Veterans of Greenpeace voyages will recognize the scene. We are in the dog days of the Bering Sea Tour, the work almost done, but our journey home tantalisingly far away.
We stopped in Adak to drop off a borrowed ATV and see if we could buy fuel. The first task was easy, the second was hampered by assorted logisitical complications. We waited until midnight, our original tentative departure time, at which point those of us who had fallen asleep woke up as if on cue, wandered around the ship like zombies, and seeing no apparent movement afoot, returned to our bunks.
Important tasks remain to be completed: Freddie has yet to give tattoos to Brent and Paul, Brent has yet to finsh the crew video ... And we have yet to complete our tour of Aleutian Island communities, which we will conclude in Atka.
But this morning, we were still alongside, and with a 14-hour trip ahead of us to Atka, there was little point leaving to arrive at our next destination in the middle of night. So we will stay here a while longer, but at 1800, refueled or not, we will leave for Atka, where we will spend at least a day before returning to Dutch and then going our separate ways.
We are moored off Amchitka Island, as far west...and interestingly, on the map, also as far east...as a boat can go. How ironic it is that visitors here were once greeted by a sign "This is a wildlife refuge and no weapons are allowed", words rendered absurd when the U.S. government set off their biggest underground nuclear test ever here, blasting the earth, sea and animals to smithereens.
When the 1971 blast, code-named Cannikin, ripped through this island, puffins were found with their legs driven through their chests. Sea lions miles from shore had their eyes blown out of their sockets. And the sea otters this refuge was set up to protect? Against reason, I am hoping to see even one.
But as we shuttle in zodiacs from the ship to a precarious stretch of jagged rocks some distance from the shore, as close as we can manage to get without the thick kelp rendering our propellers unworkable, there is not a single otter nibbling on the kelp beds they used to come here for.
The difficulty of our landing, which takes my mind momentarily off the otters, seems appropriate. The first Greenpeace boat, an eighty-foot halibut trawler jerry-rigged to hang together, braved thirty foot high waves and the hazards of the capricious Aleutian fall weather to try to make it here. A cushy landing for us would seem far too easy.
We climb out of the zodiacs and start to gingerly leap and crawl from kelp-layered stone to stone, sometimes wiggling on our bellies over barnacled slabs of rock, managing by some miracle to avoid slipping and falling into the drink except for one crew member who trips on a mass of seaweed and slices his leg open.
We have more than the usual reasons for not wanting to fall into this particular part of the ocean. After Cannikin was exploded, iodine 131 and Krypton 85 started leaking into the sea. The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission denied that the shot cavities leaked, but in 1996 Greenpeace scientists found radionuclides --such as the plutonium byproduct americium 241-- in White Alice Creek, a rapidly-moving stream that flows into the Bering Sea. It took six more years for the Department of Energy to declassify documents showing that it was known as early as two days after the blast that radioactive isotopes were leaching into groundwater and the ocean. No wonder an unintentional swim here is something we’re particularly anxious to avoid.
Ashore, we wander up and down a beach covered in black sand and driftwood. Kieran asks me how I’m feeling. I think about that. On the one hand, I’m very glad this isn’t a nuclear test zone anymore. On the other, I’m extremely angry. How dare any government think it has the right, or any rationale whatsoever, to harbour nuclear weapons? And against all reason I keep looking for a sea otter. The A.E.C. estimated that "only" 20 to 240 of these animals would be endangered by the blasts. Post-test assessments estimated 700 to 2,000 died.
We set off for Lake Cannikin, the thirty-acre water-filled crater that the A.E.C. failed to anticipate would be created when the bomb exploded and a sizable portion of Amchitka Island imploded.
First we have to climb the near-vertical cliff that surrounds the beach. We start up, lifting legs waist high through vegetation as the muskeg sinks and bounces under our feet. I expect to see insects, small mammals, but there is not so much as a mosquito. It’s beyond eerie. Has what happened here so outraged the environment that not a single living creature will return?
We spy a concrete hut, enter and slowly back out when we notice what looks at first like large cans of soda but on closer inspection turns out to be unexploded ordnance.
We troop on, through a fierce wind. Someone trips over a wire, almost goes down. Muttered expletives about this island are heard and I want to defend it. It’s not Amchitka’s fault for God’s sake, it’s the fault of massive unrestrained power-mongering egoism by President Richard Nixon whose personal approval was required to set the bomb off, after massive protest by not only other countries like Canada and Japan which stood at risk of earthquakes and tidal waves from the blasts, but a sizable portion of the U.S. government. Nixon, and arrogant personalities like then head of the A.E. C. James Schlesinger, who announced that it would take at least a thousand years for radiation to dribble into the Bering Sea. Egoism and arrogance. As I think of it, traipsing through the muskeg, I get more and more outraged. God damn it! And then I think, if there is a God, he or she or it does indeed appear to have damned it. No living creatures anywhere. The very air feels weird. We stop, waiting while Brent shoots some background shots, and I crouch down in the grass and look hard at the variety of plants here…because there is that, there are mosses and lichens and…what is that? A fly? A wasp? No, a black spider. Some of the crew crowd around, joking macabrely: bite me.
When we reach Ground Zero, we find the muskeg fractured with patches of bare, barren earth, like the balding heads of cancer patients. Nothing has grown here for thirty-six years. Words like "abomination" and "blasphemy" spring to mind. What kind of hell on earth have we come to? Again I get the feeling I had on the boat, of sheer dread, and I wish we could turn around and hightail it out of here, but we have a mission to accomplish.
Below us lies a huge brackish body of water that we think, we hope is Lake Cannikin. By GPS we’re at least very close. By now its spitting rain, the wind is fierce, my socks are wet and like some of my mates I’m almost shaking with cold. As we tie flags from countries all over the world onto bamboo poles, Kieran quietly suggests I read a small sign made out of driftwood that Diek has planted beside the lake. Bending down I see the carved words "Phyllis Cormack 1971" and below that "Esperanza 2007" and I bow my head as tears spill out. With these simple, poetic words, Diek has completed our journey. He has brought the crew of that first Greenpeace boat here, to this island they tried so hard to reach. Their faces flash through my mind, especially the four who have died: journalists Bob Hunter, Ben Metcalfe, Bob Cummings; and Captain John Cormack. And, kneeling here beside this sign at this abominable lake in the crater that the bomb carved out, I turn and look at the Esperanza crew holding up flags from all over the globe: Russians Slava and Victor (who once worked on nuclear submarines); Helena and Brent from Australia; Freddy from Argentina; our Dutch crew Ruurd and Diek; Rao from India; Tom from Belgium. Others from Canada, England, the U.S., and more countries. We’re here, standing for peace, in this dreadful valley. And I know we, and all of Greenpeace, will stand for it and for the environment and all the creatures of the land and sea and air for as long as we exist.
I must thank a few sources: Dean W. Kohlhoff’s book "Amchitka and the Bomb"; Jeffrey St. Clair’s article "Report on the Environment" in "Fishy Business II", 2002; and Bob Hunter’s "The Greenpeace to Amchitka".
Of all the places I never imagined I would visit twice ...
We are about an hour away from returning to Adak. Few places have had as much an impact on everyone on board as this remote outpost, and whereas initial reaction to the apparent ghost town was disbelief and discomfort, the crew genuinely warmed to the community and the hospitality it showed us. For a few hours this evening, we will have an opportunity to experience it again.
We may take advantage of our presence here to refuel, if that proves possible. Otherwise, the principal rationale for returning is to give back something we borrowed.
We had little idea what we would find in terms of terrain on Amchitka, so George secured the loan of an ATV from someone in town. It sat proudly lashed to the heli deck on our journey west--the previous leg boasted fancy submarines, we had a Polaris four-wheeler--until we left our anchorage off the coast of Amchitka and tied up alongside at the island's (surprisingly well-maintained) dock in beautiful, sheltered Constantine Harbor.
From the dock, the gravel road that the military had carved into the spine of Amchitka sloped gently into the distance, and several of the crew unhesitatingly used our temporary transport to drive up it and explore the island in much greater comfort than had been the case the day before. I stayed behind, as there was filming to be done, but I wandered around the vicinity of the dock, looking at the tell-tale signs that this silent, abdandoned spot had once been a hive of activity: dirt tracks now almost overgrown, drainage pipes emptying into the water; piles of trash and abandoned, rusting equipment.
Perhaps it was gallows humor, but after a while, we defined everything on Amchitka with the same pejorative adjective. There were no spiders, only radioactive spiders; no flowers, only radioactive ones. Want to reach the bluff that overlooks the harbor? Head up the radioactive road until you reach the radioactive fork.
We were joking, sort of, but it was rarely comfortable. Amchitka was beautiful and rugged and peaceful, but the demons were everywhere. The knowledge of what had happened there was inescapable; it invaded us, possessed us, bore deep inside us. I had wanted desperately to be here, as if it were my destiny, to the extent that the morning of our arrival I was almost physically sick with nerves and anticipation. But there was something about the spirit of the place that made me want to leave almost immediately.
"I hate this [expletive] island," I kept muttering. "I hate this [expletive] island."
And yet, it is now a part of me to a degree I never dared imagine.
It is not the island's fault, what happened here. Amchitka did not ask for the violence that was visited upon it. Amchitka is the victim, not the perpetrator. Amchitka needs to be healed, not shunned.
We stood, a few of us, overlooking the ship and the harbor. We said a few words, gave thanks, expressed the hope that perhaps, in some small way, our presence there, by closing the circle started by the crew of the Phyllis Cormack thirty-six years ago, might somehow represent a process of cleansing. It is time for life to return to this place of death.
In honor of the sentiment we pronounced the bluff to be Esperanza Hill--not as a claim of ownership, but as a declaration of hope, for Amchitka and for the Bering Sea.
We returned to the ship and prepared to leave. But first we had to wait for Hettie and Mannes, who had stayed on board the day before while we had scrambled to the test site, and who now had taken the twenty-mile round trip up the road to the vicinity of the Cannikin test to see for themselves. They made it back to the Espy at almost exactly the time they had promised, but then they set my heart racing.
"We think you went to the wrong spot," they said.
They described what they had found to the side of the road: the site of the Long Shot test, definitely, and, farther north, evidence, they thought, of Cannikin. Of the latter, I was certain they were wrong: apart from anything else, our GPS had shown us to be almost exactly at the coordinates of the test. But, it was ALMOST exactly, not exactly: enough for us, after tramping across hostile terrain, to declare victory, but now I felt a nagging discomfort. There should have been a commemorative plate in the ground, believe it or not, but we didn't find it. I wished now that we had looked with greater vigor for definitive proof; I feared that perhaps we had not seen Cannikin Lake at all, that in fact what we had sought had been just over the next ridge.
I wanted to go back to be sure. I wanted to go back so that, if I had been wrong, I could now find the correct site. I wanted to go back to explore the rest of the island, to bear witness to the results of the other tests, as if in doing so I would be able to confront their demons and rid myself of them. And I realized that, although one circle had closed, another one had opened.
I thought I would find closure. In fact, I found a beginning. Now I am the one who must return to Amchitka.
Oh my gosh. Of all the things I have seen, experienced and witnessed, never before have I seen such awefulness. I saw Amchitka. I saw the future. I saw death shrouded in attempted beauty. I saw the big one. Amchitka.
I was born here, as you know. I grew up here. I learned here. I was nurtured in honesty and in truth by my environment, Mom and Dad. I trusted without doubt in goodness. Men; people, I was told, are fundamentally good. Given a choice they will always do the right thing. Not. I witnessed that first hand. Amchitka.
We are surrounded in the sounds of life, water, silence and beauty. When hungry, we eat. When thirsty, we drink. When tired, we rest. When alone, we seek our loved ones. But, here, in Amchitka, none of those things are possible. You cannot hardly hear life, much less see it. One cannot drink water, although there. (At dinner at home with my family, I often drink a nice clear cold glass of water and ask: "I wonder who invented water?" To which my family always responds: "No one." I continue: "Then where did it come from?" And they respond. "God."
And in Amchitka one is alone. Alone in life, thoughts, dreams, hopes. For how could one feel and think otherwise? Amchitka.
The big one is not the bomb. For sure, the bomb is, was and forever will be big. The big one is not the Island, for Islands of various sizes we shall always have. The big one is not the place or even humanity or mankind gone awry. The big one is Amchitka the total lie!
Oh we say, our government says. It is a National Wildlife Refuge. Look at thoses words. National. Belongs to the Nation of peace and pursuit of whatever. Wildlife. For the purposes of or the use by wild life! And Refuge. A place to get away, solice, rest, protection. And in my humble opinion, Amchitka is none of those. It is not a Refuge. There is nothing there taking reguge from anything. We created a wildlife refuge and even the animals don't want to go there. Not even a self respecting jellyfish to be found. We tried to fool them and instead are fooling ourselves. They know. Amchitka.
Interestingly, we saw and experienced. Then we planted a cross. For peace and thanksgiving. Giving back to the Creator something which we wanted to give back. But, we gave back the place most destroyed and dirtied. We gave back to the Creator a gift we received and trashed. We gave back, of all places, Amchitka. And? Somehow I believe He recieved it from us. He loved that we made a decision to give something back, even though it is forever trashed! And I know the only thing alive and living in Amchitka is a cross. Amchitka.
The big one is, shrouded in beauty but covered in death. Pretend Wildlife Refuge. And how can we pray life back? Once destroyed, how can we will life's return? We may very well have seen the future of the entire Bering Sea, our home, our blood, unless we act and act decisively. Once this place is destroyed, the National Wildlife Gift, we may not ever get it back. George's Banks comes to mind. And a lot of other places. We came out of death and back into life in the Bering Sea. And we are never going to be the same people. Amchitka.
And so, it is a lie. We would like to cover it up and say others in the past did this, we wouldn't. But is that really true? Could we, watching changes happen at a snails pace in the Bering Sea, suddenly wake up and be in Amchitka. Amchitka. That place is a lie, a place on the planet we call Mother Earth.
Until Next Time
George
As some of you may know, Kieran has written a great blog about Amchitka and our time there. For me it is taking a little longer to process. Hence, although we left the island this morning and are on our way back to Adak, you'll be hearing from me over several blogs about our time on this nuclear test zone. Starting now.
For any other stop I’ve been content to wander out of my cabin after the usual 7:30 wake-up call but for Amchitka I ask Hettie, who is on watch, to wake me at first sight of the island, even if it happens to be in the middle of the night. This is not likely, as we’re due to arrive at the staid old hour of nine am, but just to be sure.
Several of us are on the bridge a good hour ahead of time, tensely waiting for a first glimpse of this site that has so much historic resonance for Greenpeace. No-one from the early days of the organization, when we had a single campaign, a single focus, to stop a nuclear test on Amchitka Island, has ever made it here in a Greenpeace boat. Thirty-six years after watching the Phyllis Cormack sail out of Vancouver for Amchitka, I’ll be the first of that initial group who will arrive here on a Greenpeace ship. And what a ship. Instead of an eighty-foot halibut fishing boat, we’re pulling up in a massive boat with five zodiacs and a heli-pad on board.
I step outside, pull my collar up around my neck. I’m wearing a button on my jacket, a yellow button with a green peace symbol and one word, "Amchitka. We used to sell this button for twenty-five cents in 1970 and ’71 to try to raise the $18,000 we needed to charter the Phyllis Cormack. It preceded the green and yellow button we sold next which said "Greenpeace", a word Bill Darnell came up with at a meeting one night.
It is absolutely surreal to be standing on the deck of the Espy, nearing what was in 1971 the only refuge for sea otters in the world, a refuge that we all tried so hard to save from a series of nuclear tests. An island halfway between Russia and the USA. An island so remote few human beings besides Aleuts and members of the U.S. military, have ever been here. A destination now completely void of any human presence whatsoever.
I feel suddenly as if my father and mother, Irving and Dorothy Stowe, who helped start Greenpeace, are here with me, holding my hands. I feel as if my Greenpeace aunts and uncles, Marie and Jim Bohlen, Bob and Zoe Hunter, and so many others who used to meet in our living room, are here too I flash on my brother Bob too, who was largely resposible for 10,000 highschool students walking out of class to protest the atomic blasts here. I’m going to touch the soil of Amchitka Island for him, for them.
Although, truth be told, I’m going to touch it as little as possible. Despite assurances by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission that any radiation was contained, Greenpeace scientists found radioactive isotopes in groundwater and fish here in 1996. Everyone on this boat is nervous about landing on these shores.
Diek, who seems to have second sight, spots it first. "There." He points to a jutting shape like a looming sandcastle in the dark fog. A bright white light rims the horizon, like curious icing on a wedding cake. Too bright. I’ve never seen light like this and nor has Diek in his thirteen years on the sea. I can’t help thinking that it looks like nothing so much as a thick dusting of nuclear fallout. Suddenly the cold I haven’t felt all morning, even though I’m only in a thin coat, gets to me, and I step inside.
After we drop anchor the crew gathers to discuss what we’re going to do on the island, and then Pete sends an exploratory party out in a zodiac to penetrate the fog and figure out where we can come ashore. The kelp beds are thick around here, which is what used to attract the sea otters, and our zodiacs could get kelp tangled in their propellers.
I hide in the mess. How desparately I’ve wanted to see Amchitka, and now I feel nothing but dread. What are we doing, coming to the site of the biggest underground nuclear test in U.S. history? How much radiation is there on the island? Why don’t we just turn around and get the hell out of here? I’m ashamed of my cowardice, although I know I’m not the only one are having these thoughts. I know that workers at the test site have died from unusually high levels of radiation-related diseases but I rationalize that the exposure we’ll have, in a day or two here, will be minimal. On the other hand, I’m fifty years old, not young like our videographer Brent who muttered darkly "I want to have children," in a meeting several nights ago.
NEXT: We touch that soil...those rocks...and march through muskeg to the eerie site of thirty-acre large Lake Cannikin, created by the nuke blast.
We are here at Amchitka, and I can’t write about it. It is all too fresh and overwhelming. Fortunately, Kieran has done a wonderful blog about our experience here, which you may want to check out. Later I will try to set something coherent down.
Meanwhile, on a MUCH lighter note, in my last blog I promised to talk about what my Mom, Chuck Berry, Pink Floyd and Bono all have in common. So here goes. (Warning…Bono story included. I know many other Greenpeacers have Bono stories…bring ‘em on!)
It all comes down to food. Good cooking and good music are inextricably entwined in this story, and on board the Espy. Raymond, the ship’s cook -- whose combined Dutch, Indonesian, Chinese and Italian heritage have resulted in black wavy hair, brown skin, and a love of a great variety of cuisine -- is de facto DJ of the deck where many of our cabins reside. His music blares out into the halls as Samantha – 23 year old assistant-cook/kitchen goddess who sports a ponytail and an uncannily calm, elegant bearing – chops and dices while Raymond sautes and boils. Our dinners are accompanied by Sinatra, Swing, Classic Rock, and you may find yourself heaping your plate with a vegetable medley or fried chicken while getting down to the sounds of Mr. Chuck Berry. Swabbing the deck…the type of chore we all…almost all…do between 8 and 9 in the morning…goes faster to Pink Floyd, unless you are in a melancholy mood, in which case just let your tears mingle with the soapy water in your bucket.
Meanwhile, back home, my mother is cooking. I know this even though I haven’t talked to her for the two weeks I’ve been on the Espy. How? Because besides founding Greenpeace with a few other souls my mother is known by friends, family and the many visitors she is always inviting to dinner for her gourmet meals, and when not in the kitchen is to be found shopping at Granville Island Market for the freshest produce in Vancouver or rifling through one ot the hundreds of cookbooks on her shelves. Picture her now, five feet on a tall day and wearing a white chef’s hat bigger than her head, pounding dough to the sound of Pavoratti, serenading the entire block around her house through the giant speakers my father always insisted our house contain.
You may be wondering where Bono fits in to all this. At this point in the story I must introduce my brother-in-law Ed Montague, a lawyer and a very persistent fellow who happens to be a huge U2 fan. When he heard the band was coming to Vancouver a few years ago he said, "Hey, Bono is a big Greenpeace supporter, I bet he’d love to meet a founder of Greenpeace, why don’t you invite him to dinner at your Mom’s?
Right. Like Bono would happen by for a bite and a brew at the home of total strangers. I ignored the insane request for awhile but Ed (like all lawyers) is so stubborn that I finally wrote the Great Man just to get Ed off my back. The response? Dinner was out of the question. Surprise! However, Bono would like to meet my Mom, if he had time. I had to give Ed credit at this point. Credit, and a big hug, and then dance around the room for a minute.
Three o’clock on the day U2 was to open in Vancouver, Ed got a call: my Mom and entourage (Ed, myself, and our spouses) were to be backstage at 7 pm. Passes would be waiting. Needless to say, we were a tad excited.
When we entered the green room…having first been escorted through at least three security details…we bopped around like idiots wondering whether to partake first of the chilled wine, beer, or snacks, and taking dumb photos. My mother sat serenely on the couch, holding the history of the beginning of Greenpeace that Rex Wyler penned, and one of the original Greenpeace buttons, presents she thought Bono might like. As forty minutes ticked by, then forty-five, then fifty, our spirits fell. We weren’t going to meet the Man after all. Of course it was silly to think he’d actually show up...as if he wasn’t busy enough.
And then, just when all hope was lost, in he strode, clad in black and those trademark green shades (that his eyes are very visible through). "Dorothy, Dorothy, Dorothy," he sighed, putting his arm around her. "You ruined my life."
It was Greenpeace, he confided, that first inspired him to activism. He asked if she had any earplugs and everybody laughed until he pulled out a pair. It was hard to imagine how, minutes before walking onto the stage, a rock star could be so focused on the comfort of a petite 84 year old woman, how he could be so entirely present, or how he could submit so graciously to posing for a photo.
During the concert he dedicated a song "Original of the Species", to Dorothy, and the next day U2 posted Ed’s photo of Bono and Doro on their website with a link to Greenpeace.
As we walked down the stairs to the floor after the concert everyone stood back, making way for the elderly lady with the smooth white hair. Dorothy, they called, reaching out to grasp her hand. Thank you.
My mother smiled back, and only on the way to the car, having passed all the crowds, did she pull out her nitro inhaler and take a couple of puffs. I don’t remember what, if anything, any of us ate that night, but if Bono ever does come to dinner, you can bet my Mom will have something good on the table. Meanwhile, on the Espy, it’s dinnertime. Until tomorrow then…
Thirty-five years, eleven months, and eighteen days later, we finally made it.
On September 15, 1971, a crew of twelve set out from Vancouver Island in an eighty-foot halibut seiner called the Phyllis Cormack on a daring, even foolhardy, mission: to steam to the Aleutian island of Amchitka and protest, or even prevent, the detonation of an underground nuclear test. When the plan was first hatched, the group that organized the mission went by the name of the Don't Make a Wave Comittee. By the time the Cormack set out to sea, they were calling themselves Greenpeace.
The Cormack didn't make it to Amchitka. President Nixon delayed the test, the crew put into the Aleutian port of Akutan to figure out next steps, and the US Coastguard arrested them on a technicality. But the mission was a success: although the explosion, dubbed Cannikin, went ahead, it would be the last on the island: a further four tests were scheduled but canceled in the face of the enormous protests that found a voice in the Greenpeace voyage.
And yet, ever since, a circle has remained broken, a path unfinished. Almost thirty-six years have passed, the island has become a wildlife sanctuary, and a kind of calm has returned in this most remote of realms, and yet, no Greenpeace ship had completed the Phyllis Cormack's journey and reached the shores of Amchitka.
Until today.
To the last, Amchitka seemed determined to keep its secrets. We arrived as night was reluctantly yielding its grip, and even when daylight barged its way through, Amchitka lay shrouded in thick, seemingly impenetrable fog. An initial boat ride in search of a suitable landing beach provided little of great promise, but at least one option, and after lunch we headed ashore.
The island is ringed by thick kelp beds--the reason it was once lush habitat for sea otters, all now gone, whose violent deaths as a result of the blasts angered Irving Stowe and motivated him to protest the explosions, a move that gave rise to the Don't Make a Wave Committee and thence Greenpeace. There was no doubt that the kelp could do serious harm to the propellor of the African Queen, our large inflatable, so we employed a shuttle service: from Esperanza to African Queen to the smaller Novuraina, which threaded its way uncertainly through the shallows, before we began an undignified clamber across kelp-coated rocks and finally made it ashore.
We had made it. We were on Amchitka. But the object of our attention lay a couple of miles away yet, over the intimidating-looking hillside that sloped down toward us. Undaunted, we picked and clambered and hauled our way to the top of the island, and there, of all things, stood a concrete hut at the end of a gravel road. It had been, presumably, a form of sentry post.
We stepped inside. On the floor there sat what appeared to unexploded shells. We stepped back outside.
We wandered along the road, but according to our charts and calculations, we needed to head inland a short distance. And so we marched across spongy mosses that sprang back up as our footprints left, along thick tundra that enveloped our feet as if trying to suck us into the ground, and tall grasses that hid holes into which at least some of us sometimes stumbled and fell.
Then we rose over a ridge and there, ahead of us, was what we had come to see: Cannikin Lake, created when the force of the blast caused the land to collapse, forming a crater which filled with water from nearby White Alice Creek.
It looked, frankly, disconcertingly peaceful and calm, the water gently breaking against the lush grassy coast, But its placidity is deceiving: samples have shown that the lake, the creek, and the mosses and lichens contain radioactive elements, which are still seeping into the groundwater from the blast chamber a mile below the surface.
At ground zero itself, close to the lake, the reality was more evident. Here, in stark contrast to the lush environment on the way in, the ground was all but lifeless, the remnants of scorched lichens clinging to bare earth. And there was something else, something I hadn't truly realized until talking later with Raymond back on the Esperanza. This is an island that has felt but a handful of human footprints for more than thirty years, that is an undisturbed wiildlife reserve. But there is virtually no life here. Oh, there are some seabirds, some songbirds, moths and spiders and flies here and there. But compared to the other Aleutian islands we have visited, it is lush but desolate. The place just feels wrong. It feels violated. It feels ... dead.
The crew had made it clear they had no intention of allowing us solely to come and monitor and document the site without making at least a symbolic statement, and so we stood, facing the lake, with the ship's flags tied to poles and waving bravely in the strong wind, a testament to how Greenpeace has grown globally in scope in the decades since its founding, and how, on behalf of the nations of the world, we were reclaiming this patch of inhumanity and calling for peace.
Then the flags came down, and everyone stomped back over the hill, leaving Brent, Clive, myself--and Barbara. Barbara Stowe, 14 years old at the time of the Cormack's sailing, our connection to the founding era, had sold pins and buttons on street corners for 25 cents a pop to raise money for the Cormack's voyage. And now, representing all of those who had devoted so much time, energy, and emotion into making that seminal event happen, she was here, with us, bearing witness firsthand to the place her late father had sworn to protect.
We filmed some interviews, and then again we did battle with the terrain, forcing weary limbs through unforgiving ground, and then precariously down the slopes we had earlier climbed, before once more running the gauntlet of rocks and hitching a ride back to the welcoming Esperanza.
On the beach, some of the crew had arranged driftwood to spell "Bering Witness" in honor of the campaign, a quiet message visible only from the cliff tops.
And at the test site, too, a memorial now stands: a small piece of driftwood, which Diek retrieved from the shore and tied to a short post. In the wood, he carved a simple message: Phyllis Cormack 1971, Esperanza 2007. And now it stands on the shore of Cannikin Lake, a solitary sentinel, bearing witness on our behalf to a silence broken only by the blowing of the wind, the calls of the seabirds, and the gentle lapping of the waves.
Saturday August 25 Feeling melancholy this evening -- although whether from missing home or the sheer challenge of this trip and the desolate beauty of Alaska I don’t know-- I put my ipod on, troop up to the foredeck and dance around in front of the webcam as arranged for seven pm with my extended family.
I don’t know if they see me, but as I’m dancing, feeling sad and trying to look happy, I notice a small fat sparrow on the deck. I kneel down and it goes still and then we both start moving together down the deck, me walking, it hopping. It hops near the open door of a room where some ropes and other gear is hanging and, worried, it might hop inside and get trapped, I make big gestures to scare it away from there. Then I run to the sick bay.
Clive, our doctor and the most fervent birder on board, rushes out in his trademark leather boots, green pants and flannel shirt and as we step back on deck we discover the wee visitor sheltering under the boat cradle that holds one of our five zodiacs. I notice yellow feathers on it’s back and think oh, maybe it’s not a sparrow but it is, Clive says, it’s called "Savannah sparrow". It doesn’t look hurt or sick and the thinks it will be just fine.
After he goes inside I decide to dance around on the heli-deck at the stern of the boat, hoping a good long session may cure my blues. There’s no-one around and I let my body sway like seaweed with the rhythmn of the boat. Soon I’m tripping around this great big empty space, dancing in the middle of the Bering Sea to Van Morrison, the Beach Boys, Jann Arden and other sweet and melancholy singers.
At one point I look up and there, above the stern, are five birds, at least two of which have a larger wing-span than any bird I’d ever seen before today. Just hours ago George and I saw one of these dark birds, it's wings curved like a subtle scythe, from the bridge, and identified it…with Clive’s help…as likely an immature short-tailed Albatross. of which there happen to be only five hundred in the world.
"Clive!" I rush to the sick bay again, pound on the door. "Clive! Albatrosses, AlbaTROSSES!" (emphasis on the plural, we both know how rare it is to see even ONE) and he comes flying out, but by the time we race back to the helideck the birds are gone.
I wonder if maybe they saw me, dancing with my arms outstretched like wings, and flew over to see what this strange bird was doing.
The gift of the Albatrosses has lifted my spirits, but sadness surges back as Green Day starts singing Time of Your Life. "Another turning point a fork stuck in the road…time grabs you by the wrist directs you where to go…" I try to keep dancing, find myself stumbling forward instead, right to the edge of the deck, grabbing the net that surrounds the heli-pad, tears welling up in my eyes. "So make the best of this test and don’t ask why…its not a question but a lesson learned in time"…All the emotion I’ve been holding back in the past ten days of this emotional journey starts to tumble out of me in salty splashes. "Its something unpredictable but in the end there’s right… I hope you had the time of your life".
It’s been a long time since I’ve cried. The Savannah Sparrow, the albatrosses, the sheer privilege of having all this space to myself, the peace and quiet and the water dancing us about at every moment floods me with awe. My mind flashes through thoughts of the life I’ve left behind, the life I’m coming back to in ten days, no job, no routine, everything familiar overturned and a space opening up for something new to grow, all this rife with possibility but the chance of failure too…"It’s something unpredictable but in the end there’s right…I hope you had the time of your life".
No question, Green Day. We're sailing to a desolate and lovely wildlife refuge blasted by three nuclear bomb tests, tests that provoked the founding of Greenpeace and its first action. And as we sail I think of the sea otters washed up dead on the shores of Amchitka Island in the late sixties and early seventies, their eardrums split by the atomic blasts, and I wonder if there are any otters left, and whether we’ll see them, feasting and frolicking in the kelp beds that are said to be so thick around Amchitka Island.
And I think of my man at home, and all the people on the boat, and the people we’ve met, and the beauty of the green mountains rising out of the rolling quilted fog, and I sink onto the top step of the staircase leading down to the main deck and cry as hard as I ever have in my whole life..
So take the photographs and still frames in your mind…for what it’s worth it was worth all the while", and I give thanks for the trip of my life. NEXT: On a different note, what about my mother (a founder of Greenpeace) who I promised, in my bio, to tell you about? What about Chuck Berry and Pink Floyd? See what my mother, Chuck Berry, Pink Floyd and Bono all have in common.
Saturday August 25 Feeling melancholy this evening -- although whether from missing home or the sheer challenge of this trip and the desolate beauty of Alaska I don’t know-- I put my ipod on, troop up to the foredeck and dance around in front of the webcam as arranged for seven pm with my extended family.
I don’t know if they see me, but as I’m dancing, feeling sad and trying to look happy, I notice a small fat sparrow on the deck. I kneel down and it goes still and then we both start moving together down the deck, me walking, it hopping. It hops near the open door of a room where some ropes and other gear is hanging and, worried, it might hop inside and get trapped, I make big gestures to scare it away from there. Then I run to the sick bay.
Clive, our doctor and the most fervent birder on board, rushes out in his trademark leather boots, green pants and flannel shirt and as we step back on deck we discover the wee visitor sheltering under the boat cradle that holds one of our five zodiacs. I hadn't noticed the yellow feathers on it’s back before and think oh, maybe it’s not a sparrow but it is, Clive says, it’s called "Savannah sparrow". It doesn’t look hurt or sick and he thinks it will be just fine.
After he goes inside I decide to dance around on the heli-deck at the stern of the boat, hoping a long sweaty session may cure my blues. There’s no-one around and I let my body sway like seaweed with the rhythmn of the boat. Soon I’m tripping all over this great big empty space, dancing in the middle of the Bering Sea to Van Morrison, the Beach Boys, Jann Arden and other sweet and melancholy singers.
At one point I happen to look up in the sky and there, above the stern, are five birds, at least two of which have a larger wing-span than any bird I’d ever seen before today. Just hours ago George and I saw one of these dark birds, its wings curved like a subtle scythe, from the bridge, and identified it…with Clive’s help…as likely an immature short-tailed Albatross. Of which there happen to be only five hundred in the world.
"Clive!" I run back to the sick bay, pound on the door. "Clive! Albatrosses, AlbaTROSSES!" (we both know how rare it is to see even ONE) and he comes flying out, but by the time we race back to the helideck the birds are gone.
I wonder if maybe they saw me, dancing with my arms outstretched like wings, and flew over to see what this strange bird was doing.
The gift of the Albatrosses has lifted my spirits, but sadness surges back as Green Day starts singing Time of Your Life. "Another turning point a fork stuck in the road…time grabs you by the wrist directs you where to go…" I try to keep dancing, find myself stumbling forward instead, right to the edge of the deck, grabbing the net that surrounds the heli-pad, tears welling up in my eyes. "So make the best of this test and don’t ask why…its not a question but a lesson learned in time"…All the emotion I’ve been holding back in the past ten days of this emotional journey starts to tumble out of me in salty splashes. "Its something unpredictable but in the end there’s right… I hope you had the time of your life".
It’s been a long time since I’ve cried. The Savannah Sparrow, the albatrosses, the sheer privilege of having all this space to myself, the peace and quiet and the water dancing us about at every moment all overwhelms me. My mind flashes through thoughts of the life I’ve left behind, the life I’m coming back to in ten days, no job, no routine, everything familiar overturned and a space opening up for something new to grow, all this rife with possibility but the chance of failure too…"It’s something unpredictable but in the end there’s right…I hope you had the time of your life".
No question, Green Day. Here we are, sailing to a desolate and lovely wildlife refuge blasted by three nuclear bomb tests, tests that provoked the founding of Greenpeace and its first action. And as we sail I think of the sea otters washed up dead on the shores of Amchitka Island in the late sixties and early seventies, their eardrums split by the atomic blasts, and I wonder if there are any otters left, and whether we’ll see them, feasting and frolicking in the kelp beds that are said to be so thick around Amchitka Island.
And I think of my man at home, and all the people on the boat, and the people we’ve met, and the beauty of the green mountains rising out of the rolling quilted fog, and I sink onto the top step of the staircase leading down to the main deck and cry as hard as I ever have in my whole life..
So take the photographs and still frames in your mind…for what it’s worth it was worth all the while", and I give thanks for the trip of my life.
NEXT: On a different note, what about my mother (a founder of Greenpeace) who I promised, in my bio, to tell you about? What about Chuck Berry and Pink Floyd? Soon you'll hear what these seemingly disparate elements all have in common.
So this is what the edge of the world feels like.
Adak is the most westerly town in the United States. It is 1,300 miles southwest of Anchorage and 350 miles west of Dutch Harbor, the final redoubt before the Aleutians devolve into a broken necklace of isolated volcanic pearls.
And it is empty. Or so, at least, it seems.
According to the State of Alaska, there are just 146 people living here, and even that seems generous. A little over ten years ago, Adak was bustling, home to at least 6,000 US Navy personnel and civilian contractors, and boasting an infrastructure that would have been the envy of any small town, let alone one nestled in a harbor overlooked by mountains covered in lush maritime tundra and surrounded by the hostile Bering Sea.
There was a movie theater, a roller skating rink, an Olympic-size swimming pool, a ski lodge, a bowling alley. There were racquetball and tennis courts. There was a skeet range. And, of course, there was a McDonald’s.
All of this was a consequence of World War II and the Japanese invasion of Attu and Kiska, the most westerly of the Aleutians. Adak, like Amchitka to its west, became a military stronghold from which the campaign to recover the two islands could be launched; unlike on Amchitka, when the war ended, the military personnel stayed, and Adak became a Cold War submarine surveillance center that marked the American military’s western outlier.
But on March 31, 1997, the base closed. When it was open, Adak must have been an incongruous site, a slice of Americana in the Aleutians; now it is closed, it feels, frankly, unsettling.
In a way, it is because the incongruity remains. The housing that was built was entirely in the style of any suburban subdivision: identical cookie-cutter houses, painted in bright, cheery shades of (as best as my colorblind eyes can tell) blues and yellows and, oh I don’t know, let’s say reds, each with its own driveway, garage, and patch of front lawn.
Now they are empty, street upon street of them, as if the island’s entire human population had just packed up, locked the doors, and left in the space of five minutes. The houses look in pretty good shape for having been left empty for a decade; here and there, a garage window is cracked or smashed or a door buckled, but by and large the houses look almost ready for new residents. But the yards are overgrown, the foliage overwhelming the swing sets, the basketball hoops rusting and fading, mosses taking over the sidewalks.
And so it is with much of the rest of the town. The shopping mall: abandoned. The McDonald’s: abandoned. The skating rink, the swimming pool, the movie theater: all empty, awaiting customers that are no longer around.
But then you turn a corner and, suddenly, one particular cul-de-sac of houses, otherwise identical to the others, boasts pickup trucks in the driveways and recently-mown front yards dotted here and there with daisies. A young child waves hello and his father looks up from washing his car and nods in greeting as if it were the most normal thing in the world to see a stranger walking through his otherwise seemingly deserted town.
For Adak, initial appearances notwithstanding, is not deserted. Indeed, there is a serious effort underway to maintain and rebuild the community. There is expected to be at least a temporary influx of people—perhaps, according to rumors, as many as 400—and an associated boost to the economy with the arrival of a cleanup crew next year, equipped with a mandate to do address the ordnance and other remnants of the military’s rapid departure. (There are signs across the island, for example, prohibiting the digging of holes more than two feet deep; and the high school displays cheery cartoon posters warning children not to touch unexploded bombs). There is fishing here, too, with Pacific cod particularly important, and a processing plant on shore. Times here are tough, but in the western Aleutians, so far at least, the situation is far less grim than in some of the communities farther east. Even so, there is an acute awareness of the importance of protecting the marine ecosystem, and there was an attentive and involved gathering at a community meeting in which George explained the concept of Cultural Marine Heritage Zones.
It also doesn’t hurt the local economy when the occasional Greenpeace ship comes into port, either. For a lot of the folks on board, it’s been a long expedition that is nearing its end, and while your faithful correspondent remained on board, there was no shortage of crew making friends and letting their hair down at the local bar. During the stagger home, suddenly Adak didn’t seem like such a bad place to be.
But now we have left and are heading west. The sea is flat calm, and the Esperanza just steamed slowly through the narrow and stunningly beautiful Kagalaska Strait. We put the African Queen, one of our rigid-hulled inflatables, in the water to film our passage through the verdant green volcanic hills, and as we made our way, a minke whale appeared off the bow, swam lazily past us, and then surfaced just feet away from the inflatable, diving slowly beneath and turning sideways to watch the strange visitors as it disappeared beneath the waves.
When official announcement was made of the first planned nuclear test on Amchitka Island, the response of then-Alaska Governor William J. Egan was to declare that, “I am pleased that we have been selected as the hosts, so to speak, for this test, and I’m sure I speak for my fellow Alaskans.” He stated that 140 previous tests in Nevada had “proven that there is no danger from radioactivity being released in the test area.”
In fact, 56 of those 140 Nevada tests had leaked radioactivity. And so did that first Amchitka test, dubbed Long Shot, which was detonated on October 29, 1965.
The explosion, which had a force equivalent to 80,000 tons of TNT, was detonated 2,300 feet below ground. Even so, cracks appeared in the earth, there were rockfalls along the Bering Sea coast as far as 10,000 feet northeast of ground zero, water levels dropped in nearby lakes, lichens were literally drowned by subsequent flooding, and mud geysers burst into the air.
Long Shot was just the beginning of the nuclear age in the Aleutians, and but the latest violation of the island of Amchitka.
It is not known for certain how many thousands of years Native peoples had inhabited Amchitka before the arrival of the first Russian fur traders in 1761, but a little more than a century later, they were gone: some forcibly displaced by the Russians to work at nearby Adak, some killed by previously unknown diseases, others the victims of a society fragmented, disrupted, and ultimately destroyed by Russian and American colonizers.
In 1913, President William H. Taft signed an executive order setting aside the Aleutian chain, including Amchitka, as a wildlife reservation; but the declaration left open plenty of loopholes for economic and military activity, and was of little consequence when confronted with the specter of war.
After Japanese forces bombed Dutch Harbor, and invaded the far western Aleutian islands of Attu and Kiska, in 1942, the United States military moved into Amchitka in force, building a dock and a landing strip, and housing up to 16,000 military personnel. With the cessation of hostilities, Amchitka briefly was allowed to return to its status as a wildlife reservation—albeit one that was now littered with ordnance, and that had been battered and bruised by the boots of thousands of soldiers and sailors.
But then came Long Shot, and four years after Long Shot came Milrow. The plan had originally been to dub the test “Ganja,” until somebody in Washington, DC discovered the word’s more common usage, prompting the name to be changed amid fears that the press would start referring to it as a “pot shot.”
By the time the one-megaton Milrow was detonated, the political climate, stirred by the Vietnam War, had shifted. For the first time since the War of 1812, the Douglas Border crossing between British Columbia and Washington State was closed down, blocked by 2,000 protestors.
Milrow, however, was but a rehearsal, a warm-up act for the main event. Milrow’s principal purpose had been to test whether Amchitka could withstand an even larger blast, and that blast, codenamed Cannikin, was detonated on November 6, 1971. At five megatons, it was 250 times the yield of the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, and it endured a series of protests, from the legal—the test proceeded only after withstanding a Supreme Court challenge—and the dramatic, most notably attempts by two vessels from a nascent group called Greenpeace to reach the test site and protest or even prevent the explosion.
Cannikin was the largest underground nuclear test ever conducted by the United States—so large that of it comprised 14 percent of the total yield of all 730 underground nuclear tests in US history.
The blast registered a 7.0 on the Richter scale and caused a subsidence crater over a mile wide and 60 feet deep, which filled with water and became the largest lake on the island. Rockfalls, containing over 46,000 square yards of material, smothered intertidal marine life. Nearly three hundred deceased rock greenling fish were found offshore, and subsequent catches of rock sole declined substantially. The remains of over 10,000 three-spined sticklebacks and 700 Dolly Varden were found in the island’s lakes, streams, and ponds. Perhaps 1,000 sea otters were killed, their skulls fractured by the force of the blast driving their eyeballs through the bones behind their sockets. Harlequin ducks were found with their backs broken and their legs driven into their bodies by the force of the explosion.
A 1996 Greenpeace survey revealed continuing traces of plutonium-239. plutonium-240, and a plutonium by-product, americium-241, in moss and algae species, as well as americium-241 in the waters of White Alice Creek, a fast-flowing stream that exits into the Bering Sea.
After Canikin, Amchitka was not used a test site again. Today, it is uninhabited, stripped of most of the infrastructure set up to support the WWII military presence and the testing program, and rarely visited.
“It was a very interesting five years,” said an official with the Atomic Energy Commission of the Amchitka nuclear test program, “but I don’t think I would want to go through it again.”
NOTE: Much of the above information was culled from “Amchitka and the Bomb: Nuclear Testing in Alaska,” by Dean W. Kohlhoff (University of Washington Press, 2002); and “Nuclear Flashback” by Pam Miller (Greenpeace, 1996).
She has freckles, long eyelashes, a crooked smile and she's floating in the middle of the Bering Sea. There is no land in sight, no boats but ours. It is our job to rescue Overboard Annie.
How did she fall overboard? Actually, we threw her off, then circled the ship 'round to start our emergency drill. I was on the bridge talking to Captain Pete at the time, having forgotten all about the cryptic note on the blackboard this morning mentioning O.A. drill at 14:30. When I'd asked what it meant I was told it didn't involve me, as I'm only here for three weeks, unlike the rest of the crew who are mostly on for three month stints. So mid-afternoon there I was chatting blithely away to Pete when suddenly he responded to a message, moved to the control panel, pressed a red button and an alarm sounded.
People started running in.
First came Radio Operator Tom, looking surprisingly cute (Tom will not appreciate being called "cute", and as he's our resident computer genius will likely sabotage this blog later, even though "cute" is meant as a compliment --in bright yellow headphones pushed up on his forehead like some kind of cartoon bumblebee. Then Rao, 3rd Mate, with his million watt smile, which was not in evidence now. Tom and Rao rushed outside and began scanning the water.
I ran after them. "Where's Annie?" Tom shouted. The sea was uniformly blue-grey, peaked with small waves, and there was no sign of Annie's yellow head (a buoy, actually, which someone painted a face on) anywhere. Turning towards the stern we saw a few mates struggling to get a zodiac lowered from the stern. There seemed to be some problem...it wasn't moving.
Meanwhile about eight or ten other mates rushed onto the foredeck, ran to the bow and pointed out to sea, arms uniformly at shoulder height like dancers in a ballet. I felt strangely moved by them.
Rao and I followed the direction of their arms, but couldn't see Annie anywhere. "There," said Tom, his deep voice tinged with a Belgian accent, "Further out...further" until finally ahhh, WAY out there, about six-hundred feet, bobbing in the sea in an orange survivor suit stuffed with life-jackets.
I know the Bering sea is cold, but how much colder it looked suddenly. More mates rushed onto the foredeck, and we turned to the stern to see if the zodiac was down yet...no, still suspended aloft...what was taking so loooong? Finally it started down and after what seemed like ten minutes but was probably two hit the water, and Diek our poetic (you'll know why if you read his blog) Second Mate stuck his arm out too, pointing, and Marc (our Mechanic/Film buff) gunned the engine, and off they went.
How slowly they seemed to travel, like in a dream, or a nightmare. Now seagulls were pecking at Annie's head, and Diek reached for her, and she must have been awfully water-logged, because she looked so heavy and hard to hold as he hauled her in, and all of this seemed to be going in slow-motion.
Later we all assembled on the bridge, waiting in silence for the Captain to speak, and for once not a single person made a quip or joke. Captain Pete shared that if one of us fell off the boat "while looking at the moon and stars one night on deck, not that any of you would do such a thing" we'd basically be, well...He didn't need to finish. We all knew there'd be nothing but a bobbing head to see, not a bright orange and yellow shape buoyed up by life jackets.
Lying in bed that night I can't stop seeing my mates, all standing together, pointing out to sea. I keep seeing the zodiac, zooming towards Annie. I keep thinking of the Earth, and all the living beings on it, and I can't help being glad I'm here, with my mates, trying our best to keep Earth, and Annie, afloat.
In the process of helping give a tour of the ship the other day to four youngsters from St. Paul--who, it turned out, had been on board a couple times earlier in the day, and whose interest seemed focused only on the snack area they had previously discovered in the mess room--I passed Penny, the bosun, cleaning paint brushes out on the poop deck.
"And here," I said to nobody in particular (because the children, aware that Penny was neither a snack food nor rich in trans fats, had little interest in her), "is an actual crew member doing actual work."
"Would you even know real work if you saw it, Kieran?" asked Penny, without looking up.
Ha ha. That Penny. She kids because she loves.
I think.
The truth is, there's a very real difference in the rhythm and nature of work on board for crew and "guests"--campaigners, journalists, and the occasional weird hybrid such as myself. And no matter how much us passengers do our best to contribute, whether it be by cleaning toilets, standing watches, helping cook dinner, or just trying not to set the ship on fire, it is always the case.
For those of us who are occupying ourselves with nothing mnore arduous than tapping on our computer keyboards, the period between 12 noon and 6PM can seem a particularly long and trying spell, because it is the buffer between two of the most enjoyable and important times of a ship's day: lunch and dinner. (And, with many thanks to Raymond and Sam, they are enjoyable indeed).
Today, horror of horrors, the gap between the two meals was longer than usual, because at 1300 (1PM) ship's time, we turned the clock back an hour to come into line with our steady progression westward. We are now ten hours behind the United Kingdom, but realistically should be closer to twelve, as we are almost exactly on the opposite side of the world from the Greenwich Meridian. But, such is the occasional arbitrariness of time zone allocation. At least the International Date Line has the good manners to skirt the western edge of the Aleutian Islands, slicing between them and the Russian-ownd Commander Islands--where, incidentally, Vitus Bering, after whom this sea is named, became shipwrecked and died in 1741. (The Commander Islands were also the only home to the Steller's sea cow and spectacled cormorant, both of which were driven to extinction within decades of their discovery).
Further north, in the Bering Strait, the date line passes between the twin islands of Big Diomede and Little Diomede--a division that would not have affected the related inhabitants of those two isles, only a couple of miles apart, except that during the Cold War, the Soviet Union forcibly evacuated Big Diomede, which fell on their side of the line. I remember one morning on the Arctic Sunrise in 1998, coming to the bridge and looking at the two islands on either side of us.
"See that?" said Lena, the thrd mate, pointing to Big Diomede off our port side. "That's tomorrow."
Way to mess with my head, Lena. And before I'd even had any coffee.
Today, we anchored off the small village of Nikolski, population 31, on the southwest corner of Unmak Island. And while we are on the subject of time, Nikolski has witnessed the passage of a lot of it, as this area is reckoned to be the site of the longest continuous human habitation in the world. The region has been occupied for at least 8,000 years, and Nikolski for at least 4,000 of that. There were people living here before the Pyramids were built, before the Mayan calendar was invented, before the Chinese language was first written.
We are leaving Nikolski now, to head for Adak--temporarily bypassing Atka, originally planned as our next destination, which we will now visit on our way back. After Adak, we will reach, probably on Monday, Amchitka, where for Greenpeace it all began.
Last night at around 2300--shortly after a community meeting that was occasionally fractious, but overall highly positive and supportive, and in which one elder in particular spoke with forcefulness and anger about the need to shut down factory fishing--we left St. Paul Island. Today, we have been sailing south from the Pribilofs to return to the Aleutians. Around midnight tonight, we are scheduled to arrive at Nikolski, following which we will conclude our community visits with stops at, in turn, Atka and Adak.
The sea has been flat calm, and while the sky has, of course, been gray, it has at least been clear, with not even a hint of the fog that has followed us everywhere like a morose yet overly-obedient dog. As a result, the day has provided an opportunity to catch up on outstanding tasks, and to prepare for what lies ahed.
This afternoon saw an oft-delayed Man Overboard drill, which had initially been planned for our first day out of Dutch Harbor, but abandoned when we found ourselves surrounded by shearwaters and whales. Opinions on the fate of the inanimate crew member who took the fall into the Bering Sea (or was she pushed?) were divided, although the fact that a brace of gulls had alighted on her by the time Diek and Marc arrived to her rescue in the Novuraina was not a good sign. More seriously, the sea is a dangerous place to be, and repeated drills, even absent the pumping adrenalin engendered by the real thing, are an essential exercise in making the unthinkable routine.
The small room next to the laundry, used as the ship's gym, is once more open for membership after refurbishments, redecoration, and the addition of new equipment. Brent, my cabin mate, has already beaten me to it, slipping into his workout gear and out the door while I am typing. George, my other cabin mate, followed shortly afterward, but the cigarette in his hand suggested a different destination.
This morning, a small group of us--George, Pete, Willem, Barbara, Brent, and myself--sat down for initial discussions of plans for the final step of the expedition: the visit to Amchitka Island. Amchitka was the site of three underground nuclear explosions between 1965 and 1971; and it was in an attempt to protest and prevent the third of those that a group of activists set sail from Vancouver on September 15, 1971, on an 80-foot halibut seiner called the Phyllis Cormack. That group, originally called the Don't Make a Wave Committee, had just renamed itself Greenpeace, and that voyage toward Amchitka was the organization's first.
A combination of bad weather, a change in the date of the explosion, and the attentions of the US Coast Guard prevented the Phyllis Cormack's crew from reaching its destination. Thirty-six years later, the Esperanza will complete what the Cormack started, and become the first Greenpeace vessel to reach Amchitka and, all being well, document the test site.
None of the original crew are with us, of course, but they are on board in spirit, embodied in the welcome presence of Barbara Stowe, daughter of Greenpeace founder Irving Stowe. At the age of 14, she watched as the founding members plotted and planned in her family's living room; stood on street corners selling buttons and pins to raise money for the voyage; and--wisely, probably--resisted her father's entreaties to join the crew on that historic voyage. It is fitting that she should be with us when we reach the place that inspired her father to take the steps that resulted in Greenpeace, and it is an honor to have her with us.
Looked at up close, fur seals seem really improbable animals. Underwater it is a different story: slick and streamlined, they arc gracefully through the element for which Nature intended them. But on a rocky beach on St. Paul Island, those same flippers which propel them effortlessly beneath the waves look like an afterthought, a sick joke on the part of a disinterested creator: “Well, I have these things left over, and I have to use them on something, so I may as well stick them on these seals.”
They waddle and slither unconvincingly across the terrain, trying not to stray too close to their neighbors for fear of sparking a fight. As it is, little skirmishes seem on the verge of breaking out all the time, before the big bulls step in to restore order with an intimidating, snarling roar. The whole scene is a cacophony of chaos, seals constantly grunting, barking, and snorting, the youngest of pups suckling, slightly older ones play-fighting, and the oldest of them, six to eight weeks old, frolicking in the surf, learning to become comfortable in the water, and learning to fish.
The fur seals on the beach are breeding males, females, and pups. Once all the pups are weaned and able to look after themselves, breeding season will begin, and then the lunges and fake fighting will be pushed aside in favor of an altogether more aggressive stance: teeth will be bared and blood will be shed, and the beach, already noisy, will become louder still.
Over on the other side of the island is a “Bachelor Beach,” a haulout frequented by males too young or too old to breed. Nearby—hard to make out now, covered by wild celery and thick grasses—is the outline of the original village established by Russian settlers in the 1780s. Its proximity to the seal beach is not accidental: it was the presence of fur seals that first attracted the Russian explorer Gerasim Pribilof to these islands, and it was to hunt and harvest these seals and their fur that the Russians forcibly removed Unangan (Aleut) families from Unalaska and Atka to St. George and St. Paul.
After Russia sold Alaska to the United States in 1867, Americans assumed control of the fur seal fishery of the Pribilofs, but they showed no more concern than had their predecessors for either the seals or the humans they were enslaving to kill those seals.
During the first half of the 20th century, the Pribilovians were regarded, not as US citizens, but as wards of the state. They were paid only in meager provisions; they were not permitted to leave the island without permission; and they were forced to work from the age of 16. Even marriages were arranged by government officials. While the worst of this indentured servitude was stamped out after World War II, the inhabitants of the Pribilofs remained, in effect, economic slaves, forced to hunt ever-growing numbers of seals to satisfy the desires and profits of peoples far away.
Fur sealing ended on St. George in 1973, and on St. Paul in 1985, amid much bitterness and controversy. The fur seal population has not recovered, but nor has that of the resident Unangans. Today, among the 108 people of St. George, unemployment is 80%.
Our guide tells us that the big fur seals we are looking at are not as big as they used to be; that in recent years the seals on the island, presumably unable to secure the nutrition they need, have been thinner than before. There are fewer of them, too; the population is in a steady decline.
The northern fur seals of the Pribilofs need to be protected. But that protection can not take the form of yet another wave of officials focusing their efforts on restricting the subsistence hunting that still remains, while the bottom trawlers which are squeezing the life out of the Bering Sea ecosystem continue on their rampage with impunity.
The Bering Sea is dying. The way to save it is to stop those who are killing it, not those who are as much a part of its ecosystem as any seal and whose future is intricately and inextricably linked to its continued survival.
The Disclaimer: Today's blog is of a more serious nature than some of my previous ones, as I take you into some very heavy meetings that include complicated issues and language I haven't had the chance to educate myself enough to talk about except in the most basic terms. I hope there are no inaccuracies, and if there are I apologize and beg your indulgence as a blog is a like a daily diary and on this ship there is scant time for intensive study in my schedule so far! For more information on this very important issue, please see George Pletnikoff's blog on the Bering Sea Voices website.
TRIBAL COUNCIL
Today we're in St. Paul, but three days ago we were still in St. George, an island so remote and underpopulated (by humans) that as we walked around part of the village, photographing the Russian Orthodox Church where George used to be parish priest, we saw no-one at all. Everything was shrouded in mist and fog, and the words "desolate" and "beauty" came to mind twinned, each perfectly applicable. I wondered what it would be like to live on this windswept island among the hundred-odd men, women and children who reside here and whose ancestors have lived off the sea for so many centuries.
The next day George took four of us to a Tribal Council meeting, and unlike the witty garrulous George who had driven us around in a mini-bus the previous afternoon, stopping to speak in both Aleut and English to friends and pointing out sights like the house he grew up in, he is completely silent. So are we. Everyone knows this mission, which he is leading, could scarcely be more difficult for an Aleut from the Priblof Islands. He is here to convince the people of St. George, whose lives depend on fishing and hunting fur seals -- practises Greenpeace has not exactly come out thumpingly in support of in the past -- that we are here to help support their traditional practises, and to ask for their help in ending the bottom-trawling that is destroying the rich marine environment of the Bering Sea.
The meeting is held in a one-story community hall/office building. We clamber out of the bus, troop in and are offered tea. Julie (a cultural anthropologist and the Espy's champion knitter), Samantha (assistant cook, a 23 year old who converys a remarkable serenity), Brent (our Aussie videographer and resident smart...er, mouth) and myself pour ourselves hot water, dunk tea bags and settle into chairs around two long tables that have been pushed together to form one. Facing us are Ted, in a T-shirt that says "I'm a multitasker, I can talk and piss you off at the same time"; Sally, in a black windbreaker, who sits with arms crossed over her chest and a tense expression; and Phil, whose eyes are unreadable behind rectangular silver glasses. Their unsmiling faces don't inspire hope. Also there is Andy, who was on the Espy for several days and avoids eye contact. I don't envy George one bit right now.
He begins by saying he was reluctant to work with Greenpeace, but over the past year he's come to the conclusion that the organization is making a real effort to protect the marine habitat. He elaborates, talking for a long time, maybe twenty minutes, about the need to establish "cultural marine heritage zones", then hands around a draft resolution. The Council scans it and questions begin. How far out would these zones be? How much support is there for this resolution from the other communities? George replies that the community will need to decide where and how those zones should be created.
Heavy footsteps are heard and Chris, Chief of the Tribal Council, strides in wearing a sweatshirt that says "The Deadliest Catch". He warily examines the resolution. He wants language about local needs in it. It needs to be specific, and this needs "to be made clear to your group". George offers, as an example, that the resolution might say certain types of fishing gear are used. He states the problem for the community as he sees it: "You people are sitting right out here in the middle of the Being Sea and have no say", and Chris explodes: "They don't care! They're just gonna come along and kick your butt."
Andy asks, "Are you open to language change in this resolution?" and George says, "The best thing would be for you people to take this resolution and totally rewrite it." It is as if the room exhales. Discussion continues, but the atmosphere lightens noticeably, and we leave the meeting with a feeling of optimism and relief, tempered for me by angst about the fact that at several points in there I shot my mouth off in support of the resolution with scant preparation and knowledge of the issues. I'm aware that in speaking from my heart I've waded into politics, which inevitably involves compromise, some results of which, who knows how far down the line, I may end up intensely uncomfortable with.
I ask Samantha and Julie for feedback and for their thoughts on the resolution. Both respond that my contributions were helpful and I am also reassured by the fact that Julie, a vegan, firmly supports the right of communities who have always fished and hunted for their food to continue to do so. Nonetheless I find myself having to walk around for a long time as everyone else visits the local store, asking myself some hard questions. The answers that I come up with satisfy me, at least for now.
That evening we hold a meeting in the community hall, which is well attended, and George introduces the film shot in the canyons where we sent a submarine down to find out what was down there. As we wait for Julie who has stepped up to the plate as volunteer techno-whiz to get the video recorder going, a young boy puts up his hand. "Is our culture dying?" he asks. It's like a punch in the stomach. "No," George replies. "No, don't you worry about that. You let us worry about it." Julie signals that the video is ready to play and it is a relief to have the lights go down. The child's question underlines the real crisis this community is going through, a crisis we have embroiled ourselves in by connecting with this village, and the weight of this responsibility seems immense and terrifying at this moment.
The video shows tracks bottom trawlers have left on the bottom of the ocean, cutting a swath that Marge, a woman sitting next to me, whispers: "looks like a road". There is bubble gum coral and scant other marine life in the area examined. Most moving are the interviews with people whose livelihood depends on fishing, notably one woman who speaks of knowing, from the food her mother insists on storing, that the time is coming when her people will starve. She weeps, unable to continue.
.As the video ends, the boy...I think it is the same one who spoke before but is now sitting in a different place, but I'm not sure, asks: "Will you help us protect our cultural heritage?" This time George, who looks like the wind has been knocked out of him, can't offer unrestrained hope. He offers tempered hope: "We'll try. We'll do our best".
Then Sally, from the Tribal Council, stands up and asks me to tell the community what I said in the meeting this morning. Which words? I wonder. What, of the several things I spontaneously said resonated? Feeling like I'm about to fail, I wobble to my feet, and what she said to me at the close of this morning's session comes back: "We love our animals, our seals. We give thanks for them." This is a person connected to her food, not a "fish and meat coward" like me, who eats flesh but does not kill it.
I dredge up words. I say how my husband quit eating fish earlier this year because the fish are dying off in the Bering Sea, and he doesn't want to be a part of that. How I still eat fish, and how my husband will sometimes bring it home and cook it for me...because he loves and cares for me. And how when people think of the environment they think of grass and trees and earth, but the environment includes all the creatures of the earth, including humans, and how Greenpeace cares for them all. I speak of Kelly, the marine biologist on board the Espy, and how she uses the term "Killer Whales" rather than "Orcas" (as some of us call them, because the word "Killer Whales" is feared as unempathetic), and how the fact that they kill other whales doesn't make her love them any the less. (As her cabin mate I can attest to the fact that Kelly is in fact utterly and completely obsessed by and devoted to Killer Whales). And how Greenpeace basically handed the Espy over to Kelly, even though she isn't a member of Greenpeace, asking her to direct us, to help her find and observe the whales. And how I hoped they'd think of Greenpeace as a boat they could drive, because we're here to help.
Afterwards, a man says something like, that until now he'd thought Greenpeace was the devil, but now he understands, and appreciates what we're doing, and a woman seconds him, and George reiterates a very important point I've forgotten in my emotion: that Greenpeace won't do everything the community wants, that we want the community's response to the resolution, and then we'll negotiate back and forth.
As the meeting closes a woman who is probably my age or younger but whose face and several missing teeth speak of a far harder existence than mine comes up to mewith tears in her eyes and hugs me and says, "Thanks so much for all you're doing for us", and I accept her thanks silently on behalf of all the work George and John and everybody has been doing on this issue for so long, because I've only been on this boat for a week, but what a privilege it is. And what a responsibility.
I have a slim book with me, by Sumner MacLeish, a Bostonian by birth who for several years in the 1990s lived on St. Paul, where we are now docking. She married an Aleut in a ceremony officiated by none other than our very own George Pletnikoff, who was at the time a pastor with the Russian Orthodox Church. The book, about life in the Pribilofs, is titled "Seven Words for Wind," which she explains in the opening paragraph: "Aleuts have at least seven words for wind, many of which refer to strength. Day after day, night after night, sometimes for weeks on end, the wind pushes across hundreds of miles of open water, across this small plate of land in the Bering Sea."
It's easy to picture the inhabitants of these islands having to hunker down for long stretches as the wind screams off the sea and across the landscape. It is also possible to close the eyes and picture the beauty and bounty of the Pribilofs, the sun shining on the luscious tundra, flowers in full bloom, seals and whales offshore ... It's possible, but it has not, during our extremely brief sojourn here, been the experience. Nor, at least while we have been here, has the climate been defined by wind.
"So George," I asked in the wheelhouse with a smile this morning. "If the Aleuts have seven words for wind, how many do you have for fog?"
"Just one," he deadpanned. "F*****g fog."
It has been everywhere, cloaking us and seemingly moving with us. It affects the mood somewhat: slowing things down, quieting them. Add the fact that, for most of the crew, these are the final two weeks of a three-month expedition, and this is a quiet, laid-back ship.
The locals take the conditions in stride. "There's no point getting mad at the weather," observes George, correctly.
"It's real nice weather lately, real nice," said a villager on St. George yesterday evening, casually lighting a cigarette as we stood around looking at nothing in particular. "Well, apart from the fog."
We had just concluded a meeting with the community, one in which George explained the expedition so far: the initial round of community visits, the submarine exploration in the canyons, the campaign against overfishing and for Marine Cultural Heritage Zones. It helps, of course, that the villagers know and trust George, except now, instead of Father George he is Greenpeace George. That is not, shall we say, exactly considered a promotion, but several community members took the time to express appreciation for the fact that they now have a greater understanding of what Greenpeace is and stands for, and that we are here to work with, and not against, them, that we want to protect the Bering Sea on which they rely but which is dying, bit by bit.
By the end, one small boy, in a line seemingly scripted for the Hallmark Channel, actually asked: "Will you help save our culture?' Honestly. George, briefly taken aback, quietly promised that "We'll do everything we can."
We are not expecting quite such a warm welcome on St. Paul. It is a larger community, and resentment remains (misdirected toward Greenpeace) over the cessation of the sealing hunt here in 1985 and the sense that we were somehow responsible. It is part also of a general and understandable distrust of outsiders, who for centuries have lectured, hectored, and enslaved the Aleut people.
All we can do is represent ourselves and the organization to the best of our ability. Nobody said it would be anything other than a long haul, after all.
We are now alongside and the engines are off. Time to go ashore. We'll see what the next two days bring.
Two days ago we arrived at St. George, an island populated by 108 people and a heck of a lot of fur seals and birds such as the Red- Leg Kittywake and Thick-Billed Murre. Imagine cliffs teeming with birds and their offspring, gulls squawking overhead and the grunts of fur seals and surf pounding the shore.
We arrived in the afternoon, after a morning where Stoweaway found the "Nausicalm" didn't. Even more ignominious, we were only in five foot swells.
After awhile, I fell into the sleep I hadn't had much of the night before. When I woke up it was afternoon and there was this sound like marbles the size of giant satelite dishes tumbling out of a closet. Holy s, had we hit something?
I staggered to the foredeck to find Ruurd, the super-blond, super-organic-food-educator, was ringing a bell. "What's that noise?" "We're dropping anchor".
Oh.
Ruurd calls to Penney, who is turning a giant winch. "Is that five yet?" "Four." Ruurd pulls the bellcord again and Penney turnes the winch and the "marbles" roll, link after link, into the ocean until Cap'n Pete, standing outside the bridge? calls "Stopping" and the sun comes out rather cooperatively and things began to look slightly less bleak.
Blessed George, whose blog you may be reading, appears at that moment , takes one look at moi and knows just what to say. "I threw up before lunch." "Thank you, George," I say, hugging him. Willem, who has captained Greenpeace boats, can't repress a slight smirk. Strangely, this is equally comforting, a relief to get even a hint of the ribbing I've expected, a kind of challenge. Ha, Stoweaway will toughen up!
Rumour goes around of a zodiac going into town shortly. But I signed up to clean the mess after breakfast, and Kelly said she'd do it instead when I was down for the count, but she had to whale watch, so Ruurd was going to, but now I've taken over from him, and..."Just go!" everyone says. I'm beginning to see how things work around here. Ta, mates!
Next comes the Cirque de Soleil aspect of life on the Espy. The swells are certainly higher than five feet now. The zodiac rises up near the wet room door, where we're waiting to climb on, then abruptly drops down, oh, looks like six or seven feet. Up and down, up and down. "You have to step very surely." Yeah, right. Or end up in the drink. But hey, we all make it okay and off we zoom.
The harbour is shrouded in fog, and circuitous, a snaky route in created by mound of boulders the residents of St. George have piled up all around the shore. A sign warns "No Rat Infested Ships", and in case you don't read English, there's a handy-dandy picture of a rat with the red "no" circle around and through it. Irresistibly, jokes about who on board this zodiac constitutes a "rat" ensue.
A small boy runs along the shore. "George!" he shouts. "George!" He trips over a rope, falls, picks himself up and keeps running towards us. George waves and the kid's face breaks into a huge grin. A smaller toddler eyes sea urchins by the dock with his mother. After we strip off our lifejackets and climb into a pickup truck with the two boys and Mum, the older one says, "Hey! I want that sea urchin for my crab trap!" and I get an intimation of the life of these islanders, who have subsisted on seal, sea urchin and other native foodstuffs for centuries.
George points out the house where he grew up, and the Russian Orthodox church where he was the island's parish priest for two years, and then we tramp through long, wet grass and wildflowers to a fur-seal viewing blind that warns visitors to assume their presence is disturbing the animals and leave immediately if they see: head-raising, increased agression, etc. If visitors don't leave after seeing these things, mothers and pups may get hurt, the sign warns. Hmn. Just like humans. The seals are brown and golden and some are fighting and one...a parent?...responds to a young one's cries with what looks like a kiss on the mouth. We'd like to stay longer but are cold and wet and happy to get back to the boat and dinner...broth and a bit of rice for Stoweaway. The boat was really swaying, seen from the shore, just how big are the swells now? "Oh, ten feet," says Cap'n Pete. Ten feet, and I'm in the mess, eating? I want to give him a high five, even more so when he says the sea should be like glass the next three days coming up.
Next time, a much more serious side of our voyage: "Is our culture ending?" A young St. George boy asks us to help save his people's way of life.
Last night after our fabulous whale watching day we gathered in the mess where Kelly, the marine biologist, gave us a talk on whale vocalization, playing us some recorded sounds. "What's that?" someone asks. "That thumping sound? That's the whales jumping on the seals," says Kelly. The room goes sober, as we imagine that scene, although the image provokes some uncontrollable laughter too, which gets worse as she explains the next sounds, a kind of garbled grunting. "Now they're eating. They're like us, they like to talk over their food, it's like a whale dinner party." Hmn. Do the Humpbacks...like the beauties we saw all morning...do that too? How incredibly ignorant I am about whale behaviour. Later, Kelly educates me: Humpbacks eat fish or Krill, a shrimplike creature. But right here, right now in the mess she is talking about Killer Whales and Tom (our resident radio operator and techno-genius) corrects her: "Orcas". There is no mistaking the disapproval in his voice. Kelly doesn't hear him. I ask her later about the discrepancy in terms. Haven't some people...by which I really mean "Greenpeace"...decided to call these types of whales "Orcas" as the term "Killer Whale" sounds perjorative, and creates a lack of empathy? "Well, they kill other whales," she says matter-of-factly.
ght the boat starts to sway in an exciting manner. If it gets any more exciting there will be cookies tossed all around our cabin. I get up, pulling on jeans and stuffing my flannel nightie into them...ahh, the fashionable Greenpeace outfits we wear!...and wander up to the bridge. I get as far as the room adjoining the bridge, with its countertops covered by machines blinking various coloured lights (don't expect too many details from a techno-idiot) from where I can see that the bridge is dark and silent. No, I mean dark. And SILENT. Who's on watch? WHERE are they/he/she? it??? I put my hand into the dark empty space that is the open doorway to the bridge...nothing, empty air. Mysterious, strange, and alarming. I put my hand further forward...further...and encounter a curtain. Ahhh! Pulling it aside, I discover more machines, blinking reasuringly, and people, how wonderful!: Rao, from South India, who is Third Mate, and Kate, our youngest crew member, 24 years old. Kate had left a note for Kelly on our cabin wall earlier, when she was starting her watch and Kelly was somewhere not to be found. It has a coloured diagram showing how to get to Kate's cabin from ours and it says: "Please, please do not hesitate to knock on my door. I'm on watch, so my schedule in not to begin work until 1 pm. BUT, I would really, really rather take stills of whales for you than I would sleep." After which she'd written "Serious), in case Kelly didn't believe it.
Kate tells me a story she's heard involving several Greenpeacers out in a zodiac who were approached by three whales (Bowheads I think, I can't ask Kate as she is out in a zodiac with Kelly right now), one male and two females, and how the male started to butt the zodiac, and the Greenpeacers found out later the behaviour indicated an ominous whale dinner party plan involving a few tasty eco-warriors. Then this morning Second Mate Diek -- for once being serious -- tells of seeing furious whale activity in waters off Hawaii, and then seeing the ocean redden with masses of blood. He thinks it was a baby Killer Whale (or Orca, if you will) being savaged. So, whales. Gentle and lovable? Certainly, at times, and after the humpbacks visitation this morning it would be hard to find anyone on board whose heart was not moved. Ferocious and deadly? That, too. Sociable, like to talk over dinner? Absolutely. Just like us. Tomorrow: Ten foot swells...Quick and Unintended Weight Loss Diet...St. George tour with our spiritual leader, including fur seals and cliffs teeming with birds; and Pink Floyd, Chuck Berry and more...
I had an interesting conversation with George last night—it would admittedly be difficult to have any other kind of conversation with George—during which we touched on the meaning of “action” in a Greenpeace context, particularly as it applies to this expedition.
Both inside and outside the organization, the traditional view of Greenpeace action is of non-violent confrontation: driving inflatables between whales and harpoons, for example, or sailing a ship to a nuclear test site.
But taking action can take many different forms, and be no less effective for doing so. The canyons leg of this expedition is a classic example: working almost round the clock every day for three weeks, the crew of the Esperanza and the scientists who joined them on board were able to provide exactly the kind of documentation needed to provide a legal case for banning bottom trawling in the Pribilof and Zhemchug Canyons.
That would be a huge accomplishment, and a pretty impressive achievement for three weeks’ work. Of course, there’s more involved than the documentation itself: gathering the evidence is the first part, and working to ensure the implementation and enforcement of conservation measures will at best take many months more yet.
Much the same applies to the community outreach legs. Here, too, we’re taking action: not just by providing an opportunity for the people of the Bering Sea region to explain their way of life, and express their concerns and fears, to the rest of the world; but also by demonstrating to those communities that we share similar concerns—about overfishing, global warming, and environmental change—and, hopefully, by countering the negative impressions that some Alaska Native communities, particularly those here in the Pribilof Islands, harbor about Greenpeace.
The results of our work won’t become evident in days, weeks, or even months. These visits won’t yield banner headlines. They won’t provide action footage to run in rotation on cable news channels. What they can do is lay the groundwork for something more tangible and longer-lasting, an effective means of not only ending over-fishing in, and protecting the wildlife and ecosystems of, the Bering Sea region but also ensuring the sustainable continuation of the subsistence way of life of the people who live here.
We are presently anchored just off St. George Island—which, like the good ship Esperanza, is enveloped in fog. After the warm, bright, and calm conditions of Saturday, the swells began to rise overnight: not that much, but enough to briefly rouse at least one person from his slumber, and to remind him he’s happy to be on such a comfortable and capable ocean-going ship, as opposed to some of the other vessels with which he’s braved some of the more remote regions of the world in the past.
“This is more like the Bering Sea I know,” said Pete, the captain, as he arrived in the wheelhouse this morning to be greeted by gray sea and sky.
“I wonder,” added Diek, the second mate as twenty knots of blustery Bering Sea howled outside, “how, with all this wind, there can still be so much fog?”
The wind has now died down, but the fog remains, lifting occasionally as the sun occasionally wins the battle and burns off one patch, only for more to roll in off the sea. There has been no repetition of yesterday’s incredible scenes, when we encountered thick clouds of shearwaters and at least fifty feeding humpback whales; but on our journey to St. George we were accompanied by a good number of fin whales, one of which surfaced tantalizingly close off our port bow, before disappearing anew into the mist and sea.
George is ashore now, on the island where he was born, making initial contact prior to a meeting with the tribal council, and a broader community gathering, tomorrow. For many of us, the next two weeks provide entry to a world we do not know and have never seen. For George, it is a journey home.
You are nursing a cup of coffee in the mess, the last breakfaster, late at 8:15, when First Mate Hettie tells you to get your ass up to the bridge for whale watch. You'll be on watch from 8:30 to noon with your cabin mate Kelly, a marine biologist who is documenting whale sounds, and Willem who coordinates, well, just about everything around here. You grab a hat and jacket and water and laptop and binoculars and camera and haul your rear end to your post. Hettie says, "We expect to see whales very shortly once we're out of the harbour", and then the Espy hauls anchor and sails out of Dutch in a sea so smooth you can barely feel the ship moving.
You don't see much...only snow-capped mountains, their sides green with vegetation, a mossy spring green you don't see where you come from, not on the sides of cliffs. And a layer of cloud that rolls over the edge of this landscape like a puffy white duvet...no, like a soft-serve icecream cone...oh God, the clichés get worse and worse as you try and try again to come with the right words in your tiny mind, to describe these clouds. Forget words. Here come the birds. Shearwaters, flying low across the bow, crossing the whole horizon from west to east, on and on and on in a remarkably steady stream that puts you into some kind of trance. At some point you cross to the starboard side of the deck without knowing how you got there and find yourself standing with Willem and Kieran...a writer and documentary filmmaker...in silence for what seems like an hour, just looking at the birds, and the ocean, and the sky... The boat begins to rock from bow to stern, not violently, just a little and you find you are doing Tai Chi without even trying, torso swaying like a wave, feet rooted to the deck. The seamless motion of the small black birds streaming across the bottom of the sky so close to you, without interuption, soundlessly, deepens the silence somehow and a great peace descends, around you, around all of you, and you think you will stand there like that forever, perfectly happy. And then Diek, the Second Mate, shouts: "Twelve o'clock," in Dutch-tinged English. Actually, he doesn't shout, he is too cool to shout, only calmly announces it, as if he's saying: "Let's have a cup of tea", and the binocs go up and you're all scanning like mad for blow, for surfacing, for breaching, but you don't see anything. Then Kelly sees something at two o'clock, and you find yourself both running to starboard. A fin! You give a little shriek, which doesn't sound cool at all. And then you see, ahead, a low dark cloud that stretches across the horizon, and coming closer you see that it is made of birds, all birds, and the fin of a humpback whale pops through the surface of the water.
You shout, despite your determination not to, and then another surfaces, and your whole body tingles. And then...Oh God! a tail. Kelly wants to find Killer Whales, not Humpbacks, and does not share your excitement...at least, not until she sees a different blow, higher and thinner then the shorter, fatter blows of the Humpbacks and even she gets quite a grin on. Is it a Fin Whale? She's never seen one of those before, and now, Hey! HEY!, you see it too, a HUGE dark fin slashing into the air. And then a Humpback jumps into the air and crash, thumps back into the sea, sending a cloud of spray up, and Diek gets on the PA and says casually, "Whale paradise", and Raymond, the cook, gets to the bow first, in his trademark white T-shirt and blue and white checked cook's pants, and it crosses your mind that lunch may be late today, and that no-one will care one tiny bit about LUNCH...and Penney with her blonde spiral curls zips onto the bow and so does oh, just about everybody, 20-odd of the 25 on board. And then a shoal...is that what it's called? Kelly's the whale expert, not you...of whales surface on starboard, and everyone runs over there, and you hear a gasp from the stern, and you all run down there, and you think it's good the boat is so large, as otherwise it might tip over, and you're swarming from one end of the boat to the other, one mass of beings, like the Shearwaters streaming across the bow. Kelly says to Cap'n Pete, you might want to slow down, and a whale surfaces so close you see the barnacles on it's tail, and sunlight hits the underside of the tail and the white underside glows gold-tinged and pale orange as a streak of sunlight flashes over it.
The whales are making a sound something between a growl and a fart, and you hear Penney and Clive, the ship's doctor, talking about how lovely it was to see that first blow, awhile back, with that rainbow in it, the sun striking it just so, and you say, "Really? A rainbow?" and they nod solemnly. You're remembering how Bob Hunter, now passed away, always seemed to see rainbows when something special was about to happen on a ship, and how you were a bit skeptical about that, and what an idiot you are, and you look up at the rainbow painted on the portside funnel, and above that, on the roof of the heli-hanger, is George Pletnikoff, his tall heft silhouetted against a phenomenally blue sky, and you feel an embarrassing, terrible warm mushy feeling, like you might just hug everybody. But at the same time you don't want to hug anyone and if someone hugged you right here, right now, you'd probably punch them, and besides, fortunately there is no time for hugging, just as there has been no time to take a sip of water or use the W.C. or do anything for three hours now, because of the damn whales and their damn beauty! Not to mention the Tufted Puffins with their orange beaks, the Glaucous-winged gulls, and you are so cold your fingers can hardly hold the binocs and just when you firmly decide to stop, to go inside, here comes ANOTHER great mass of birds up ahead, and the whales are blowing and surfacing and growling and farting and blasting into the air and you wonder if besides coming here for the fish, if maybe they know. Maybe they know by now, the whales. Maybe word has gotten around. Maybe when they see that rainbow on the ship they know it stands for love, and maybe, just maybe, they have come to say hello, our friends.
Over lunch...finally the whales have disappeared...for the moment, anyway...Clive talks about how a whale, shot dead in the Arctic by some whalers, had a spearhead embedded in its neck, and archeologists dated the spearhead back 130 years, and how a longevity of 130 years has brought all previous estimates into question. And you look at all the whales painted all over the ship, in the corridors and on drawer handles in the Wet Room and in the metal shop and even on the walls of the W.C. and you wonder if these paintings have somehow called the whales, like an incantation, a prayer, and you think you will dream tonight of being a whale in the Bering Sea, travelling through the green blue ocean with your whale mates, growling and farting and calling and loving and eating and all the things whales do.
The shearwaters came first, a steady parade of seabirds skimming the surface of the sea, flying across the water in a seemingly interminable procession. Then, far ahead, close to the horizon, there was a whale blow, then another. Shortly afterward, another.
We grew closer, and the number of whale blows kept growing. Five, six, seven, eight in a row, all stretched out ahead of us, and then humpback whale dorsal fins, and then an occasional tail as a whale dove deep beneath the waves.
We slowed to a crawl and then to a stop as the scene began to play out around us. We had come across a Bering Sea feeding frenzy: dark clouds of shearwaters—and petrels, gulls, and puffins—literally tens of thousands of them, churning up the surface of the water as they feasted on whatever lay just below. There was a constant low-revel rumble as they beat their wings, their feet paddling furiously against the water’s surface, as they landed and took off.
And in their midst were the humpbacks. How many of them, it was hard to tell: fifty, surely, and maybe many more. They surrounded us now, one surfacing and blowing just off the starboard bow, others off the stern. One breached directly in front of us, launching itself out of the water and back again with a giant splash; another breached off to starboard, and another.
It was a sight to behold, a truly remarkable experience, and a privilege to have stumbled across it and to have been able to witness it. It was the beauty and bounty of the Bering laid out in front of us. If ever we needed a reminder of why we are here, and why protecting this region is so important, this morning provided it.
For a couple of days, I just stared from shore. The Esperanza sat at anchor, close enough almost to touch, but I wasn’t ready to board just yet. I had other things to do before I took a ride out to what would be my home for the next two weeks or so.
Sam and I saw each other just about every day for most of the seven years I lived in Anchorage, but we hadn’t laid eyes on each other since I reluctantly left Alaska about eighteen months ago. But now, there she was, waiting for me at Dutch Harbor airport, and I can’t even tell you how overjoyed I was to see her. It isn’t every day you find your closest friend working on an island in the Bering Sea, after all. But there she was, and for a couple of days, there was much catching up to do. There were long nights at the Unisea Bar, and long days spent recovering while staring at the television and DVD marathons of "Rescue Me."
But eventually, Sam had to go back to work, and I had a ship to join. I stood at the Small Boat Harbor as Hettie steered the inflatable over to pick me up; a short ride later, and I was up the pilot ladder and in my new home.
I have friends here, too: those I have sailed with before, like Clive and Marc; those I know from land, like George and Kate; those I’ve only spoken with on the phone, but feel I know already, like Barbara. And then there are those I don’t know at all yet, but whom, when these two weeks are over, I’ll regard, as I do so many of those I’ve had the opportunity to sail with over the years, as friends for life.
And now we are underway, steaming slowly away from Unalaska and out into the Bering Sea. The ship is settling into its slow, gentle, hypnotic movement, as Dutch Harbor (and Sam) recede into the distance, and new places, new experiences—and new friendships—lie ahead.
"...are we there yet?" How many of we parents and grandparents have heard those wonderful and so touching questions when driving? Oh, I know it can be so annoying, especially when stuck in rush hour traffic, or when we are a bit late, but to those of us who are seperated for any length of time from our families, they are words more and more cherished.
So, for me, back on the Esperanza after a brief recharge and wonderful break with my family (we went dipnetting for salmon on the Kenai river, rested in hot springs pool east of Fairbanks, saw the bottom half of Mt. McKinley up close, and basked in being thankful for being married for 34 years now) it is, well, good to be back to my other love in life, the Bering Sea. And so, I ask "...are we there yet?" But, asked not until I saw, heard, looked, listened and wowed the results of our dives into the abyss next to my home on the Pribs. Oh my gosh, what amazing, and at the same time, saddening wonders! Amazing that my doorstep to my life, my childhood, my dreams are and were the Canyons! Saddening, because, someone came, or in our case, lots of someones, came and trashed my threshold to security, peace and a gift which He eventually allowed me to open and peek in. I peeked. I teared up. I smiled. I oh my goshed, and probably for now, will continue to oh my gosh. Our dive team went literelly down and beyond expectations. So much so that I walked the beaches of Dutch Harbor, beaches far from this industralized mess of killing for food, and finally learned, inner knowledge, that the marine cultural heritage zones are happening. We are doing it. A dream, seeminly impossible at its birth in my head, being made real by Greenpeace and our wonderfully dedicated group of people, and being done correctly.
So now, we are getting ready to listen to my question: "...are we there yet?" I am going home. I am coming back to my birthland, birth homes, both the Pribs. Coming back to smell, taste and see my playground, which now is in grave danger of becoming a tomb to dreams, to memories, to wonders. I am going home. And I am nervous, filled with butterflies, wondering if what I am doing is the right thing. And, you know what? Through those nervous, butterfly feelings? Through them, I know it is right. Without the help of all of you, having a chance to keep clean our home, our heritage, none of this would have been possible. I often ask: "Why is Greenpeace doing this, to help my people, our people, why?" And I learned; because its the right thing to do. In all humanity, from time beginning to now, it is the right thing to do.
We will once again, visit, talk, listen and learn. We will discuss where we are going to finalize our marine cultural heritage zone plans, what reports, studies, laws, and all that such, that will ensure parts of this bloodline of Mother Earth is not trampled upon, destroyed and mocked by anyone.
So, the answer to my question: "...are we there yet?" has been given. Yes, we are. We have a few more hurdles to overcome, this first being the most difficult, this research. We have some hurdles, and I know, you are going to help Mother Earth. It is the right thing. And me? I am going to know, yes, when we come together against seemingly insurmountable odds and put our collective hearts and minds into it, we are a force to be reconded with.
As we come closer to the midpoint of our two weeks left in our tour, I will try to put into words our final goals, the directions we need to yet go. However, just being at this point in the Bering Sea, working and growing, gives us all a sense that yes, we are doing the right thing in protecting this planet we call Mother.....Earth.
Until next time
George
Greenpeace is known for rocking the boat, but we also have boats that ROCK, and I don't mean just the way the Espy is rocking us right now, gently like babies in a cradle. This ship has five zodiacs on board, a sauna, a heli-pad, and...most important of all...an espresso machine in the lounge, the engine that truly powers this vessel according to certain wags. All this, and I keep flashing back to the Phyllis Cormack, Greenpeace's first boat, that set sail from Vancouver in 1971 for Amchitka Island where the U.S. government was preparing to explode an atomic bomb hundreds of times bigger than the one that leveled Hiroshima.
There wasn't enough room to swing a cat on board let alone ribbon dance, like bosun Penney was doing up on deck the other night. She blushed when she saw Captain Pete and I watching her, stopped, and picked up the cigarette she'd been smoking intermittently. She is slender and tall and pure muscle, like most of the crew. Then there are the rest of us, slouched over our laptops, barely fit to hoist a coffee cup. Another thing not on board in 1971...laptops. Greenpeace has come a long way, baby.
When a friend who lived in Alaska back in the day heard I was going to Amchitka she said: "I thought it was just called "Amka" now...because that last nuke test in '71 blew the "chit" out of it." Yeah. Five megaton nuclear bombs will do that to a wildlife preserve. According to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, who couldn't give a "chit" about sea otters, let alone the wisdom of exploding atomic bombs underground in the most volatile earthquake zone in the world, no damage was done and no radiation escaped. But when Greenpeace scientists visited Amchitka in 1996 they found radioactive isotopes such as Tritium and Krypton in groundwater and fish. A spokesman for Arctic-Alaska couldn't understand it. "We've never found any radioactive fish," he said. Later he admitted his company had never tested fish for radioactivity...and had no plans to start. The Phyllis Cormack became the touchstone for a worldwide outrage that erupted against the blast, and although it didn't stop it, afterwards the U.S. government announced it would cancel the rest of the series of tests planned. Seven blasts were originally announced. Only three were ever carried out. So, sometimes the ire of concerned citizens, intelligently directed, can go up against the biggest military industrial complex in the world and win. And there's nothing like rocking the boat with boats that rock! More memories...stories...and tales of life on the Espy soon.
We are back in Dutch Harbor now and enjoying the first sunshine since we left here three weeks ago. As I look north out of the harbor, I can see the almost ever present fog bank waiting for us. The last three weeks we used two one person submarines and an ROV (Remotely Operated vehicle) to explore two canyons around the Pribilof Islands. It was tiring work for the ship drivers. Maintaining communication with the submarines meant staying directly (plus or minus 100 meters) over them. Staying on top of the ROV is sort of a given, as it is attached to the ship with a 1000 to 250 meter fiber optic cable.
Esperanza is quite maneuverable. We have thrusters (sideway propellers) in the bow and stern, and twin screws on the main engines. When we were working the subs or ROV, it was our habit to turn off the port main engine. We did this because we were using the port side for launchings, and the ROV cable point. So with the port propeller turned off, it was easier to keep the fiber optic cable to the ROV out of the propeller. That’s something that can spoil your whole day.
Meals are a big part of our day on the ship. It’s about the only time almost all the crew is gathered together. Raymond (Netherlands) and Samantha (New York City) turned out terrific lunches and dinners. Breakfast, except on Sunday, is: get it yourself. The cooks have to do some careful planning to keep the ten vegetarians, ten people who (like myself) eat fish as well as veggies, and the 12 meat eaters happy.
That the Esperanza has been a very happy ship the last few months is in no small part thanks to our cooks. On this point, I have to recommend Linda Greenlaw's excellent book, The Hungry Ocean. I always used tofigure that if the crew was happy, they would like the food. Linda, a sword fishing captain from the East Coast, figured if the food was good, then the crew would be happy. I now subscribe to her theory. And for those who would like a realistic view of what it’s like to be a fisherman, you should read her book.
I used to fish more than I do now, which is not much at all. But I used to spend time with my friend Mark Williams in Key West. Mark was a serious fisherman, and it was always and interesting experience to goout and try to see the ocean through his eyes. Whether it was spear fishing, catching lobster with tickle sticks and nets or rod and reel, I always learned.
But Mark is not fishing anymore. Pollution and run off has killed all the coral reef around Key West. And once the small fish lost a place to live and grow, the bigger fish stopped coming around. You can go a longways out to the west to find healthy coral, but Mark does not want to make the long trips anymore. And that's a pity.
This is one of the reasons we did the research on Zhemchug and Pribilof Canyons this summer. Our research should give the scientists a better understanding of the place the deep sea corals have in the lives of the commercial catch. The Bering Sea is a wonderful resource. And we can not allow our selves to kill it off.
Greetings from Unalaska/Dutch Harbor, in the Aleutian Islands. We have finished our (first!) submarine expedition to explore two of the world's largest underwater canyons. The crew is tired but happy, and so am I. The weather cooperated, and we were able to do 25 sub dives and 8 successful ROV dives, giving us well over 50 hours on the bottom. From the techical and logistics side, the expedition was a huge success. But what did we find, and what does it mean?
Above all, these are patchy environments, with rocky areas scattered throughout what otherwise tends to be fairly silty. While it was clear from the amount of holes, mounds, and tubes that there was a lot going on below the sediment throughout the canyons, the larger creatures tended to be associated with hard substrate. This often came in the form of drop stones, rocks that fell from melting or shifting ice bergs, which provided a base for corals, sponges, hydroids, anemones, bryozoans, and other important habitat-forming invertebrates. These areas were almost always home to fish and crab.
We found about ten species of corals and an even greater diversity of sponges, including at least one that is likely to be a new species. We collected dozens of specimens, several of which may be new species as well. This is not surprising, given how little is known about these canyons. Even this expedition has just barely scratched the surface when it comes to truly understanding the canyons.
Some of what we found was beautiful and exotic. It was a real treat to watch a giant octopus walk across the seafloor, to see tiny snail fish larva hatch from the eggs that had been deposited in a sponge, and to visit places never before seen by human eyes.
And some things were not so beautiful. We all knew, intellectually, that much of the Bering Sea has been heavily trawled. Still, I don't think any of us were prepared for how widespread the damage is in these deep, remote areas. We saw trawler tracks on most of our dives, and sometimes it seemed as if the tracks were everywhere. On one of my dives, I passed through a large area where nearly ever coral I saw was broken or knocked over.
Now it is time for us to take this information to the scientists and policy makers at NOAA Fisheries and the North Pacific Fishery Management Council. Based on our findings here, it is clear that continuing to allow trawl gear to impact the seafloor in the canyons is not an option. In order to protect the corals and sponges that provide habitat for fish and crab, and in order to protect the yet to be discovered deep sea life found in the depths of these canyons, we need to act now.
Of course, it's not going to be that simple. While some fishermen are clearly committed to science-based solutions to ensure that critical habitats are protected and fisheries are managed sustainably, others will fight us tooth and nail. We have truth on our side, though, and truth when backed up by determination, we've got for sure, will win in the end.
Thank you for coming along with me for this wondrous expedition. George is back on board now to continue our work with native communities, so keep in touch for more updates from him.
For the oceans,
John H
In addition to the exiting undersea research and exploration taking place in the Pribilof and Zhemchug Canyons, we are doing bird surveys for biologists at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This involves making observations of the endangered short-tailed albatross, (Phoebastria albatrus) recording the exact location of the sightings as well as differentiating between adults, subadults and juveniles.
Adult short-tailed albatross are large with a wingspan of 211 cm (83 inches), mostly white with golden wash on the head. They have a massive pink bill with a pale bluish tip. Younger birds are brownish in colour and become progressively whiter as they mature. Fortunately for us their colouration makes them quite distinctive and does not lead to confusion with other species.
The total world population of this species is only about 2500 individuals. Long–line fishing continues to exact a terrible toll on these birds as well as other albatross species when they go after the baited lines, become hooked and drown. Short-tailed albatross only breed on islands off southern Japan. In 2004 an unusual discovery was made that amazed scientists: a large flock of these birds, numbering 150 to 300, was found in the Bering Sea near the Zhemchug Canyon. This observation has demonstrated the need for more observation of their feeding biology whilst far away from their breeding grounds.
Our first sighting of this rare albatross was made on 4 August amongst a flock of other birds surrounding the ship. This led to a flurry of excitement and numerous photographs were taken as we all shared in the delight of finally seeing this magnificent bird. Subsequently we have seen about 15 individuals and will continue our observations till the end of the campaign.
We have also seen the 2 other types of albatross found in this area, namely the black-footed albatross and the Laysan albatross. These large birds are quite easy to identify especially when they are more than twice the size of the commonest seabird seen around the Esperanza, namely the northern fulmar. Every time we stop to do underwater diving operations we are surrounded by hundreds of these fulmars, resplendent in their variable plumage colouration. Two species of gull, the aptly named black-legged kittiwake and the red-legged kittiwake have also accompanied us most of the time, often sitting on the ship’s rail when not soaring gracefully by.
Hopefully the work done both above and below the sea will add to the scientific data base and lead to conservation of these critical habitats.
Clive Strauss
Medic on board and avid birder.
s in charge of our short-tailed albatross monitoring project.
Alaska Natives and Marine Cultural Heritage Zones
Alaska’s First Peoples are facing many challenges. Resources, both for economic and subsistence needs, are reaching critical mass. More and more people want a similar lifestyle we have cherished for thousands of years in our homeland. Businesses, charter boats, commercial fishers and others dependent upon those ventures are demanding rights to resources. Families are struggling to find enough fish to not only feed themselves, but to also make ends meet economically. Sadly, both the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea are forced into a system not ever experienced by their calm. Global competition, climate changes and food competitions are damaging what we all consider "ecosystems in beauty." For our people, this must mean we take a very close look at our needs. This must mean we become critical of how these finite resources are being divided by foreign powers, economic powers, challenging our traditional knowledge and ways. This means we must assert our beliefs and inalienable rights to what has proven to be our lifeline for generations: we must demand marine cultural heritage zones!
Much has been written and discussed, debated and analyzed, regarding the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 and the subsequent amendments. And as of this date, August 7, 2007, much more is being questioned. Amongst the issues being debated is the historic use and dependence upon ocean resources. These resources; salmon, pollock, halibut, sable fish, crab and many species of rock and flat fish are being divided up between foreign multi-national corporations and their counterparts in the United States. No recognition of any rights, other than a small amount of resources to Community Development Quota (CDQ) Organizations in villages of the Bering Sea, is being considered. These organizations are not for profit companies primarily forced to use any income on "fishery related" activities. Some organizations are creatively incorporating for-profits to continue building empires with very little given to the village needs. Yet, given the limitations of the Bering Sea/Gulf of Alaska (BSGA) ecosystem, concern for the livelihood and sustainability of subsistence resources for the villages is being ignored. Taking a few sections related to the intent of Congress during the passage of ANCSA, "…efforts to address serious health and welfare problems…" have yet to be met, especially when the foods upon which the people depend for survival is quickly vanishing as competition for the fishing industry continues to challenge the health of the BSGA ecosystems and habitat.
If we look closely at the materials written, both pro and con, on the ANCSA, we will see that much has been done to fulfill the intent of Congress and the then agreed upon settlement with Alaska Native Peoples, and that much has yet to be done. Given that Congress directed the people in Alaska’s villages to select only certain lands, lands which had very little economic value since most of the lands that had natural resources had already been selected or owned by someone else, and lands based upon "cultural and traditional values." For most of the villages located on the BSGA, other than a few who had timber rights due to their selections, land was of very little value. As my friend and noted anthropologist Dr. Rick Knecht said: ",,,land for your people was only a place to build a home and sleep. The rest of the time, your people spent out on the ocean, hunting and gathering." And so, land, although to many very important, for our people and in the region of Alaska we chose to live, it had very little or no cultural, social or economic value.
Pub. L. 100-241, Sec. 2, Feb. 3, 1988, 101 Stat. 1788, provided that: ''The Congress finds and declares that –
''(1) the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (this chapter) was enacted in 1971 to achieve a fair and just settlement of all aboriginal land and hunting and fishing claims by Natives and Native groups of Alaska with maximum participation by Natives in decisions affecting their rights and property; (emph: added).
''(2) the settlement enabled Natives to participate in the subsequent expansion of Alaska's economy, encouraged efforts to address serious health and welfare problems in Native villages, and sparked a resurgence of interest in the cultural heritage of the Native peoples of Alaska;
p>The land conveyed under ANCSA was 44 million acres, which was a little more than 10 percent of the entire state. It sounds like a tremendous amount of land, especially when compared to treaties the United States made earlier with American Indians. When viewed as what was granted to the people who had a valid claim to the entire state, however, the settlement seems relatively small.
Of the 44 million acres, 22 million acres of surface estate went to village corporations on a formula based on population – not per capita. This land was generally located around the village itself and consisted of prime subsistence areas. (emph. added).
A final note: The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act is a very complex document that has inspired people over the last three decades to write thousands of pages about it. The act has been praised, and it has been roundly criticized. But what’s really important to keep in mind when discussing ANCSA is that it is a document that was developed for a group of human beings who had a very real claim to their ancestral home in Alaska. Their connection to the land is a spiritual one that transcends complex regulatory schemes. And yet for many, their tie to the land today is a law passed by Congress on December 18, 1971.
By: Alexandra J. McClanahan, CIRI Historian
As one can see readily, and as some have touted the value of land, for many Alaska’s first peoples, land is and was important. However, because of the restrictions placed upon what lands were available for selections under the ANCSA, the final result of the landmark legislation handed down by the US Congress may have created more problems than it was supposed to solve for Alaska’s first peoples. After all, the reason for the ANCSA was so the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline could be built. So in the end, Congress passed the ANCSA for the oil industry! And now I am afraid, the same is being done for the multinational, huge multibillion dollar fishing industry with nary a concern for the coastal peoples of Alaska, with our fishery resources.
Ocean
As the global economy and the resources which are dependent to keep the economy thriving dwindle; and as the competition for these resources reach their "peak," the same is going to be said about the oceans. However, in the case of Alaska’s first peoples, it is true for the coastal peoples, the ocean was, has and always been the source of life! It is from the ocean that the cultures grew, families survived and our foods came. In Native American folklore, and traditional understandings, the ocean is the bloodline of Mother Earth. Without the oceans, Mother Earth cannot survive, will not survive. This is why there is the need to establish marine cultural heritage zones in order that the ocean can be protected and the resources coastal peoples depend are cared for. I am not sure, but when I read in the first paragraph above, "…fishing claims by Natives and Native groups of Alaska…" may only be referring to salmon and not the other species of fish coastal peoples depend upon.
From all the information we are able to put together about the management of BSGA commercial fisheries by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC), the subsequent closures of three of the four pollock fishery areas of Shelikof Strait, Bogoslov and Aleutian Islands; massive millions of metric tons of bycatch, a good argument can be made concerning the "wanton waste" issues, which is against all laws, man-made and otherwise; and total mismanagement of both the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea, we cannot wait any longer for some future date to make our argument for protections of our foods. We cannot rest on possible scientific corrections and solutions to ensure our continued survival. We must not become complacent into thinking that solutions for our challenges can come from somewhere, someone; because to repeat history that has taken away our sovereignty, is fatal to our people. We must realize that land, without water, is dead. We must make the argument that most, if not all, of the waters in the Gulf of Alaska/Bering Sea must be a marine cultural heritage zone. Ecosystems are interconnected, interrelated. Without this part, another part of the ecosystem will fail. If we are to survive, we must demand that it is truly the oceans that are the bloodline of our Mother Earth. She must survive.
Ahoy -
Yesterday, the weather caught up with us. We tried waiting it out, but in the end we weren't able to get in any dives. Today was a bit better, and we did a couple great ROV dives along the southeastern edge of Zhemchug Canyon. We encountered a large field of sea whip corals at the first site, 3 to 5 feet tall, along with numerous fish hiding among them. It was all too easy to imagine the impact dragging huge nets through this rich area could have on corals and fish alike.
On the second dive, the ROV descended right next to a boulder covered with large bubblegum corals and anemones.
We will use the video and data we collected today and on our other dives in the Bering Sea to demand that these areas be closed to destructive fishing practices. According to the reauthorized Magnuson Stevens Act, the federal fisheries law, policy makers are required to report on the distribution of corals in their jurisdiction and what steps are being taken to protect them. We have found corals on most of our dives in these canyons, but so far there is nothing to stop bottom trawlers or so-called mid-water trawlers that regularly impact the sea floor from destroying these long-lived and delicate species.
The importance of protecting the habitat that sustains marine life is on my mind today, as I read reports confirming that the Yangtze River dolphin has gone extinct. Many of the last several thousand of these 500 pound creatures, our fellow mammals, were killed by indiscriminate fishing methods - drowned in nets or caught on long lines of unbaited hooks. And many were poisoned by the pollution leached, drained, and dumped into the Yangtze.
Preventing extinctions is not a problem with just one solution. In the oceans, however, the best tool we have to protect marine biodiversity is to protect sensitive areas from fishing. It is well established that marine reserves closed to all fishing are often the most effective type of marine protected area, but in over 98% of US waters, it's still open season.
The Bering Sea is one of the richest marine environments on earth, but even this level of abundance cannot withstand the fishing pressure it is facing today. And global warming is creating additional pressures and causing further changes that we have not begun to understand.
We will not allow magnificent creatures like the Steller sea lion and the short-tailed albatross to go the way of the Yangtze River Dolphin.
We'll need your help, though. Are you with us?
John H
Hi my name is Kenneth Lowyck, welcome onboard the Deepworker 6 and I will be your pilot for today. We will be traveling down to the bottom of the Bering Sea to a depth of 1200 ft or 365 meters. Please fasten you seatbelt; put your table in the upright position. The exits are nowhere. Sadly there will be no in flight catering service provided during this dive; the entertainment today is all around you.
Once we get the all clear from the Esperanza we start our decent, first by emptying the ballast tank and then by electrical rotors. Keeping visual on Deepworker 7 we leave the surface and start heading down together. After a few minutes the clear greenish glow around us starts making room for the darkness of the deep sea. At this point we switch on our big lights and keep heading down. We are now at 300 ft or 91 meters and are experiencing some turbulence; actually we are getting attacked by huge group of squid. Some are tiny some are about 50 cm long. They obviously feel threatened by the sub, or we interrupted their afternoon tea party, because all of them, big and small, swim quickly up to the dome and squirt ink at us. Some of the bigger ones actually try to bite and hold on to the sub.
We continue to dive deeper and after another 10 minutes or so we see on our sonar that we are approaching the sea bottom. Depth is now over a thousand feet or 305 meters. We start slowing our decent and once the bottom is visual we settle down on a clear spot. The water around us is teaming with all kinds of life forms, most of them no larger than our fingernail. There are plenty of comb jellyfish around and the amazing thing about them is that they make these florescent lights while they swim with the current. The bottom is rather flat with here and there a boulder or a rock. Moving the submarine around we see that there are corals and sponges all around, exactly what we hoped to find here. Moving the sub closer to one habitat we see that beside sponges and corals the bottom is covered with tiny starfish. Getting the camera in position we notice that the manipulator arm isn’t functioning properly, one of the joints seems to be blocked which means we can not extend the arm to its fullest. That will be a problem when we want to take some samples later. We first spend some time filming what is around us, some red rockfish come swimming by and here and there we spot a juvenile King crab. The occasional squid, now a bit less hostile, posses for the camera and we are getting some great footage from a place no one ever been down to.
e for some sampling
Opening the basket was relatively easy with the arm but taking samples will be something completely different now that we found that part of the arm isn’t working. However by maneuvering the sub to a nearly vertical position and driving the nose in to the soil (I’m sure this isn’t in the text books!), we manage to collect some great samples (it will turn out later that the coral we just collected will make the scientist on board quite ecstatic). After securing the samples in our basket, we are now getting orders through the underwater comms to start our transect, travelling at a certain speed keeping a fixed bearing. (If you look to you right you will see the lights of the other Deepworker some 100 meters away) We are now at 1200 feet or 360 meters and will start heading up on the light slope of the canyon. Along the way we are filming constantly what we see in front of us. Plenty of corals and sponges around, loads of starfish, shrimp, we see cod swimming by, some Pollock (fish), different kind of flat fish and the occasional octopus. And then we go off transect to film something in more detail. We see a Skate(ray fish) hunting and we managed to film it as it jumps on its prey(probably a crab) and starts to devourer it. We also film some remarkable starfish (totally white with a pink-reddish hood) sitting neatly upon one of the stone (Later, the scientist told me that this starfish hasn’t been classified yet and that the only picture they had of it was on the deck of a ship after it came up with the by-catch. There was no footage, until now, of it in its environment.
There plenty of other fish around which we managed to capture on film, also some snails, sea cucumbers and we also spot some adult King crab (these crabs can have a leg span up to 1.8 meters)
Prepare for take-off
We are now about three hours in the dive and are at 875 feet (266 meters), when top side calls us to start preparing for our recovery. Apparently there is bad weather heading our way. So please make sure you seatbelt is properly secured, we are now starting our ascent. We leave bottom using our thrusters and we see the seafloor disappearing beneath us. Switching of all the lights we are now floating in total darkness. Now and then you can see light flashing up from squid, jellyfish and other underwater creatures, kinda like underwater fire works. After some time the darkness disappears which means we are now reaching surface,
time to switch of the camera.
Once on the surface we notice two things, one that there is some swell which means we are bobbing around quit a bit, and two that there are dolphins (Dalls Porpoise) swimming around the sub. Quickly I turn the camera on and manage to capture them playing around the sub, coming close to the dome and then quickly swimming away. Beautiful mammals that look in coloring rather like Orca’s with their distinctive black and white markings. A few minutes later they are gone, and many more minutes after that we finally get hooked on by the ships crane and lifted on deck of the Esperanza.
I hoped you enjoyed your dive and would like to thank you for choosing Greenpeace Diving Operations. Until a next time?
- Ken
Kenneth Lowyck is the Action Unit Coordinator for Greenpeace Canada. He is one of the sub pilots on this expedition, and is leading the SCUBA components of our work in the canyons. We believe that Kenneth's dive to 1930 feet in Zhemchug Canyon made him the deepest diving Belgian on record.
I made a dive today to about 1950 feet. That’s more or less 600 meters.
On my way down, at around 200 feet, I looked up to see porpoises swimming down between the surface and my position. I’m assuming they were Dall’s porpoises because we have been seeing many of them from the deck of the Esperanza. In fact the life we see out here from the deck never ceases to amaze me. I just came down from the bridge where we were observing a pod of about ten or so fin whales off the bow, and last week we saw a pod of Orca whales overtake us near the Pribilof Islands. They were in the distance, but their dorsal fins were huge, even that far away.
The camera on the sub was working, because I was watching the feed on the monitor inside the cabin, but unfortunately a technical glitch meant that it was not recording the data, so I’m just going to have to describe the scene I saw when I first got down to the sea floor on this dive.
Swimming around the seabed were thousands upon thousands of tiny fish. We must have landed smack bang in the middle of a huge shoal of them, because they were everywhere. Although tiny, they reflected what little light there was from our lighting system and so I could see them quite clearly.
I pushed off the bottom and hovered 50 feet above the Kenneth in the second submarine and switched off all my lights to better see the fish without the glare from the reflection of my beams in the water and found it difficult to comprehend the sight before me.
I could clearly see Kenneth’s sub below me surrounded by thousands of little points of light. It was like a huge field of moving stars. All around us. I have never seen anything like this and it was a profound moment for me.
I’m gutted the camera was unable to record this image so that I could share it with everyone back on the surface. You will just have to take my word for it, although I have a hard time believing it myself.
Zhemchug Canyon, Bering Sea. We arrived here yesterday, and have had two days of diving. On the way here, we stopped in St. George and St. Paul, in the Pribilof Islands, to help out a couple fur seal biologists and to drop off Andy Malavansky, who was with us on board for a couple days. Andy heads up the Ecosystem Office on St. George, and is on the Scientific Advisory Council for the expedition. All of us appreciated getting his insights on what we've been seeing, and it was great having him on board.
It was also a great chance for the crew to get ashore for a few hours, to see one of the wonders of the world: the fur seal rookeries of the Pribilofs. Aquilina Lestenkoff was a very generous host, patiently answering all our questions and setting us up with tour guides and a viewing permit. Then it was a mad rush back to the Esperanza for the 18 hour transit to Zhemchug.
The world's largest underwater canyon, Zhemchug means "pearl" in Russian. Before this week, what little we know about the creatures that live here came from things people could see from boats or pull up in fishing gear. This expedition has barely scratched the surface, but already we are shedding light on some of Zhemchug's mysteries.
In our dives in Pribilof Canyon last week, we saw large quantities of deep sea coral, but only two or three species. In just two days in Zhemchug, we've already found nine: feathery black coral, tiny chalice-shaped stony corals, sea whips, encrusting "stolon" corals, sea fans, and descriptively named but seldom seen bubblegum, bamboo, and red tree corals.
Along with the corals, we've seen some very interesting associations. For example, snail fish seem to go with black corals. Pacific Ocean perch are frequently seen among sea whips or fans. We often find worms, brittle stars, and other tiny invertebrates of the exact same color as the coral they live on. But we're getting ahead of ourselves - it's going to take a lot more work before anyone can really claim to know what these canyons look like or what lives there, never mind how the different species interact with one another.
One thing that is clear at this point is that it is not possible to characterize these canyons in simple terms. Just when a particular area looks like a silt or sand bottom with limited structural habitat, the substrate will change abruptly for a while - and the marine life will change right along with it. The geology is complicated here, with nearly flat mud plains giving way to nearly vertical bedrock without any warning from the limited bathymetrical charts.
In fact, as I write, the ship is in a search pattern looking for three pinnacles reported to rise out of the depths to as shallow as 22 feet from the surface. The notations on the charts say it all: reported 1947, position doubtful. Like almost everything else about this expedition, it's hard to say what we'll find, or where we'll find it.
The wind's picking up and there are storms to our west, so we may not be able to dive tomorrow. The Bering Sea has been pretty kind to us so far, though, so we can't complain.
Check out the deck cam to see how the waves are looking, and you'll probably be able to guess whether we're in the subs (good weather), using the ROV (pretty good weather), SCUBA diving (decent weather AND we've found the pinnacles), catching up on sorting through our data (sketchy weather), or feeding the fish (baaaaad weather).
I'll leave you with the Weird Fish of the Day, with a suitably weird name: the blob sculpin. Stay tuned for photos!
John H
"The does not belong to despots." - Jules Verne, 20,000 Leagues under the Sea
Jeremy lent me his waistcoat for this trip.
Jeremy’s waistcoat is one of those sports waistcoats with lots of pockets. It’s made of mesh so that you can wear it in any weather over anything and it doesn’t affect how hot/cold you are, so it’s more a tool really, than an item of clothing. It is pretty much the perfect piece of attire to wear in the type of submarines we are using because there is not much space in there if you want to bring in any little bits and pieces with you. Having pockets you can reach easily around you makes storing things for the dive so much easier. One member of the team even uses a form of photographer’s shoulder holster system to be able to organize the equipment he takes with him.
Jeremy’s waistcoat has a small Greenpeace patch on the front, but on the back is a large patch with the legend “Forest crimes unit”. I first saw him wearing it when on my first trip to Alaska with Greenpeace. It was also on the Esperanza, and I was a deckhand on board during that trip. We were up here working on supporting the movement to protect the Tongass coastal temperate rainforest from the destructive logging practices that continue to threaten its ecosystem to this day. Jeremy taught me many things on that trip, and my respect for his passion and commitment to the forest and environmental movement swayed me to become a true believer and self confessed tree hugger. He would absolutely love this gig.
Jeremy’s waistcoat is sitting on the back of his chair at his desk in the Greenpeace office in San Francisco. I was so pressed for time on my last day packing on my way up here for this expedition that I ended up not being able to head in to pick it up. I think of it every time I get in the submarines and look for places to put my notepad, pen, spare pen, cliff bar, water bottle, GPS, little camera, spare batteries, multi-tool, photo of the beautiful and inimitable Ashby, my good luck piece of red jasper, bits of paper with lists of things to remember on them, gloves and spare rag to wipe away any condensation. I carry a small bag that it all goes in, and I stuff it into a tiny space between the joystick for the manipulator, the switches for the thrusters, compass, hydraulics, and under the O2 analyzer and cabin pressure gauges. It’s tight, but if I’m careful when I grab things from it, it works well enough.
Jeremy’s waistcoat however, would have been way easier to deal with and I shake my head, grinning, every time I think about it.
Jeremy is in my head today as his friends and family gather with him near his home to take part in a healing circle to support him on his journey battling with cancer. He opened my eyes to a side of Alaska I would not have seen without him, and I hope to return the favor with the work we are carrying out here today in the Bering Sea.
Go deep brother!
There' re back!
Nowadays the ship is packed with people; scientists, technoman and crew. After a couple of days sniffing at each other we are used to each of one of us. It is still some 70 meters living space we are sharing, so with 34 people, everyone needs some private once in a while.
The bridge is rebuild like a tower of a aircraft carrier. Many computer screens, blinking and bloinking and pinking machines asking for attention or just to be ignored. Wires covering the ceiling and walls and when the subs are on a mission, a very loud : boing ping .... boing ping... and between that boing ping a watery voice is telling the guy on the aft bridge everything is A oke.
The main job for the captain is keeping the ship exactly above the subs. He has to maneuver the 'mothership' constantly, keeping one eye at the wind, one eye at the current, one eye at the mate (handling the pitch), and one eye at the screen for the position of the subs. O yeah, he also has to keep one eye at the wheel. In the mean while he has to listen to the communication between the subs and the aft bridge.
So, the Espi it packed and rocking and rolling the Bering Sea; in surge for new life and everything there is to be seen for the first time!
Stay tuned!
am in the process of writing a longer blog, but for now am just testing the system.
we are presently near the north west end of the pribilof canyon and are steaming into position to deploy the ROV to explore the seabed down there.
all is good.
Today was a big day for the team aboard the Esperanza. After the bad weather yesterday, it was nice to get back out under the water! Michelle and I went down in the subs to start things off, and got some really nice footage. I got up close and personal with an octopus, a shrimp, and another snailfish, and Michelle spent some quality time with king crabs and juvenile rockfish. We also were very happy to see quite a few large barrel sponges, and some really interesting little caverns occupied by everything from prowfish to hermit crabs. There were enormous numbers of basket stars and brittle stars - suspension feeders taking advantage of all the plankton and detritus near the bottom.
Then we took the ROV into even deeper water, where we came across a large eel like fish that none of us could readily identify. It could be a type of eel pout, but we'll have to look into that a bit further. There were also quite a lot of long slender fish called grenadiers, as well as the ship's favorite, the short-spined thornyhead - aka "idiot."
Finally, as I type, Timo and Kenneth are in the subs again, exploring some of the shallower parts of the upper canyon wall. We haven't explored these depths yet, so everyone's excited to see what these guys will find. There are records of soft corals being pulled up in trawl nets in this area, so we're hoping to find some things we haven't come across before.
Even though we are on deck by seven in the morning and still out in the subs well past a lot of people's bedtimes, everyone's still going strong. The crew has been amazing, going way above and beyond the call of duty. It's a good team.
In the early 80s, crews were often given pages and pages of printed matter to read regarding campaigns. There must have been a stack six inches high when we went out to the Marshall Islands in 1985. Two years before, when we were here in Alaska, we also had a large stack to read. It was then I read about the treatment of the Aleuts during WWII.It began when Japanese forces captured Kiska and Attu. The Navy weather observers from Kiska and the Aleuts from Attu were captured, taken prisoner and shipped to Japan. While many Alaskan officials realized the dangers of uprooting the Aleuts from their homes, no one came up with a firm plan. The Army was certainly worried about defending the country.
When a Japanese plane was spotted over Atka on June 12th (1942), Army officials hit the panic button. Giving a preoccupied Army a job it had not trained or planned for was a recipe for disaster. On Atka, villagers were told to go to their summer fishing camp. When they returned that evening, it was to find their whole village and all the posetions in flames. The military, using a scorched earth policy had burned the village so that the Japanese could not use the houses. Some families boarded the Army transport ship, some ran into the hills. Eventually, all were brought to Dutch Harbor.
On the trip to South East Alaska, the Aleuts were treated like slaves, so tightly were they packed into the ships hold. So bad were the conditions that the government doctor refused to go in. Life would be no better in the internment camps. The camps were abandoned fishing camps and coalmines. Food was scarce, and domestic supplies, like soap, brooms, mops etc were non-existent. There were no sanitary facilities, and clean water was impossible to come by. There were no boats or fishing or hunting gear. But imagine forcefully removing people who had lived one place for thousands of years without trees, and putting them in a place dense with them. When the grumbling began, the government decided to send enough men back to harvest seals. Threaten with not being allowed to return if they waited until the end of the war, the men returned, being told they would be supporting the war effort and clothing the troops. In fact, they were working as slaves for the Fouke Fur Company, who kept profits of their labors. It seems that in traditional fashion, when the government made a mistake, it compounded it.
The rest of the Aleuts returned two years after the war, a year after they were promised passage. In Nikolski, they returned to find that there church cupola had been used for target practice, and the building ruined from vandalism from the American soldiers. The Atkans returned to nothing, their village having been burnt to the ground in front of their eyes. The looting in Akutan was so bad that inquiries were conducted.
Ten percent of the Aleuts died during the interment. When they returned, President Roosevelt limited award settlements to no more than $12.00 per person. So being rather shocked and amazed by this, when we got down to Dutch Harbor I called my friend Martha Davis, the wildlife campaigner from the San Francisco office. On the heels of what was a wildly successful whaling action in Siberia, we were given permission to go to the Pribilofs. The Pribiof Islands seal hunt was the last seal hunt in the U.S. My hazy speculation is that the end of the seal hunt was in the near future. If the Aleuts wondered what their fellow citizens were going to do to them next, who could blame them? Our intention is going was to see if we could offer any help in establishing other means of support for the community.
The best plans of mice and men? ..
One afternoon while Martha and the other campaigners were at a meeting, I received a radio call. I had just spent some time on the rowing machine in the hold, and had taken my weekly shower, those being the days before water makers (or at least before we had them). It turns out one of our boat had gotten loose, and was beating itself to death on the rocks. Not thinking twice, I jumped into another boat, and raced for the beach. I could not get close enough to the rocks to get the boat myself. But whether I saw them on the dock, or just up on the hill, there were Dan and Daniel, just where and when I needed them.
Dan and Daniel had become "famous" the month before for delaying our departure for the Siberia whale campaign, when their boat flipped over in the surf after taking someone ashore in Nome. But that’s another story. Somehow I was able to get them to understand I needed them down at the beached boat ASAP to throw me line. I had not really stopped to look at the few seals on the beach. They ran down the hillside. When they were about halfway down, I could see why they had been reluctant. As they ran down through the seal heard, large bull sea lions, the size of small steam locomotives would lunge at them snarling with mouths open. I guess it said something for my powers of persuasion at that time that I got them to do it. And it really was a good show. Any NFL halfback would have been proud to move so quickly. As a bull would lunge at them, both would change directions instantly, and run away a few steps before turning to run back down the hill. They got down the hill, and threw me the painter of the beached boat that was smashing against the rocks. I heard Daniel yell, "aren't you going to pick us up!?!" "Surf too bad" I said, "meet me at the dock". Zoom, I was off.They made it back to the dock a few minutes after I did. I was sitting in the boat sort of steaming. My weekly shower had been done in by several buckets of very cold salt water that had gone down the back of my neck. While we were sitting there calming down, a jeep drove up. An officer of some kind wanted us to "come along". He did not put us in cuffs or say we were arrested, but he was pretty pissed off. Because it turns out, while Martha and company were in their meeting, we had scattered most of the herd that was due to be culled the next day. And the people of the island were pissed. They suspected that we had planned the whole thing. And it took quite some explaining on our part to make them believe that we had just been real stupid. (Maybe that was not so hard to believe...) I remember saying that we never did actions without at least a couple shooters (video) and snappers (stills) around. But the officer took down our names to see if anyone up the line wanted to prosecute us. I apologized at the time, and I will be happy to apologize again when I visit the Pribilofs this summer. We never had any intention of screwing up their livelihood. We went there only with the intention of seeing if there was anything we could do to help. Which is why we are going back this summer. Hopefully with George leading the way, we will do a bit better this time.
Martha left Greenpeace a year later and became executive director of the Save Mono Lake Committee. Dan Zbozien designs solar houses in Boulder. Daniel Burgivan is in artist in western New York State, and has two sons.
Most of the information I used this time was from a history paper of Christopher Cueva. It can be found at: http://www.akhistorycourse.org/articles/article.php?artID=215
More info can be found at: http://www.nps.gov/archive/aleu/AleutInternmentAndRestitution.htm
- Peter Wilcox
In the early 80s, crews were often given pages and pages of printed matter to read regarding campaigns. There must have been a stack six inches high when we went out to the Marshall Islands in 1985. Two years before, when we were here in Alaska, we also had a large stack to read. It was then I read about the treatment of the Aleuts during WWII.It began when Japanese forces captured Kiska and Attu. The Navy weather observers from Kiska and the Aleuts from Attu were captured, taken prisoner and shipped to Japan. While many Alaskan officials realized the dangers of uprooting the Aleuts from their homes, no one came up with a firm plan. The Army was certainly worried about defending the country.
When a Japanese plane was spotted over Atka on June 12th (1942), Army officials hit the panic button. Giving a preoccupied Army a job it had not trained or planned for was a recipe for disaster. On Atka, villagers were told to go to their summer fishing camp. When they returned that evening, it was to find their whole village and all the posetions in flames. The military, using a scorched earth policy had burned the village so that the Japanese could not use the houses. Some families boarded the Army transport ship, some ran into the hills. Eventually, all were brought to Dutch Harbor.
On the trip to South East Alaska, the Aleuts were treated like slaves, so tightly were they packed into the ships hold. So bad were the conditions that the government doctor refused to go in. Life would be no better in the internment camps. The camps were abandoned fishing camps and coalmines. Food was scarce, and domestic supplies, like soap, brooms, mops etc were non-existent. There were no sanitary facilities, and clean water was impossible to come by. There were no boats or fishing or hunting gear. But imagine forcefully removing people who had lived one place for thousands of years without trees, and putting them in a place dense with them. When the grumbling began, the government decided to send enough men back to harvest seals. Threaten with not being allowed to return if they waited until the end of the war, the men returned, being told they would be supporting the war effort and clothing the troops. In fact, they were working as slaves for the Fouke Fur Company, who kept profits of their labors. It seems that in traditional fashion, when the government made a mistake, it compounded it.
The rest of the Aleuts returned two years after the war, a year after they were promised passage. In Nikolski, they returned to find that there church cupola had been used for target practice, and the building ruined from vandalism from the American soldiers. The Atkans returned to nothing, their village having been burnt to the ground in front of their eyes. The looting in Akutan was so bad that inquiries were conducted.
Ten percent of the Aleuts died during the interment. When they returned, President Roosevelt limited award settlements to no more than $12.00 per person. So being rather shocked and amazed by this, when we got down to Dutch Harbor I called my friend Martha Davis, the wildlife campaigner from the San Francisco office. On the heels of what was a wildly successful whaling action in Siberia, we were given permission to go to the Pribilofs. The Pribiof Islands seal hunt was the last seal hunt in the U.S. My hazy speculation is that the end of the seal hunt was in the near future. If the Aleuts wondered what their fellow citizens were going to do to them next, who could blame them? Our intention is going was to see if we could offer any help in establishing other means of support for the community.
The best plans of mice and men? ..
One afternoon while Martha and the other campaigners were at a meeting, I received a radio call. I had just spent some time on the rowing machine in the hold, and had taken my weekly shower, those being the days before water makers (or at least before we had them). It turns out one of our boat had gotten loose, and was beating itself to death on the rocks. Not thinking twice, I jumped into another boat, and raced for the beach. I could not get close enough to the rocks to get the boat myself. But whether I saw them on the dock, or just up on the hill, there were Dan and Daniel, just where and when I needed them.
Dan and Daniel had become "famous" the month before for delaying our departure for the Siberia whale campaign, when their boat flipped over in the surf after taking someone ashore in Nome. But that’s another story. Somehow I was able to get them to understand I needed them down at the beached boat ASAP to throw me line. I had not really stopped to look at the few seals on the beach. They ran down the hillside. When they were about halfway down, I could see why they had been reluctant. As they ran down through the seal heard, large bull sea lions, the size of small steam locomotives would lunge at them snarling with mouths open. I guess it said something for my powers of persuasion at that time that I got them to do it. And it really was a good show. Any NFL halfback would have been proud to move so quickly. As a bull would lunge at them, both would change directions instantly, and run away a few steps before turning to run back down the hill. They got down the hill, and threw me the painter of the beached boat that was smashing against the rocks. I heard Daniel yell, "aren't you going to pick us up!?!" "Surf too bad" I said, "meet me at the dock". Zoom, I was off.They made it back to the dock a few minutes after I did. I was sitting in the boat sort of steaming. My weekly shower had been done in by several buckets of very cold salt water that had gone down the back of my neck. While we were sitting there calming down, a jeep drove up. An officer of some kind wanted us to "come along". He did not put us in cuffs or say we were arrested, but he was pretty pissed off. Because it turns out, while Martha and company were in their meeting, we had scattered most of the herd that was due to be culled the next day. And the people of the island were pissed. They suspected that we had planned the whole thing. And it took quite some explaining on our part to make them believe that we had just been real stupid. (Maybe that was not so hard to believe...) I remember saying that we never did actions without at least a couple shooters (video) and snappers (stills) around. But the officer took down our names to see if anyone up the line wanted to prosecute us. I apologized at the time, and I will be happy to apologize again when I visit the Pribilofs this summer. We never had any intention of screwing up their livelihood. We went there only with the intention of seeing if there was anything we could do to help. Which is why we are going back this summer. Hopefully with George leading the way, we will do a bit better this time.
Martha left Greenpeace a year later and became executive director of the Save Mono Lake Committee. Dan Zbozien designs solar houses in Boulder. Daniel Burgivan is in artist in western New York State, and has two sons.
Most of the information I used this time was from a history paper of Christopher Cueva. It can be found at: http://www.akhistorycourse.org/articles/article.php?artID=215 More info can be found at: http://www.nps.gov/archive/aleu/AleutInternmentAndRestitution.htm
- Peter Wilcox
What a day! This was our third day in Pribilof Canyon, and it was a good one. Kenneth and David took the subs down to about 1,000 feet, and right away they radioed up that they were in a "rich coral area." They surveyed a vast field of soft corals, which provided habitat for a diverse array of invertebrates and fish. This was an exciting find, and one that should make a powerful case for protecting the canyon seafloor from destructive fishing practices - like bottom trawling AND bottom trawling masquerading as "pelagic" or "mid-water" trawling.
One of the things that makes the canyons so important is that they are deep enough to have served as refuges from fishing... at least until recently. Now trawlers can easily drag their nets down to a kilometer or more, so even these areas have come under threat. The uppper walls of the canyons are among the most heavily fished areas in the Bering Sea.
As if the dive itself wasn't enough, Kenneth was visited by a pod of Dall's porpoises, which were highly intrigued by his submarine. I was just watching the video of his experience, and it looked like he was surrounded by salsa-dancing porpoise shaped missiles. These things were FAST, and really left us with the feeling that it would be fun to be a porpoise.
The other exciting thing was that we got the ROV up and running today, which gave us a chance to get into even deeper water. We saw quite a few corals and sponges, some big old rockfish, a giant cod that probably got that way by living deeper than all his cousins, and a good smattering of king crabs. There were also some satisfyingly weird deep sea creatures, like a wolf fish, a kind of squid we haven't seen before, and (my personal pick for deep sea weirdo of the expedition so far) a giant pink snail fish.
I'm looking forward to sharing our photos with you - stay tuned!
John H
This weekend we piloted submarines into Pribilof Canyon for the first time. Ever.
Yesterday, Michelle and David made the first dives, and came across a dense school of squid between 800 and 1,000 feet. Once they reached the bottom, they found the seafloor to be soft sediments scattered with numerous species of sea stars, shrimp, crab, arrowtooth flounder and other flatfish, anemones, and an enormous number of tiny unknown invertebrates.
Today, Timo and I made deeper dives to a similar area - silt bottom, teeming with life just under the surface. The entire seafloor is covered with depressions, holes, tracks, and bumps created by marine life no one has ever laid eyes on before. Once believed to be nearly featureless and uninhabited, the bottom of the ocean is now known to be home to a rich and dynamic web of life.
We were excited to find dozens of sea whips, cold water corals that provide habitat for brittle stars, basket stars, shrimp, and even commercially important fish. Most fun - and most surprising - was an enormous school of bright red Pacific Ocean perch, which swarmed all over our subs. The fish got into every nook and cranny, checking out the lights, the cameras, the manipulator arms, and even the sampling basket. They also spent a lot of time seeming to look into the subs' plexiglass domes, making US feel like we were inside fishbowls being stared at by the fish instead of the other way around. Well, we were on their turf, so I suppose that's only fair!
We covered a lot of area this weekend, spending about twelve hours on the seafloor. After months of talking to scientists in the lead-up to this expedition, I was happy to see that we were able to get some of the images that researchers had told us they hoped we'd be able to obtain - from the Pacific Ocean perch that can be found on some restaurant menus to far more obscure creatures like bryozoans, hydroids, snailfish, and even a giant melon whelk.
Not bad for our first two days! Tomorrow, we'll try using the ROV, a tethered robot which will enable us to collect video down to 3,300 feet - from the comfort of the ship's bridge. One great thing about the ROV is that the whole crew can see it all on the video monitor as it happens, with a new discovery in every frame.
Stay tuned for more pictures!
John H
After months of preparation, we are finally here. The Esperanza has just arrived at the SW edge of Pribilof Canyon, and the seas are calm. After a lot of hard work from the crew, we have loaded on two submarines, an ROV, a decompression chamber the size of a small whale, and more piles, boxes, and bags of dive gear and scientific equipment than would fit in a small warehouse. Everyone managed to get here, which in itself is quite a feat given how far some people had to come and how notoriously prone to cancellations and delays flights into Alaska's outlying airports can be.
Everything seems to be in good working order, so if all goes well today we will get the two submarines in the water this morning, followed by an ROV dive as soon as they come up. Then if the weather's still good, we'll get in another sub dive after that - taking advantage of these long Alaska summer days. And with the unpredictable Bering Sea weather, we want to do as much as we can when the wind and waves allow it.
Yesterday we watched footage of the ROV dives that NOAA did in the Bering Sea back in the 90s, and Bob Stone (the NOAA coral specialist on board with us) showed us video from his groundbreaking work in the Aleutian Islands. No one has ever been down in this canyon before, but these videos will give us some idea of what we might find. Really, though, no one knows what is down there, and we can't wait to find out.
It's time to get in the water! Wish us luck -
John H
I am sure many, if not all of us, have heard those words spoken by mommie at lunch or supper time. For me and my brothers and sisters, both times at home on St. George Island were special. Mom was a wonderful cook, especially when prepairing our traditional foods of seal, ducks, geese, kittiwakes, murres and halibut and cod. She knew what she was doing, cause, hey, she is mom. And Dad, he as you know already was a real man's man. Now I understand him as a true person, a real icon to be emulated and admired.
Lunchtime was always our main meal at home. For supper, we would have leftovers, and even then, it was delicious. Dad would go to work as a carpenter for the Federal Government, mom would be home and we, my two brothers, one older and the other, almost like a twin cept he was and is cuter en me, would be at school. Later two other brothers and two sisters were added to the bunch. The more, the better. My Deedah, Grandpa, would always come over, from two houses down on the same row of wooden building structures, for lunch. He walked with a limp. Sometimes our uncles would accompany him. Anyway, the table was always full. Come to think of it, we had two tables almost everyday. One for the grown ups, and the other, us. It was warm, the coal stove burning hot, mom rushing about, and the men, sitting and talking in Unangan about important matters, at least as far as we were concerned. And we were told to be quiet. And most times we were. Respecct, you understand, is very important in close knit families. In everything for that matter. And we had to learn it quick and at a very young age. No Dr. Spock ideas here. Learn or, well, you get the picture.
Deedah would be at the head of the table. He always said the Lord's prayer in slavonic. He was always served first, then Dad, uncles and the rest until it got down to us. And when it got down to us, sometimes we got the not so best parts of whatever was being served. No mind. It was good. Mom's fry bread (ah la dicks) or home made bread was the best. Only one hour to eat, or 30 minutes was more like it. Then do the dishes, clean up and run back to school down the hill. Laughing and teasing one another as do children all over. Then, back to work. But, I remember very clearly that after we all ate, a cloth, like a napkin, we did not have paper napkins, was passed around to wipe the face and hands, first of course to Deedah. Then the rest in order of respect.
As kids do, we wanted the ah la dicks cause, well, butter and jam was spread over them, and oh, they were and are to this day, so good. Hot. Warm. Tasty. Because we wanted to fill up on this, its our meal and dessert at the same time, often we did not want to finish our main meal, more often than not, some wild and traditional food. Seal, cormorant, or fish. And, as always, we would hear: "Finish your food, because some day you might be hungry." Mom, what a woman. Did not know it then, but I am so thankful now. As a side, Mom was so beautiful, internally and physically. Well, anyway, little did I know how important those words would play out today in the whole scheme of things. I don't know if the meaning was this, but so what. They are so prophetic. "Finish your food, because someday you might be hungry." To me, I think what Mom said was: "Finish your food because someday you might be hungry for it." I wondered as a young boy how we could ever go hungry because it seemed like there was a bunch of food, especially our food. And there was. Sure, there were lean months, but also, when the animals that took care of us were home, they made sure we could not miss them. They showed up in the millions. All of them. Millions.
Now, in real time, I am fifty something years old. My memory of these days had to go back as far as when I was ten, twelve, or there abouts. As rich as we were, we did not know how poor we really were. Anyway, those words of Mom haunts me today. How did she know? Where did she learn this? Was she taught? Who taught her? Or maybe, in my mind, I just want to think that she just knew, for afterall, she is Mom. And smart? Wise? She is Mom. What do you think I think?
And now, fourty some years later, a very short time from those days, I am hungry. I simply cannot believe it ! No Deedah any more, or Dad, or Mom or uncles. And no food. Like I have been talking to the people in the villages, if we no longer can eat and survive at home, we will have to move to the city. Anchorage. What a mess. And now, I am living there. I cannot fish. I cannot hunt. I cannot, only once or twice a year, eat my food. Its hard to find. Its hard to find for our people who are still living at home. And what they catch they have just enough for others in the village. Son of a ...... I am so angry about that. Who said the fishermen on the TV program Deadliest Catch have a right to their way of life at the cost of ours? Who said, its ok for the North Pacific Fishery Management Council to dole out millions of metric tons of bycatch and destroy and make desserts out of the Bering Sea at our expense? Who is playing god here? Why are their ways of living more critical, more important, more better than ours in the villages? Why? Someone, please tell me. And then, when they catch all the fish, crab and kill all the food we depend upon, our compassionate, conservative United States's "pursuit of happiness bull" buys their boats from them cause, well, they cannot catch enough to buy a christmas tree. Where is the honor? Give me more fish. I have to follow the fish further north cause, they are moving. My gosh! Who are these people? And who gives them the rights? Someone, please tell me.
The elder in Mekoryuk said: "My ancestors said we are not supposed to play with our food." Well, lets create councils, scientific committees, advisory panels and play manopoly with our food. Lets wall street it. Lets trade and have a drink to our success! Lets become TV stars over our boo hoo, we cannot catch nuff crab! And lets let the cameras zoom in on a cute dockside homecoming in Seattle, tears and hugs, cause, well, we raped the Bering Sea, but this time, rather than the big million dollar pay checks we used to get, now its a measily hundreds of thousands of dollars. Why? Please, someone tell me. Why? Why destroy and kill? Tell me.
Finish your food, cause someday you will be hungry, on this beautiful planet we call Earth.
Until next time.
George
Well, painfully and sorryfully, we did not make it to Kipnuk. This, however, not for the lack of trying. We really made an effort, but that is not what I wanted to talk about today. Today is all about present-ence, if I am spelling that right.
We spent almost twelve hours, from the time we left the ship until our return, in an absolutely wonderful place with more. Toksook. An unassuming little Yupik town in an unassuming part of Alaska with unassuming people. We were the assuming bunch. Assuming we know of what we speak, and more, maybe of how we speak about what we speak.
We came, saw, and were totally conquored by a people and a village where life is full of present-ence. People who, although from the surface, seem to have so little, but are full of joy. Struggle for them is simply a way of life. We look at struggle in life, I guess, as a negative, something to avoid at almost any cost. They simply seem to see struggle, and sure, always not fun, simply as just a part of it, not to be negativeide, but as a presence.
For weeks now I have been asking questions during our interviews for our documentation of our visits. Research? Outreach? Nay, visits. We are visiting life, and it seems, life in its simplicity. We may, and ofcouse its just my tainted opinion, look at what we do as critical, important, interesting and problems to be solved. We create many of them, simply, perhaps, so that when we solve them, or come close, we feel gratified at our abilities. We invent things, toys, machines and such, often complicated ones, such as the one I am now using, perhaps so that when we finally are able to get good at using them, we must feel intelligent and knowing. Often, I wonder, if that is not what we do with our speak. We often speak in codes, perhaps thinking that those to whom we speak, if they cannot understand our codes, we must be all the more aware. Aware of what? Codes for who? or whom, as the case may be. Solving what, and why and again, for whom?
In an interview yesterday, in unassuming Toksook, somethings happened to me. Well, lots of things happened to me, and in retrothought, is still growing. I saw wiseness, patience, living, honesty, codelessness, plain speak right from a part in us we often do not meet. I witnessed, watched and heard. Looking back on my life, I wanted to be somewhere, someplace, something. Learned. Articulate. Understanding. Smart. And I may have found what I was and have been seeking. Rather than wanting to be all these unattainable traits of "full of myselfness" why not just be? Not just be for anyone else, for if I do that, I am being something which I think someone wants me to be and thus not truely honest. Present-ence.
I was interviewing an elder. A truely full and real human being. We often say, in my culture and language, that before the Russians came and interrupted our ways, we called ourselves Unangan (they called us Aleut). And we say, Unangan means "real human being." And I understand that many people have similar names for themselves, with similar meanings. But, and then, we venture off trying to be that. Not, in my mind, this gentleman. He was not trying to be something. Not trying to solve the mysteries of problems. Not trying to impress anyone. Not trying to do all the other things we often try to do to make ourselves something we cannot be if we don't simply be. He simply said and answered.
I have been blessed with many times in my life to witness simple goodness, and if I am allowed to say, simple holiness and peace. I have vested myself in garb, vestments, clothes which enabled me to stand in the presence of the Lord during worship, allowing me to know I am doing somthing which is not "of this world, but surely in this world." I have stood in front of altars, blessed and dedicated to fully immerse myself, totally and deeply in this act of love. And I have bathed it that. Like that, this man allowed me to stand in that presence. At least in my mind. Now I know of human weaknesses, frailty, and sin. I know they exist, and this man, I am sure, has had his fill, and perhaps in many ways still does. But.....he wavered not. He spoke, not in code. He poured out honey from his soul. And he wanted nothing in return. He said of what he knows. He sought to teach and no returns expected. Not even solutions to the many questions. He is a present-ence. We must seek to meet him. And in so doing, we must, like he, be still. Stop thinking that in our intelligence, in our egos, in our smartnesses, in our abundance of technology, in our learnedness, we can solve anything and everything. In doing that, we become as a lion, lurking in ambush. We must be aware that all we can probably do now is lessen real coming sufferings, sufferings we ourselves have caused. I guess the assuming answer might be, if we hear silence, we are there. We have solved somthing. We will go on and seek and look and ask and hear. We will struggle to find solutions and solutions will come. We are on the right track, we people who are working to restore healthy life. And we are and will continue to meet goodness. We have to be prepared to recognize that when that is present-ence, when that happens. Oh I hope this comes accorss as meaningful, somehow, but afterall, its Sunday morning in Etolin Straigt, village hopping, and I hope I am allowed to ramble. But, I met a good man, and for that, I am humbled and perhaps forever changed. This planet we call Earth is good. She was, is and will care for us. She is simply asking, perhaps in the end, for us to listen to her silence.
Until next time.
George
Yesterday I had my biggest challenge as a jettie driver so far. Guided by a totally unreliable blown up sea chart with last known depths taken 10 years ago, and advice from the local people to turn right by the island and stay close to the shore, we took off from the Espy around noon. Due to swell and a strong NW wind I couldn’t see any island in the first hour. While we were bouncing from wave to wave with spray filling the air around us, I noticed a slight difference in the breaking waves close to us, dead ahead.
I pushed the throttle up and aimed for the middle part of these confused seas where the water was more calm. Surfing the last wave in to this flat sea, I realized we made it so far. A moment of rest for everybody and a moment for me to check position by eye and GPS. Then I saw I took the South entrance between the islands and not the North as planned. These islands were not covered with any green life. They are only 3 feet above sea level and nothing else than a high sand bank. The rest of the lower sand banks were now somewhere under and surrounding us. We had no depth sounder. In my opinion it was not necessary. A long pole with some tape will measure just what I want to know; enough depth or not.
So, there we were; between the islands and the mainland, surrounded by unseen sandbanks, alive and kicking. What to do? Just what I learned as a kid in Holland, take the pole and source your way in. (I gave the campaigners a warning; going in is one thing, coming out is something else, and help is far away, here at 60 degrees North and 165 West). With Freddy standing up front ‘poling’ constantly and on an easy throttle we slowly headed towards the mainland, as advised. After four ‘pull backs’ we dropped anchor and waited for more water. Two hours to go before high tide and 8 miles to go to the village.
Half a hour later we found a way between the banks and we sped up, parallel to the beach. Everything seemed to go perfectly and I even got a compliment. But I rejected that by answering to keep that compliment until we were drinking a beer on board and all is fine. By now we’re doing 20 knots (draft becomes less) and cruising parallel to the mainland into the mouth of the river. The first two bumps I didn’t feel or notice, the third I was wondering; “what’s happening?”, and after the fourth I had the throttle all the way down. But it was too late... we were stuck. And not “normal stuck”, but serious stuck. In the mud; black soft mud.
We had less than two hands of water and the boat had a draft of just one arm. Need to calculate? Six cables to the entrance and here we are. Seven opinions further I used my veto and ordered all (all...) the weight to the front of the boat. That lifts the back of the boat. With a lot of steering and engine force, half a hour later we were in deeper water. By now it was the calculated high tide. We decided to go back to the ship. The programmed way point directed me nicely towards the middle of two other (charted) islands. Because time wasn’t on my side, and I thought I had deep enough water, we were doing 25 knots. But as we came closer to the way point, and I was standing to see further ahead, I realized there was no gap, the way point was exactly in the middle of this extra long island. And before I could slow down and take position we hit a bank, this time hard. In a split second we went from 20 knots to zero. Now all the weight was at the fore ship without asking. And luckily no injuries. After three opinions I ordered everybody in the water to push and pull our way out, steering and throtelling at the same time. The tide was on the way out and we had no time left. Freddy found some deeper water. Everybody pushed and pulled the boat into the deep water. All piled in again and vrooeeeemmmm, full force over the banks, all or nothing, into the disturbed sea between the islands again. Water sprays takes away any horizon. Time to report home:” Esperanza..., Billy green,....we reached deep waters,.. ETA 35 minutes”.
I guess its time to bring up a subject which has always excited me. I have not spoken about this before because, quite frankly, many others have and I just figured many people would and do understand the concept. It is called Local and Traditional Knowledge or LTK. Basically, and this should be evident, what LTK local people have about their environment, their home, must be taken seriously. A case in point.
We are on a ship, the Esperanza, which is equiped with a lot of electronic gadgets. We have GPS's, radars, radios, internet and one of just about everything else. As we set out to visit the village of Kipnuk in the Kuskokwim Bay, we began from a distance of about seven miles off shore. This is just about as close as we can get given the depths of the water near this long established and traditional Yupik village. (Makes me wonder about the 20 miles exclusion zone which the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) took into consideration at their last meeting in Sitka, where there would be no hard bottom trawling done around these villages. There is no water to speak of, and sand bars all over the place. This is prime heritage zone real estate) Suffice to say, we had a difficult time finding safe passage into Kipnuk, and after several attempts, had to return to the ship to regroup. Today we will make another effort, but this time with LTK. We may have just assumed a little much, and are also stimied by the lack of accurate charts. None the less, it was interesting, to say the least.
This is where the issue of LTK comes into focus real clearly, and fast. We really don't know what is happening to the ecosystem or the greater environments in the same manner local people who are intiment with their surrounds. One of the arguements we have been making, western scientific methods versus LTK, is that western science always took a more serious and higher role in decision making than LTK. LTK, it is argued, is anacdotal and not reliable. Well, we proved that theory wrong. LTK says, and said to us yesterday; when you come to the sand bar that has two dead whales on it, follow the sand bar and when you come to the end of it, turn right and you will be home free. Simple enough. Not scientific enough for people who have all the gadgets and methods to prove issues, but very real. Local and Traditional Knowledge.
In the greater debate of the changes happening to our Gulf of Alaska/Bering Sea ecosystems, rather than rely strictly upon the axiom that one plus one equals two, a solution, we need LTK which says, one plus five equals six. The people who live here, who rely upon the environment for their existence and survival have to know. It is not a question of theory or guesstament, it has to be one hundred percent accurate or else, a quick and sudden death, or as we may be seeing, a slow and painful PEST which eventually leads to that death. We must stop the oftimes arrogence of we know better cause we have better toys to play with and that often proves we know better, and begin a relationship with LTK such that LTK is taken seriously as science, or as the NPFMC likes to say, the best available science. Interestingly, the best available science is failing us in our home. Fisheries are being shut down, or, taking in some cases years to do, but nonetheless, being done. Stocks are not rebounding in numbers that our best available science predicts they would. Damage is being done to the sensitive habitat that our best available science is not telling us, but wait, LTK is telling us. One, the people are making hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly observations, plus five, they are seeing the total picture, all things being connected.
So if there is, was, or would ever be any doubt about the value of LTK, let us consider. We do not depend upon this system, this environment for our survival. We are not here to make these observations and say, turn when you see the two dead whales. We are not dependent upon anything out here for our daily sustenence. We can make things, like our food, to feed us. We can build and plan big gigantic fish farms on the high seas. We can....and do....think our western scientific methods will help save our big beautiful planet we call Earth.
Until Next Time.
George
PS..another interesting cultural difference we notice right off the bat. In western culture, when a question is asked, we often expect immediate answers, often thinking that the quicker the answer to the question, the "on top of it" we are or appear. Here in our traditional cultures of Alaska, its quite the opposite. We ask a question, and sometimes the answer comes a lot later. Its not what we expect. Perhaps the person formulating an answer is taking some time because, well, the answer is very thoughtful, not quick. There is no need to rush and show, "on top of itness." Simply, thoughtfulness.
As a kid growing up on St. George Island, one of the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea, one of the highlights was the occasional, very sporadic, "outings" my parents arranged with the United States Federal Government. Its interesting to me now that I think of this. Anyway, my Dad would walk ever so gently to the office of the then Island Manager, Dan Benson, who oversaw the US Governments operations for the entire commercial fur seal industry, we being a captive work force. I say ever so gently, probably all the while thinking about what he was going to say, what Mr. Benson, as we addressed and referred to him, was going to say and how my Dad would respond. I know this is probably what he did because sometimes I do the same thing. Anyway, he, my Dad, after making plans for a picnic, or "outing" on our small Island, would walk down to Mr. Benson's office and ask to borrow a truck. Not a pick up, or a van, or some other small vehicle, but a truck with a big dump on the back of it. Probably used to dump the blubber off the fur seal skins he used to blubber, a term referring to scraping the fat off the skin. As a kid, I did not know all of this, so I did not really appreciate what it took for Dad to do this. This Mr. Benson was the judge, jury and carry outer of the sentence for everyone and everything that happened on that small Island, back in the day. And sometimes, Dad would drive this big truck up to the house, all smiles and proud. This because his job as a carpenter during the off fur seal harvesting seasons, did not allow him to drive. So seeing him behind the wheel of a big truck, well, he thought he was cool. And to me, to us, he is. Very cool man.
Anyway, since St. George Island only had a total of 7 miles of road, we would load up our picnic stuff, Mom was a really good one, a good Mom, her name is Eva, and would all climb aboard the dump, still kinda reeking of seal fat, and off we would go. Dad, pressing on the gas peddle while Mom is telling him how to drive. And since the road was only wide enough for one way traffic, if by chance another truck would be coming our way, there were periodic turn offs, places where one truck could pull off the main road and allow the other truck to drive by. It was always, in my youthful mind, a wonder who would use the turn off first, cause, hey, rules of the road. Well, Dillingham was kinda a "turn-off" of sorts for us during this campaign. It is a large community, by Alaska standards, and an industrialized one at that. And the only resource produced and harvested is salmon, three or four species of salmon, but none the less, salmon. We were and are welcome in this fishing community. Boats stopped by and offered us fish and talked with us, smiles and waves. Welcome is heard shouted over the noise of the rushing river, where we were parked, and the loud noise of the boat's grinding engins. And, in the community, hello's and hi's are exchanged. We are welcome.
I wondered, however, how we could address environmental and ecosystem concerns in a community that is so prosperous, or seemingly so, until I remembered my Dad driving. For now, this moment, this outing, all is well. But knowing what I think I know about the overall health of the Bering Sea/Gulf of Alaska (this is a problem for know it alls) I thought, who is going to get to the turn off quicker; the people in the community or the industry which buys and processes the fish? My guess is, the industry. And that concerns me because, honestly, they do not live here. Anywhere along the one way dirt road, when something is coming the opposite direction, like climate change, price of fish on the world markets, or a steep decline in the overall harvestable salmon populations, Pebble mine development or oil and gas drilling in Bristol Bay, they can get off the road and go somewhere else. The Community and its people cannot. Unless of course we are able to inspire a need for good, thoughtful prepariations to the changes. This is where I think our Heritage Zones will offer that turn off for the people. Through good and thoughtful planning, the people might be able to get off the one way road to nowhere and buy time to develop resource and habitat protections. And in so doing, might be able to participate in their management, if such is possible. Dillingham is indeed a good turn off for our mission because it forced us, we on the campaign, to think and think differently about our mission's purpose.
So, my Dad, all smiles, driving down a one way dirt road on St. George Island, with his sweetheart yelling directions and instructions, smiled and smiled widely, because for him, he did not need a turn off in life, he was living on the main road, proud that the United States Government said, "sure Mr. Pletnikoff, take your family out on a picnic, an outing," on the back of a smelly oily dump truck, on this planet we call Earth.
Until Next Time.
George
Our oceans are facing pressures from all sides. In addition to commercial bottom trawling, pollution, and climate change, here, in southwestern Alaska, Bristol Bay and its residents are preparing to deal with another destructive threat – the proposed Pebble Mine. This mine would be located in the heart of the Bristol Bay watershed. As it is now proposed, it would have the largest dam in the world. Larger than the massive Hoover Dam. And to top it off, it would be an earthen dam, constructed from compacted soils, not concrete. And don't forget, Alaska is located along the 'ring of fire' – an earthquake prone region that has experienced major earthquake events within the past 50 years. This open pit mine, a sore on the landscape, would be so large it would be visible from space.
According to polls, regional opposition to this mine has topped 75% and seems to be growing. As we arrived in Bristol Bay this weekend virtually every fishing boat we passed had an anti-Pebble Mine flag. There are similar signs all over town in Dillingham, stickers on cars, and constant conversation about this proposed project. Not just a threat to the 'environment,' this mine has the potential to destroy some of the most important fish habitat in the world and pollute the clean water that other animals and humans in the area use. The Bristol Bay fishery supports local subsistence practices, guiding businesses, and local lodges. Some people support the mine and the jobs it will bring to the region and from one perspective, they really can't be blamed. The depressed economy of southwestern Alaska and the incredibly high cost of living has put some people, I believe, in a no-win situation. Short-term (Mines don't produce forever.) employment possibilities (How many workers will actually be Alaskans? We've seen this before...) and unknown environmental dangers, versus a healthy watershed and all that comes with it, but perhaps no regular source of income.
This project would be located on State of Alaska lands and the state coffers have much to gain. We all hope that the state will not only make sound, science-based decisions regarding the mine, but that it will also take into account the best interests of all of the people of Alaska – especially those who have the most to lose.
The company proposing this massive project, Northern Dynasty, is not exactly the environmental protector it purports to be. In fact, Northern Dynasty has even written in an annual report that it is unlikely they would or could be subject to U.S. legal proceedings for any environmental damages because they are not a U.S. based or run company. We have all heard the common refrain about how the United States, including Alaska, has some of the strictest environmental standards in the world to protect our fragile environment. That may be the case, though some would debate whether they are strong enough or if they even matter if their isn't proper and consistent enforcement. But really, one only has to look north to the Prudhoe Bay oil fields and the Trans Alaska Pipeline. You may not read about it in your local paper, or hear about it on the news, but there hundreds of oil spills there each year. The Fort Knox Gold Mine outside Fairbanks has just been give permission, by the State, to use cyanide leaching techniques. The Kensington Mine project, near Juneau, was given permission by the Federal government, to dump 210,000 gallons a day of their mine waste directly into a lake, a lake that the company would turn into a tailings holding area (this decision was reversed by the 9th Circuit Court). A proposed bridge across Knik Arm in Anchorage (one of the so-called “bridges to nowhere” ) may have serious negative impacts on the distinctive and already endangered local population of Beluga whales. The list goes on... It looks like neither the State nor Northern Dynasty can honestly say with any real degree of confidence that there won't be major ecosystem damaging impacts from the mine, and their track records aren't very encouraging either.
We all need to do something to make sure the State and the world knows what Alaskans want: long-term existence of a productive and vital system, not short-term profit for a few and the potential destruction of this watershed.
A smile covers my face when I think about the welcomes we had so far. In all the villages we visit we have a so called 'open boat'. We pick up the people from ashore and bring them on board to show them how we live. Because most of my work is on the bridge, I talk about the navigation equipment and the history of the ship (a Russian arctic fire fighting vessel). Especially children are so direct and honest that it makes me and the parents laugh. "How long does it take by the petrol station to fill the tank?" Sometimes I take a small group to the engine room and show them the two main engines. For them the mains are huge. I reckon their as big as two SUV. And double that. Back on the bridge I ask them to point me out the steering wheel and they can't find it. Because it's a tiny little wheel in the middle of the counsel. "Like my Play station at home!!!" The children scream. "Yes" I answer "only this one is for real." So: the bigger the ships, the smaller the wheels. Check it out yourself, see link at my personal.
Greetings from the Esperanza,
Akutan, the village we are at today, has about 75 year round residents. Many of the other communities we are visiting on this tour are also small. Some of them undoubtedly have less residents than you may have had students in your high school. The village is very remote and doesn't even have an airstrip because the terrain here is so steep. The only way to arrive at or leave Akutan is by boat or seaplane.
I'm sure you can imagine that even little changes have a large impact on such small communities. If five or ten people, or even less than that, lose their jobs doing small boat fishing or aren't able to obtain as much food as is necessary for their subsistence needs – it can be disastrous. Not just sad or unfortunate, but truly disastrous for families, and therefore for the community as a whole. It is sobering to think about and adds a sense of urgency to the work Greenpeace is trying to accomplish out here.
My shipmates tease me for always telling them that the next place we are visiting is beautiful, and so is the next, and the next... But it's true! The people are kind and the landscape is stunning. There are very few places in Alaska that have not had the power to awe me with their beauty. And Akutan is....well, beautiful! This village is tucked into a small bay on Akutan Island with green mountains rising up behind the group of small white houses at their feet. This is a harsh place – there are very few trees or bushes and there is an active volcano not far from the village. The island is primarily covered with grasses, sedges, and many flowering plants. The weather can change dramatically from one hour to the next, and the wind can blow and blow and blow. But this all adds to the beauty of the place and to the importance of helping these communities stay viable. There is something about the place, each place, that keeps people here. This is their home and it has been for generations. They'd like to keep it that way and so would I.
It is easy for most of us to go about our daily lives without thinking about small communities such as these along the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska. This is to be expected; out of sight, out of mind, as the saying goes. But I think we all need to make ourselves aware of the difficulties that people in these communities are dealing with on a regular basis. Why? One important reason is because their fate is linked to ours, and everyone's fate is linked to the health of our environment. Most importantly, their lives, and their way of life, is just as important as everyone elses. I think of these small struggling communities kind of as the 'canaries in the coal mine'. We should all be taking notice of what is going on out here. Old Harbor, Sand Point, Akutan – all of these communities, and others in the region, are on the front lines of declining fisheries, climate change, and other global environmental problems.
So you might think: what can I do, as one person, in the face of these large challenges? In fact there are many things you can do, such as supporting Greenpeace. By doing so you support the community outreach that we are doing right now that we hope will lead to positive changes. You can also learn more about these communities, by searching online or at the library. Tell your family and friends what is happening out here. Knowledge is power, and with it you can make informed decisions about your consumer and lifestyle choices – decisions that impact us all.
-Julie
Setting course on a GP ship is different from a regular ship. As a navigation mate I try to get a head start, this because I've got to check the course line for rocks and other things a ship is not build for and calculate and program and re-check. But because the courses, campaigning and planning are three different things, sometimes my work is for the paper bin. A waist of time? Or waist of energy? Not in my point of view. I do my little thing for the bigger picture. Just like others on board sometimes work on something what doesn't work out. That is nothing special, that happens everywhere around the world on boats, offices, in heads of masterminds and one braincell organism. It is called evolution. Progress.
Flexibility and creativity are the keywords in that process. And sometimes I want to do something completely different: the laundry! All the way down in the ship we have two washing and drying machines, this week I signed up for 4 days. All by my self, surrounded by spinning machines and soapy air, I can think about something else than courses...
Kia Ora friends,
The Esperanza set sail from King Cove this afternoon, after spending an engaging couple of days and a night in what I can best describe as a place of stark contrasts. Once again, we sailed into a place of wondrous natural beauty as we've encountered in other stops along our journey, only to drop anchor in front of a sprawling fish factory complex. Peter Pan Seafoods harvests, processes, and markets fish and shellfish pulled from Alaska's waters. It cans and freezes cod, crab, halibut, salmon, pollock, and manufactures surimi for the US retail and foodservice industries. Peter Pan products also find their way to global markets in Europe, Asia, even Australia and New Zealand, sold under various brand names. Here we were on a tour of the plant that's been here since the dawn of the 20th century watching endless slaps of dead salmon being chopped, minced and diced, and stuffed into cans, loaded onto pallets destined for far-flung markets all over the planet. Seems the salmon don't stop migrating, even after they've been pulled from the ocean.
Peter Pan Seafoods is a subsidiary of the Japanese Nichiro Corporation, Japan's third largest sefood company and, historically, one of Japan's largest whaling companies. Nichiro, along with four other big Japanese seafood companies, direcltly supported the Japanese "scientific" whaling program in the Southern Ocean until recently. After deciding that a consumer backlash from anti-whaling seafood consumers around the world might put a dent in their corporate bottom line, the companies pulled a little jiggery pokery and offloaded their shares in the whaling operation to various other Japanese foundations, thereby absolving themselves of any direct links. Nichiro is now looking to a merger with another of Japan's seafood titans - Maruha Corporation in a move that some observers say will set up a megalopoly over the Bering Sea. A worry is that Maruha, once it swallows up the smaller Nichiro, might consolidate processing plants and/or ships through the Bering Sea off Alaska. That would be a big concern for fishermen and port towns highly dependent on the sea for livelihoods, including the fishers in most of the small villages we've visited so far.
So here we are, the crew of the Esperanza amidst all this natural splenour that surrounds the Bering Sea and I come to the stark realisation that the place that once belonged to the so-called "native people" of this sea -- the First People of Alaska -- is now just another ecosystem to plunder for profit by corporations located in some distant land with tentacles that touch every ocean and sea on Earth.
The fate of our oceans and all their biodiversity lies in the hands of corporate shareholders and boards whose sole purpose is to convert fish to cash with ever increasing, deadly efficiency. The fishers and people of coastal communities that border this vast sea have little or no say, trying just to scratch out a living; some simply just trying to subsist. The corporate factory trawlers and bottom trawlers rule the ecosystem. The local fishers from the communities arrive with their day's catch at the docks of Peter Pan or Trident and other multinational conglomerates running the show here, cap in hand, hoping they'll be paid enough by these lords of the sea to pay for their fuel costs and the crew. 70 cents a pound for salmon paid to the boats, but it has to be delivered to the dock boys!
The local communities in these parts have become serfs in a modern-day fuedal system.
So, what of the future of our children? I heard one native community elder of King Cove ask this morning in the meeting we had with tribal representatives. Greenpeace is here to listen to their concerns and see where common ground lies between us. So they're talking about those concerns and one old fella who's fished for 55 years, but now retired, is clearly perplexed. It just isn't like it used to be anymore, he complains. It's tough enough even just to catch enough salmon at times to feed the grandkids, let alone make a dollars-and-cents living. The world of corporatised control over our oceans and fishing lies light years from his experience.
The people here have a tradition that, when they're making big decisions with future implications, they ponder first on what effect their decisions could have on seven generations of children further down the line. Seven generations? Do you think corporate tycoons behind the proposed Maruha/Nichiro merger are taking into account intergenerational equity seven generations down the line?
So the next time you rip open a can of salmon, ready to taste that first succulent morsel, pause a moment to reflect on how it got to be right there in front of you. Think not just about the four or five bucks you shelled out for its purchase, but reflect for a moment, almost as if in prayer, as Alaska's first people do here, contemplating the true cost of that can of salmon on our kids seven generations into the future. Or do we still remember how to do that?
From the Esperanza on our way to our next stop at Akutan
Mike Hagler
Oceans Campaigner
Greenpeace New Zealand
I'm at my desk in Austin, Texas, enjoying the updates from the crew on board the Esperanza and getting ready to join the ship later this month. I was talking to a reporter about the Bering Sea today, and he mentioned that he was planning to speak to a representative of the factory trawlers tomorrow. What did I think the trawl lobbiest would tell him, and how different would it be from what I was saying? It's a funny question, as he's likely to end up feeling like there must be two Alaskas.
In the Alaska described by the factory trawlers, the ecosystem is healthy, and the economy is booming. There is no overfishing going on. The precautionary principle rules the day.
And then there is the Alaska that the crew is seeing with their own eyes and hearing from people in native communities. This Alaska looks a little different - not so far gone that it can't be saved, but far from healthy. The "economy" may well be booming, but many of the small-scale fishing communities scattered along Alaska's islands and coasts are really struggling. And overfishing seems to be a matter of definitions. The computer models may not describe what is going on as overfishing, but then they don't really account for the seabirds, sea lions, fur seals, and fish that are disappearing rapidly as there food is being turned into Mc Fish Filets and fish sticks.
Even some conservationists consider Alaska a model of good fisheries management, but the sad part is that this says more about how bad things are elsewhere than about how good they are in Alaska. There are some things that are going well, and there are things that policy makers in Alaska should be proud of. But we have a long way to go before anyone should start clapping themselves on the back and hyping Alaska fisheries management as a model.
For a more detailed rebuttal of the "Alaska Model," see this article in Alaska Business Monthly. It's not too late to save our oceans - and commercial fisheries along with them - but first we're going to have to be honest with ourselves about what's actually happening, and what it will take to turn things around.
John H
Now we have traveled to five tribal villages: Port Graham, Kodiak, Old Harbor, Chignik and Sand Point. Just about two hours ago, we arrived and dropped anchor in King Cove, the last village on the mainland of Alaska. From here, we head out to Akutan, the beginning of the Aleutian Islands. As you may have read from the others onboard who have posted blogs, the tour has been more than we expected. Celebrations. Observations on peoples ways of living and making that living. Discussions. Serious ones. Who, where, when and why. All seeming innocent questions, but taken very seriously by all involved.
As we village hop on the Gulf of Alaska side of the Alaska Peninsula, I listened and looked intently at the differences between our stops. Settings, harbors, mountains, channels between islands scattered along the coast and teams of wildlife. A large pod of whale here, some sea otter there, birds, vegetation, no stellar sea lion, and some sizes of villages. But that is not what I am interested in, although they capture ones attention and demand an audiance. We all look for how things in general are different, that seems to attract our attentions. I wanted to know what the similarities, what sameness, what are these five villages like with one another. And I am affraid I did not have to look very long. All are same in what drives their economies. Fish and more fish. Concern about the fish. Prices. Amounts of fish. Openings for when the fish are to be harvested. Clousures. When will the State of Alaska shut down a fishery for escapement? What are we to do? How can we subsist and create security for our families? Who is doing what and when and where? Questions and concerns all the same, between the five. The answers? Well, those can vary from place to place.
We meet with the Tribal leaders of each of these communities. They are intense. Serious. Straight forward and questioning. If we do not apply the concepts of the heritage zones, what are we to do? How can we institute such a program? Is it possible? When can we begin? And here is where I find the similarities. When can we begin.
We, I say repeatedly, began this concept well over 9,000 years ago. Unlike the mandates of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act which created artificial securities, we select lands of value, be they economic, traditional, spiritual or cultural lands, the US Congress allowed our people three years to decide which of these lands, and there is a bunch here in Alaska, we deemed important and worthy of our attention. What the US Congress failed to do, what the world essentially did not know or realize, nor what we did not understand at that time as Alaska's first peoples is that the land is simply a place to build shelter and rest upon. We understand the term land, as in we care for our land, to mean also water. We know, teach, and have known that the earth is one; land and water are the same and must be treated as such. Some Western thinkers and economists decided that there is a difference, tought that difference and imposed that difference as though we did not know. And we may have learned that difference too well. But, as the similarities develop as our tour progresses, we are regaining our heritage, our traditional understandings, our cultural fineness, reinstituting within what we have been tought well by wise people, our ancestors. They are not different. Land and water are the same and we have always known that. What happens to one, affects the other. How we treat one we must treat the other.
In our case, as Alaska's first peoples, the water is our bread. It is from where we get our nurturing, our energy, our life! It is said that my people understood that the water is the blood of Mother Earth. This is not new for almost any indegenious peoples throughout the world. Western man simply did not, and has not gotten that, and they dominate all aspects of life, down to what happpens in our bedrooms. Western man is misleading himself and his heritage, his future when he seperates land and water. He uses one, cuts it up and hopes it does not impact the other. And he has not learned. It is very sad.
The sameness between the first five, the starting five, I am sure will be the sameness for the following tribes. Water and land. No difference. And so we journey, meet, laugh, sob at times, and hope. For what we hope? That finally our knowledge and understandings of our planet we call Earth will finally get its due.
Until Next Time.
George
It is a strange experience to sail along the coast so close and make visit to the local communities. As I am more used on longer trips at sea or sailing with passengers.
Each day I prepare a 'voyage plan'. That's my job on board. Together with the pilot we set a course and talk about dangers we can encounter along the way, navigational wise. Than I set way points in the charts and program the computer and GPS. Because the traveling time is split up in different watches, every mate knows exactly what course to steer. The captain is also in the wheelhouse during narrow passages, just to make sure.
There has been some new crew on board and it really mixed well. Because we sail with all kind of nationalities and experience and background, the Espi is a real melting pot. And I love it.
O, I've got to go to work...
G'day. Mike again, your roving Greenpeace New Zealand Oceans campaiger from on board the Esperanza in Alaska.
After the Independence Day celebrations with the residents of Old Harbor on Kodiak Island, we've sailed for about 20 hours through some stunning scenery along the Gulf of Alaska coast. Along the way we passed one particular area that appeared to just be teeming with marine life including a couple of dozen or more humpbacks trailing out in a long procession for what seemed about a mile (2.5 kms). Everyone was on deck taking photos when skipper Pete Wilcox came out and reminded us that "the Japanese whalers are planning to kill about 150 of those down in the Southern Ocean come December"
What a come down. A while later we came across a small group of fin whales (or finback whales) one of the rorquals, a family that includes the humpback whales we'd seen earlier, blue whale, Bryde's whale, sei whale, and minke whale. Rorquals all have a dorsal fin and throat grooves that expand when the animal is feeding. The fin is second only to the blue whale in size and weight. Among the fastest of the great whales, it is capable of bursts of speed of up to 23 mph (37 km/hr) leading to its description as the "greyhound of the sea." Fin whales are baleen whales that feed mainly on small shrimp-like creatures called krill and schooling fish.
After the all night sail, we arrived in the fishing village of Chignik at about 7 am. Located on the Alaska Peninsula, about 450 miles southwest of Anchorage, Chignik consists of predominately Alaskan Native or part Native community members. A couple of fishing boats cruised by with some deckhands on board who made it abundantly clear that they were not too happy with our presence. But then, a couple of other boats of salmon fishermen pulled right up alongside and began chatting with the crew, talking about those damned draggers and how bad they are for the sea bed and the marine life. We talked with fishermen about the Greenpeace fisheries campaign, explaining away the myth, which corporate types in the fishing industry just love to propogate, 'Greenpeace is out to stop all fishing'! Nothing could be further from the truth. We just want to see the fishing become sustainable and provide good jobs for good people indefinitely. A lot of the people we've been talking to on our journey so far say that's what they want to.
The fisherfolk in Chignik were feeling a wee bit dissapointed today because the fish and game administrators had put a two day closure on the salmon purse seining to ensure that enough breeders get through to the rivers and spawn new salmon up in the headwaters. Makes sense and the fishermen didn't seem too fussed. How's the salmon running? I wanted to know. Not many out there this year, apparently. Fishing's not so good.
What was really bugging them, though, is the fact that they're only being paid 70 cents (US) a pound for the red salmon they're catching and, on the other hand, spending about $2.50 a gallon for grade two diesel fuel. Costs are up, prices are down. Hard to make a living. There was a time when a pound of salmon fetched well over $2.50 a pound.
But, why are prices so low? I wanted to know. "It's that darned farmed salmon" was the consensus opinion.
Farmed salmon, including Atlantic and Pacific varieties, is the basis of a two billion dollar a year global industry pumping out more than 2.6 million tons of the stuff in 2006. Norway is the the world's biggest producer, followed closely by chile at number two. Other big producers include the UK (especially Scotland), Canada, the USA, Australia, Ireland and various others, including Japan and New Zealand. If you've tried farmed and wild caught salmon, I'm sure you'll agree that wild caught salmon has it all over the farmed garbage (must be all the chemicals and antibiotics they pump into the farmed stuff).
Unfortunately, most aquaculture projects that produce high value species such as salmon or shrimp exert numerous and substantial pressures on the environment. Farmed carnivorous species (flesh eaters) such as salmon and shrimp currently require fish oil and fishmeal in their feed and these are derived from other wild caught fish. For example the total amount of wild fish used to produce one tonne of farmed salmon is between 2.7 and 3.5 tonnes. To give an idea of scale, between 1985 and 1995 the world's shrimp farmers used 36 million tonnes of wild fish to produce just 7.2 million tons of shrimp. In general, carnivorous species require 2.5 – 5 times as much fish as feed as is produced out the other end. What's wrong with this picture?
In many parts of the world, aquaculture developments, particularly for shrimp, have been developed at enormous cost to coastal communities. Resulting social problems include decreased food security and poverty, the displacement of communities and landlessness, pollution of drinking water and poor working conditions with detrimental impacts on health and education.
Excess food and untreated wastes enter the environment so elevating the nutrient levels and resulting in algal blooms and subsequent oxygen depletion causing habitat destruction and cascading negative ecological effects.
Diseases can spread from farmed fish or shellfish to wild populations, further depleting wild stocks. Chemicals from aquaculture feed, antibiotics and pesticides used for disease control enter the local environment and may also enter the food chain of end consumers.
Building fish or shellfish farms can damage surrounding habitats. The destruction of vast tracts of mangrove forests cut down to make way for shrimp farms is an obvious example.
The introduction of non-native or genetically engineered organisms into the wider marine environment may impact on local wild populations – escapes of farmed fish from sea cages are common.
In short, some forms of aquaculture, especially salmon and shrimp farming, are really bad for the environment and people.
The unsustainable practices associated with the farming of salmon and shrimp is not the way forward.
Instead, Greenpeace supports aquaculture that is sustainable. Sustainable aquaculture is the production of seafood that:
· does not result in negative environmental impacts in terms of discharges/effluents to the surrounding environment, require harmful habitat alterations, cause negative effects to local wildlife or cause a risk to local wild populations;
· cultivates species that do not require fish meal/oil or have fish oil/meal conversion ratios of less than one, or the feed originates from sustainable sources and/or is using alternative sources of omega 3 (algal derivates, grape seed oils etc);
· does not deplete local resources and is energy efficient;
· does not threaten human health; and,
· supports the long-term economic and social well-being of local communities.
It's a simple formula and, come to think of it, not unlike some of our ideas for sustainable fisheries.
Later,
Mike
The day began just about the same as anyother day so far. I woke up early and saw perhaps one of the most beautiful sunrises I have ever seen, and I have been blessed to see many. As soon as I saw that, I immediately took pictures, uploaded them to my computer and shared one with my Tai yox. It had to be done. And as I learn how to use this blog stuff more, I hope to share some of those pictures with you. In the mean time, I hope you can envision in your minds eye beauty, and here, beyond words. It reminded me of the passage in the Bible, the Gospel of St. John. "The Light came into the darkness, and the darkness understood it not." And thus our day began.
As we were coming ashore, anticipations of the day was the chatter aboard our little rib, our inflatable boat we use to travel between the ship and the villages. Some villages do not have a large enough dock, nor is the water deep enough to handle our ship. Although this dock in Old Harbor seems like it can handle our ship, caution is taken, and with good measure. And so we ride our rib. The crew and I yell to be heard over the noise of the engine, excited and full of anticipation. What are we going to see and do, afterall, today is a special day in our country. Today is Independence Day, the 4th of July. And we are in Old Harbor, Kodiak Alaska. Old Harbor by any standards is a small community of about 200 people. What could happen here in such a small out of the way place that could even rival a celebration in other larger more cosmopolitan communities. Little did we know.
Immediately upon arrival we headed straight to the Three Saints Orthodox Church. We were told the day before that the day would begin with prayer. Prayer for peace and prayer for the blessing of the small fleet of commercial salmon fishing vessels, preparing for the upcoming salmon season. As we were walking down the dusty street of our host village, I reflected upon something which brought much comfort and understanding about things in life for me. Someone in our group commented that it is good to take "time out" of our busy schedule to pray. I thought, yeah, that is good. Then my thoughts wandered. It seems we are as a society always concerned about time. Time for this, time for that. We are so accustomed to filling in time with activity, rushing here and there, hurrying. We are taking "time out" of our busy lives to pray. Hummm...to me its like, we are taking "time out" of our prayer lives to work. That to me seems like how we should approach our lives, daily and weekly, monthly and yearly. For prayer allows us to see clearly how well we live and work.As we celebrated and prayed in the Church, the Priest mentioned in his litany that the Lord also blesses the crew and our ship the Esperanza. And this is again where I found thankfulness, that yes, we are being cared for. People care about us, and here in Three Saints Orthodox Church on the 4th of July, in Old Harbor, the love blossomed! "For the crew of the Esperanza, we ask for safe journey, good works and a safe passage back home!" And the people responded in unison, "Lord, have mercy, Lord, have mercy, Lord, have mercy." And we stood in silent reflection with peace. We are not taking "time out" from our busy work schedule to pray, but rather, as we seek questions and hard to come by answers to the problems every village up to now are facing, as we listen and teach, answer questions and see, we are taking "time out" from our prayer to work. For that prayer for our journey follows us every moment, from now until.....
And we met with the current and former Chiefs of the Tribe. Where? On the door steps of the Three Saints Orthodox Church. We interviewed, listened and asked questions. We are engaged in the same mission, asking our leaders of our Country to listen, to pray with us, and to help protect us. Protect our food, our way of life, and share mutual respect. Please, do not allow anyone to hurt us any longer. Peace is, well, sorely needed. The dark clouds of pain have weighed heavily upon our villages for so long, sometimes it seems just a way of life. And you know, and I know, that is not true, nor must we accept it as normal. Whats normal is health, and good health, physical and spiritual, emotional and environmental. Thats normal. And we chase normal with thrist. We pray for peace, for the world, but maybe, more so for ourselves. To seek always to do good, practice good and teach good. Unless we combine efforts without egos, doing such work prayerfully, we may find that the dark cloud hovers oh so dangerously over our planet we call Earth. In peace, let us pray.....Until next time. George
I hope I will not invite a jinx on us, as since we have come on our tour, everyone from Homer to Port Graham and now in Kodiak, everyone has been so receptive and kind. We found this to be oh so true with the Tribes of Kodiak and Afognak Island. They opened not only their doors to us, but also their arms, and for that we are so grateful.
First, lets recap the visit to Port Graham. As I mentioned in my earlier blog, the people and I have a long history. And from the reception I received, we all received, it appears our relationship is going towards a more wonderful working relationship that only can get better and better as time goes on. Something very interesting happened while in Port Graham. Remember we have been talking about PEST (Post Environmental Stress Trauma). Well, while we were interviewing an elderly person there, a woman with a long history of working in the health field with her people, she mentioned some really stressful issues which were caused by the Exxon Valdez oil spill. She lamented that a generation or two of young people, as well as parents and others, missed out on customary and traditional teachings and sharings. Meaning, due to the disaster, there was no time to allow traditional transfer of information because of the environmental mess, and that this allowed communities to suffer. The suffering is on going to this day, and at levels we have yet to understand. While there, the community was having a workshop with a prominent psychologist discussing deeply buried and held oppressions from situations such as this. We talked and he commented that we may have finally put a name to an issue that is so devastaing in many ways to our people, and thus, PEST got its first trial run in the profession.
Then we arrived in Kodiak. I was a bit worried that I may have not prepared enough with their tribes, and that the welcome might not go too well. How mistaken I was. From the time I made my first phone call to the offices until we left Kodiak just this morning, the people have been so open and so interested. One elder of the tribal council commented to me, following an on camera interview we did with him. "George," he said. "Your idea about the heritage zones just might be what will enable our people to survive." Wow. I don't know if this will be the case, but we must do something, be creative and involved in our desires to find solutions to the things people all over Alaska, in coastal communities are facing. From one community to the next, the story seems to be the same. Big changes are happening, big problems are coming. Localized depletions of dependent resources are growing with nary an end in sight. And so, we are more than encouraged as we continue our tour. To the people of Kodiak, Port Graham and Homer, we thank you for your gifts of food and your openess. I hope to be returning again in the near future to bring you an update and a report of our findings.
And now we are on our way to Old Harbor. The thing that makes Old Harbor stand out in my mind so much is that without question, after we first sent the proposed resolution to the Tribes for consideration, they passed it and returned it to my office. How caring, I thought, for their people and environment. Because, I believe in our concept. It has a chance to bring good results to the villages.
Life on the vessel is now becoming a routine. Wake up at 6 AM and go to work. It is heartening to be working with an entire crew who seem, well, not just seem, but who feel so strongly about what we are doing. Everyday someone comments to me about how great this tour is and how good its goals are. I only hope that I am up to the challenge of sustaining our efforts to work with the people, encourage growth and protections on this planet we call Earth.
Until next time.
George
Kia Ora, Mike from Greenpeace New Zealand, a campaigner on board the Esperanza, here again.
We commenced sailing again this morning after a day long visit in Kodiak where we met with representatives of two tribes, Afognak and Kodiak, with an invitation for Greenpeace to return for a larger roundtable discussion in September. The people we met with responded enthusiastically to the idea of developing Marine Cultural Heritage Zones that Greenpeace is proposing. George Pletnikoff, our lead campaigner on this journey through the Gulf of Alaska, Aleutian Islands and the Bering Sea, has writtern about this proposal in earlier blogs that you can read below.
conomic malaise are everywhere around Kodiak these days. They're waiting for the return of the King -- red king crab, that is, not Elvis. Kodiak Island's red king crab fishery hit its peak in 1965, with a harvest of 94 million pounds of crab valued at about $12 million. However, these catches soon plummeted and the fishery closed in 1983, and has been closed now for more than a quarter of a century.
Abundant blue king crab, Tanner crab and shrimp populations also declined some years later. What you could definitely call the deadliest catch. Decades of fishing restrictions that followed have failed to increase crab populations to anything close to what they were in their heyday.Some authorities attribute the collapse to overharvesting, while others speculate that climate change might be the culprit -- an hypothesis that the fishing industry itself likes to believe. "It wasn't us, it's the climate". Maybe it was a bit of both; no one is certain. However, it does underscore the importance of taking a precautionary approach to the management of fisheries. If regulatory authorities set lower, much more cautious levels of allowable catch as a fishery develops, instead of sanctioning the 'gold rush' modus operandi, the chances of survival of any harvested wildlife population in the sea and its ability to withstand fluctuations in the natural environment are vastly enhanced. It's not a 'get rich quick' formula, but it's key ingredient in the recipe for sustainable fishing -- fishing that can continue to support communities' economic needs while carrying on for generation after generation after generation into the future.
Our Kodiak stop was preceeded the previous day by a visit to Port Graham, a small coastal village of about 300 people, where we met with Alutiiq tribal elders and other community members. We learned about the struggle the community has been engaged in for many years with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over permits it has issued over the years allowing the dumping of endless tonnes of dredge tailings from oil drilling operations in Cook Inlet. The dredge tailings contain mercury, cadmium and other highly toxic heavy metals that are distributed by the tidal flow through the area and find their way into the small bay that Port Graham sits in further along the Cook Inlet. Some of the substances that make up Earth's crust are elements, substances that cannot be naturally broken down into simpler substances. A few of these elements are poisonous even if present in a low concentration. These are known as heavy metals. Examples of heavy metals include mercury, cadmium, arsenic, chromium, thallium, and lead.
Heavy metals bioaccumulate through the marine food web that the residents of Port Graham are at the top of. Bioaccumulation of heavy metals is dangerous to human health, affecting the formation of blood cells. The build-up of heavy metals can cause malfunctions in the liver, kidneys, the circulatory system, and the movement of nerve signals. Some heavy metals may also play a role in the development of various cancers. The residents of Port Graham, justifiably, have serious concerns about the human health impacts of this continuous diet of toxins; indeed, one community activist I spoke to remarked that the community has been experiencing a sharp rise in the rate of cancer in the community.
The US EPA has done studies that show conclusively that heavy metals have bioaccumulated into the food web, but assures the residents of Port Graham that they are not at levels that are harmful to human health. What a load of rubbish! Scientists simply do not know at what level these toxins have damaging health effects, and certainly do not understand precisely how these metals accumulate and the effect of that, in the human body over time. So, the residents of Port Graham have joined in a lawsuit against the EPA, hoping to force it to withdraw the permits from the oil companies that allow them to dump this toxic rubbish into Cook Inlet. As the community activist I spoke to told me, "the EPA would never get away with this down in the lower 48, because people just wouldn't stand for it, but because it's happening to us, a remote community of native people, out of sight and mind, the EPA does get away with it."
This is but one example of the sorts of concerns held by the indigenous people of these coastal communities that this journey we are on aims to document. As we head away from Kodiak this morning, and pass a pod of humback whales surfacing and breeching along the port side of the Esperanza, we are all aware that we are heading into a vast marine wilderness -- a place where animal and man depend directly on the health and vitality of the sea -- a place where men and women who understand and have respect for that fact may endure, as the native peoples of Alaska have done for so many thousands of years.
Kia kaha, Mike
Hi, I'm Mike Hagler. Normally, I'm the oceans campaigner for Greenpeace in New Zealand. I’ve just joined the Esperanza for the first leg of Greenpeace’s two month long expedition visiting coastal communities along the Gulf of Alaska, Aleutian Islands and Bering Sea. I’ll be one of two campaigners on board. We’ll be meeting with the indigenous people in these communities to listen to their concerns about the threats they perceive to the environment in this remote region and the changes they’re experiencing in their lives as a result. Climate change, overfishing and destructive fishing practices, the threat of pollution from oil drilling, and proposals to develop a gigantic open-pit coal mine are just a few examples. All of them pose direct threats particularly to the marine environment upon which indigenous people depend for their food and livelihoods.
From our side, one of the ideas we’ll be exploring with communities we meet is a proposal to establish Marine Cultural Heritage Zones. Greenpeace is advocating this concept as a means of preserving and protecting coastal areas that have been of great cultural and spiritual significance to indigenous peoples of the region for thousands of years.
, where I live, the indigenous Maori people have developed two unique types of special areas established under law in recognition of the importance of the sea to Maori cultural identity and sustenance. These are called Mataitai and Taipure and their purpose is to protect and preserve marine areas of cultural and spiritual significance to Maori.
Mataitai reserves are created in areas of traditional importance to Maori for customary food gathering. Within them, tangata whenua (the people of the land) are authorised by the Minister of Fisheries to manage and control the non-commercial harvest of seafood through a local committee. A tangata tiaki/kaitiaki can recommend bylaws to manage customary food gathering in keeping with local sustainable management practices, and issue customary food authorisations. Mataitai reserves are permanent, though the bylaws can change over time. Once a mataitai reserve is established, commercial fishing is not allowed unless recommended by the tangata tiaki/kaitiaki. Maori and non-Maori may fish in mataitai reserves.
Taipure are local fisheries in coastal waters that recognise the special significance of the area to local iwi or hapu, either as a source of seafood, or for spiritual or cultural reasons. Taiapure give Maori greater say in the management of their traditionally important areas. A major difference between mataitai and taiapure is that taiapure allow commercial fishing. A taiapure proposal from a local community must go through a public consultation process before it is approved. Once set up, a committee nominated by the local Maori community advises the Minister of Fisheries on regulations to control all types of fishing within the local area.
On this great, but threatened, planet of ours, indigenous peoples are facing similar problems and concerns. Local and traditional knowledge must be recognized as an equally valid, scientific method of identifying and solving environmental problems. Thus, with my participation in the Bering Sea 2007 tour, we are beginning a relationship with our northern hemisphere brothers and sisters.
that's all for now, Mike
Well, I have arrived! That is about all I can say about that. I have arrived at a place in my life where "support" is everywhere. Where people from all walks of life, all over the world, everywhere have come together on this beautiful ship, the Esperanza (Hope) to support. To support the work many of us have worked so hard to develop, hopes we have to see peace and growth toward a healthier way of living. Incredabily, I am at a loss of words to describe my feelings, feelings I immediately shared with my friend, my Tai yox, the very next day upon my arrival in Homer.
About two hours after I got myself settled on this ship, I called my wife, Leonella, who is in Anchorage to let her know I am safe and happy. We spoke about things couples do when separated. Then she said something to me which I will never forget. After describing the ship, the people, beautiful Homer, (in our other life we lived right accross the bay from Homer in a small village called Seldovia where I served as the pastor for six years, so this is like home) she said: "Now work hard!" And that blew me! I immediately marveled about the depth of love my wife holds, not only for me, but also for our people and our environment.
We began our work, getting to know one another, getting to know the ship and in some ways getting to know our roles in this network of support. And as always happens to me, I marveled at what we are doing. Greenpeace is indeed the "people's organization" I thought. For surly we are going to meet, hear, learn and speak with people, ancient peoples. We are going to a small village, Port Graham, again one of my parishes back in the day. I thought about the many baptisms I had participated in, weddings, feasts, fasts, and funerals. I remember one Sunday moring in particular, when I had arrived early on a small skiff to celebrate with the people. I arrived and the entire community, dressed in their Sunday's best, men, women, children, all smiles and joy, carrying a cross, banners, flowers, to meet me and escort me to the Church. They were singing and guiding me. A welcome usually reserved for our Bishop. But they were doing it for me. Support. And I am returning. Thank you Tai yox.
Well, we had three wonderful days here in Homer. We did interviews, talks, and open ships with the community. We heard; "thank you for the work you are doing." We listened to questions, heard answers, gave answers. The local paper came. The local radio station came. The mothers, fathers and their children hand in hand, walked our gang plank. Smiles, buttons and stickers in hand. And we smiled, at ourselves and one another. Support.
Amongst all of this, I kept wondering and thinking. And I think I began to understand. As there is no doubt about post tramatic stress syndrome, a real disorder which impacts many of our people, and peoples all over the world, I wondered. Is there such a thing as post environmental stress trauma (PEST)? Do we, especially people who are totally dependent upon the health of the environment, nature, suffer from a daily watch as she suffers? Is this, can this be real? When we view nature, visit our parks, reserves, participate in ecotourism activities, and then return home, do we remove our intimacy with nature? And in that separation, do we feel misplaced? Lost? Nature now becoming our zoo? And what about the years of stress our people feel who live a subsistence lifestyle, who are intimate with nature? Is PEST true? I think so. Exxon Valdez comes to mind.
We heard a lot from the people in Homer about our marine cultural heritage zones. This concept, this idea, this goal, said them all, has got to work! It is good. It is time. It is needed. And my wife said, now work hard.
Tai yox is right. He simply said yes. For that I am thankful, and for much, much more. The Esperanza is here to support. The fullness of nature is waiting. The whales are resting. The birds are in a glide and hover, and best of all, the people are excited. To the community and people, wonderful people of Homer, a big hug and thank you to you. Your warmth and prayers, good wishes makes me want more than anything else to follow the demand of my wonderful wife. At least for the day, for now, PEST is not a problem for us, and prayerfully, for all of us on the planet we call Earth.
Until next time.
George
One of the documents you are able to read as you log on to our Bering Sea 2007 site is a paper about Marine Cultural Heritage Zones. (MCHZ) I would like to make a few comments about this concept, one which I am sure is not new to many of you.
We Alaska Natives still take much pride in our heritage, our ancestory and our cultures. This surely is not new or unique to our people. What might be in many ways, is that we still practise cultural activities handed down to us by our ancestors. Although both the US and State governments have spent millions of dollars and initiated programs to "americanize" our people, we fight to maintain our identity and heritage. What is becoming more and more difficult however, is working to pass these centuries learned practises to our children. Western influences of entertainment and values are fast encroaching on our villages and into our lives on a daily basis. With the information age, such as it is, one may think that surly in the US all Americans are "modernized" and/or considered "civilized" in the worst defination of that term. In many of our smaller and isolated villages, and the larger ones in many cases, our people relish our traditional ways of living as given to us by our ancestors. Certainly there has been technology transfer opportunities and adoptions by many of our people. To do certain activities easier simply makes sense considering life and safety issues. But fundamentally, the activity remains the same. We are a traditional foods people. We live off the bounty which nature provides. The foods we eat have been eaten by our people for generations and are still our favorite foods. For sure, the foods we eat are more healthier than what western culture constantly pounds into our minds and palets daily as we watch television and visit our grocery stores. Sadly many of our people are contracting such illnesses as diabetes and cancer at a rate comparable to many thired world countries.
As the competition for healthy protien foods, such as the fish and other marine fauna provides, reach levels such that we are catching them in quantities measured by metric tons continues, these large industrialized factory trawlers, themselves mobile, begin to encroach upon our traditional harvesting grounds near and close to our homes, we begin to suffer. Our villages, established at sites where we are able to have easy access to them and, of all reasons, settled in recent years because our people "had to" by law get our children into schools, our villages are no longer mobile. The factory ships are. And they are taking advantage of that. Moving into areas where they claim the fish they are targeting are, without much consideration for our needs. Added to this dilemma is the fact that much of what they are targeting, the fish, are food for our traditional foods. So what is a man to do when his family is dependent upon foods we eat and have for generations? If in time of need, and he cannot feed his family, what is he to do? Not only do we need protections, our foods do as well. Thus the heritage zones.
We are, for the most part, hunters and gatherers. We harvest our heritage daily. By that I mean, we harvest what foods we are dependent upon almost daily throughout the year. You have heard, for every thing there is a season. We live all seasons.
So a major part of our tour this summer is to promote the establishment of these heritage zones. Some of the zones may be close to home, others may be off into the distance. And as we visit the villages we are going to, and as we learn what is happening to the people and their foods, we hope many will see the wisdom in the need to protect our foods, obviously, and further to protect the foods upon which our foods depend. They too, our foods, have areas in the ocean from which they get their foods. That needs protection. As the sourthern Bering Sea, say from about St. Matthew Island south continues to get hammered by commercialized, big business fishers and companies, our grocery stores shrink and our villages begin to disappear. Add to this dilemma climate change and all that is bringing to our homes, heritage zones are at least an answere to a growing problem. Not only here in Alaska, but I am sure, all over in our oceans on this planet we call Earth!
Until next time,
George
It has been a long cold winter for us people here in Alaska. For a long time, during the months of April and May, it did not seem like it was ever going to warm up. The cold north winds kept whipping down the entire State and hit us squarely here in Anchorage. Finally, however, it has warmed up to now about 65 degrees F. Warm by our standards. But the weather is not the topic of discussion or interest now, it is our Gulf of Alaska/Bering Sea voyage aboard the R/V Esperanza. Finally!
I say finally, because it seems like eons ago that we began prepairations for this trip. For those of you who may not know me, let me reintroduce myself. My name is George Pletnikoff. I am Unangan (ooo nung gan) or Aleut, the name the Russians gave to our people on the Aleutian Chain a little more than 200 years ago. Unangan is the name we called ourselves prior to European contact. We Unangan lived on the Aleutian Islands for a bit more than 10,000 years. I was born on the Pribilof Islands, a group of small islands right in the middle of the Bering Sea. For me, this voyage is a "going home" voyage. I will be heading home to learn more about my people, our environment and our current state of affairs. I will, however, be learning more about myself than perhaps anything else. What has happened to our people in the last 200 years and how has our environment changed are just a couple of questions I will be seeking answers to. And I hope to be sharing some of these answers with you during the next two to three months, and beyond as we look closely at what we find, what we see and what we hear. There promises to be so much to ingest in such a short time.
Since our 2006 Bering Sea tour, I have since relocated with my family to Anchorage. Its kinda nice to be in the big city, largest in Alaska, but often I feel like a fish out of water because its not home for us. We miss our families, our cultural activities, our traditional foods and especially the closeness of village life with our people. But, due to my work with Greenpeace, I am now a city boy. Its fine for now, but it does get lonely at times. My wife is also from the Pribilof Islands and often feels the same as I do. And she is such a good cook when preparing our traditional foods. Really reminds me of my mother and our family as I was growing up and playing on the tundra of the Pribilofs. Listening to the millions of fur seals, millions of sea birds amongst all the wild flowers and their odor, what a place to be born and raised.
Now we are getting ready for our research. Along with the research planned for the Pribilof and Zumchug Canyons, which I am sure you will learn more about later, we will be visiting the people of the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea. We will be traveling to villages with long historic and traditional living communities with names like Kodiak, Port Graham, King Cove, Chignik, Akutan and Tooksook Bay, to name a few. Some of them are Aleutiq people, others are Yup'ik Eskimo and others are Unangan. Such diverse and proud heritages with strong cultural ties to our land and waters surrounding our homes. Many of us, thankfully, still speak our native languages and practise our cultural activities. I am so excited, and increadibly thankful that I am blessed with this opportunity!
As we begin our journey into the Waters of Alaska, I hope to be posting more stories and findings on this site and hope you will spark more interest in me to look for some answers to questions you will have. Truely, the winter has been long, but the summer promises to be one which we hope will help us to learn and share, listen, read and ask. I look forward to meeting you on line and exchanging messages which I know our people will be happy to hear coming from you. Let us bridge a distance between our people and cultures such that we will become life long friends all in pursuit of a single goal to better protect our home on this wonderful planet we call Earth!
Until next time,
George
[Thanks to Jennifer Jacquet at the Shifting Baselines blog for being the first to post this piece.]
I am looking forward to a World Oceans Day where I can kick back with a beer and relax, knowing that the oceans are in great shape. I sincerely hope this won't involve time travel or an inter-galactic voyage.
Anyone paying attention knows that the oceans are in serious trouble, and that overfishing - and use of destructive and indiscriminate fishing methods - is at the heart of the problem. Climate change is starting to make a run for the ocean enemy # 1 prize, but for now unsustainable fishing is safely in the lead. The good news, I suppose, is that in theory we should be able to do something about that.
In the recent debate over Boris Worm's finding that most commercial fisheries could be in a state of collapse by 2048 based upon current trends, some representatives of the Alaska fishing industry were quick to point out that all need not be lost, if only the rest of the world followed the Alaska model.
Meanwhile, back in reality, Alaska fisheries managers recently responded to a proposal to protect some of the world's largest submarine canyons by saying 'yes, these are unique and diverse habitats, but we don't know enough to justify protecting them.' Ah, the precautionary approach we've all come to know and love! Greenpeace's response is to pull together an expedition to explore these remarkable canyons, using submersibles and an ROV to gather data which will hopefully lead to more informed - and precautionary - management actions.
This week, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council is meeting to decide whether to allow bottom trawling in the northern half of the Bering Sea. The Advisory Panel chose the strangest option on the table, Alternative 3, which would set "a performance standard of at least 2.5 inches of elevation of the sweep from the bottom." Hmm, maybe I shouldn't have made that "back in reality" crack, because this is pure fantasy. Even the bottom trawlers have no idea how to pull that off.
The final decision, though, will be made not by the Advisory Panel (which has exactly one "conservation" seat) but by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (which has none). And this brings us to the common thread that threatens to unravel any attempt to reform fisheries management in the US and much of the rest of the world: as long as the fishing industry is allowed to regulate itself, short-term profits will continue to win out over long term sustainability. Fisheries will continue to be managed on a single-species basis with little or no regard for the ecosystem, marine reserves will remain the topic of scientists' recommendations and environmentalists' appeals, and 2048 will be as bleak as predicted.
Fortunately, we have a few cards of our own to play: the public is beginning to recognize the need for change, consumers are starting to recognize their power, and direct action can often be quite persuasive. And most hopefully yet, more and more fishermen, processors, distributors and retailers are beginning to recognize on their own that sustainability may better serve their interests than business as usual.
We still have a ways to go, but we just may be able to celebrate World Oceans Day together in the not so distant future, right here on the Water Planet.
John H
Happy Earth Day, Water Planet! While it may not always be easy to smile about the state of our oceans these days, I hope you feel good about your efforts to help protect them. (And if you'd like to do more but aren't sure how to help, our friend David Helvarg's book "50 Ways to Save the Ocean" is a great source of ideas!)
Speaking of books, Bruce Franklin has a great new book that you may want to check out. "The Most Important Fish in the Sea" tells the story of menhaden, a fish you may know from Greenpeace's battles to stop Texas-based factory fishing company Omega Protein from mining it into oblivion. Bruce explains the importance of menhaden as a source of food for other species along the Atlantic coast, and as a filter-feeding, plankton-eating part of the answer to our increasing problem with Dead Zones. There are even some nice photos from a couple Greenpeace actions in there.
Unfortunately, the situation with Omega Protein and menhaden is getting even worse. With all their spotter planes and high tech gear, Omega still couldn't find menhaden in the Chesapeake last season, and traveled all the way up to federal waters off New Jersey to search for fish. This is not a good sign, as the Chesapeake is the most important nursery area for menhaden. And new data shows that large striped bass, which should be eating a LOT of menhaden, are going hungry. You'd think this would be enough to wake up the Atlantic States Fisheries Commission, but... you'd be wrong. Stay tuned, because this one is going to get interesting.
Another interesting showdown is just ahead: the International Whaling Commission meeting in Anchorage next month. Last year, Japan was able to buy enough votes to get a slim majority, but Greenpeace has been working hard together with several governments and other organizations to turn that around. We won't know for sure until the meeting is over, but I think we may be able to win this one for the whales. It's going to be close though, and we can use your help. Stop by our website and join the fight to save the whales!
The more each of us does for the planet, the happier our Earth Days will be. Keep up the good work -
John H
Copy, sign and fax the letter below to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, or use the text as the basis for your own letter. Here’s why:
Today marks one week since the Nisshin Maru first caught fire, tragically killing one crew member and disabling the ship here in the Ross Sea. The whaling fleet has given us daily progress reports on their repairs, but every day it is the same: we are told they are working to fix the Nisshin Maru’s engines, they would like the Nisshin Maru to sail out of here under its own steam, but there is more work to do so they cannot say when that will be.
Enough is enough. An entire week has passed and the Nisshin Maru is still sitting here, posing an unacceptable risk to human life and the pristine Antarctic environment.
It’s time to get the Nisshin Maru and the whaling fleet out of here. The Japanese government’s decision to let the Nisshin Maru sit here for over a week is irresponsible and shows a lack of concern for the lives of those who remain on the whaling ships as well as the Antarctic environment. The Antarctic is a global common and is protected by the Antarctic Treaty System. As a signatory, the Japanese government has a responsibility to minimize and hopefully eliminate harm to the Antarctic environment.
The U.S. is also a signatory to the treaty that protects Antarctica, yet the U.S. State Department said today that it would leave the matter of the Nisshin Maru to the government of New Zealand. The U.S. cannot sign a treaty and then choose whether it will act to enforce it or not. The Bush administration has a legal and moral responsibility to intervene and do all that it can to pressure the Japanese government to get the Nisshin Maru out of the Antarctic. Yet the U.S. has said it will stand by and defer this whole matter to the government of New Zealand.
The letter to fax to Secretary of State Rice follows. Please let her know that you care about Antarctica, and that you want the whaling fleet out of the Antarctic, for good.
Thank you.
Melanie
The Hon. Condoleezza Rice
Secretary of State
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520
Via Fax: 202-647-2283
Dear Secretary Rice,
I am writing to request that you take urgent action to get the stricken whaling vessel, Nisshin Maru, out of Antarctica as soon as possible. The Nisshin Maru caught fire on February 15 and tragically, one crew member was killed. Since then the ship has been disabled deep in the Ross Sea with a reported 1,000 to 1,300 metric tons of fuel on board.
The Greenpeace ship Esperanza rushed to the Nisshin Maru’s assistance and has been standing by since arriving on February 17. All of the Esperanza’s offers to tow the stricken vessel out of the Antarctic have been refused. The Japanese government must act to get the Nisshin Maru out of the Antarctic, whether it’s with a tow from Greenpeace or a tow from other vessels in the whaling fleet.
I am deeply disappointed that the U.S. has deferred the issue of the Nisshin Maru to the government of New Zealand. Antarctica is a global common, and moreover, the U.S. has signed treaties designed to protect it.
I urge you to uphold the spirit and intent of the Antarctic treaty by doing all that you can to urge the Japanese government to get the Nisshin Maru out Antarctica as soon as possible to reduce and hopefully eliminate any further risk to human life and the sensitive marine environment. The Japanese government’s whaling program threatens all marine life in Antarctica and therefore, this season must be the last.
Sincerely,
Your Name Here
This morning at 5:40am marked five days since the Nisshin Maru first sent out a mayday distress call. Since then, the ship has been sitting here, disabled, in the Ross Sea. Greenpeace has been on-scene with the Nisshin Maru for over three days to offer assistance, including towing the crippled whaling vessel north, out of the Antarctic. All of our offers to tow the vessel to safety have been refused by the Japanese authorities in Tokyo. We have been told that the whaling fleet will use its own vessels to tow the Nisshin Maru north, however, the Esperanza still remains the best-equipped ship for the job. Our captain, Frank Kamp, has ten years experience working on salvage vessels, including experience in the hazardous waters of the North Sea.
It’s not just Greenpeace that’s anxious for the Nisshin Maru to get a move on out of here. The New Zealand government has gone well beyond the bounds of normal diplomatic language to make the point. New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark is clearly losing patience and said to the Japanese earlier this week: “My advice is if you can't see a way of getting the boat out of there without some help from Greenpeace or from somebody else, the world is going to be very upset if there is a spill in that area.” She has also said that the Japanese government’s whaling program could be subject to a new wave of criticism if the Nisshin Maru spills oil into the pristine Antarctic environment. Other governments should be asking the same questions.
It seems that Ms. Clark sees what is blindingly obvious: the only issue at hand right now is getting the oil-laden Nisshin Maru out of the Antarctic immediately. Unfortunately, the Japanese government has blinders on, and is more concerned about saving face and not accepting help from Greenpeace – a group that has vociferously opposed its high seas whaling program for decades – than with getting its ship out of this environment. The Japanese politicians say they can tow the Nisshin Maru with other boats from the whaling fleet, but still, the Nisshin Maru sits here. It’s a game of Russian Roulette and the odds get worse with every passing day.
In the U.S., the disaster caused by the Exxon Valdez running aground in Alaska almost 18 years ago sparked new state and federal regulations governing oil spill response and clean up plans. The problem with these plans is that they may look good on paper, but in reality, they don’t pass muster. In my ten years with Greenpeace in Alaska, I have reviewed and commented on oil spill plans for offshore oil projects in the Beaufort Sea, a part of the Arctic Ocean just off Alaska’s north coast. I’ve also observed “spill drills” where oil spill response equipment is put to the test in the Beau
fort Sea.
My experience and first hand observation is that oil spill response at high latitudes ranges from incredibly difficult to impossible, even in summer months with 24 hours of light and relatively warm temperatures that hover around freezing. Even in the short polar summer, weather can be unpredictable and fierce, and pack ice is always a complicating factor. Year round, extreme wind, temperature and ice conditions often make it too risky to human life to even respond to an oil spill in the first place. And tricky broken ice conditions in spring and fall make response virtually, if not completely impossible.
And what does “cleaning up” an oil spill really mean? Even under optimal conditions such as a temperate climate, calm seas, no wind and oil response equipment close at hand, only 15 percent of the spilled oil is actually removed from the environment. The rest remains, smothering birds and other wildlife so that they die of hypothermia, suffocation or by poisoning through ingesting oil in an effort to clean themselves. The 18-year anniversary of the Exxon Valdez is five weeks away and, even though Exxon Mobil declared the area “cleaned up” two years after the spill, numerous scientific studies show that it still poses far ranging problems for fish and wildlife, and continues to degrade the environment. Indeed, when the spill first happened, scientists predicted the oil would be long gone by now. What they have found is that the oil is “weathering” away at a rate of three to four percent per year, which translates into the oil persisting in the environment for decades.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the only way to protect the fragile polar marine environments in the Arctic and Antarctic is to prevent an oil spill from happening in the first place. It’s time for the Japanese to stop playing Russian Roulette with the pristine Antarctic environment and get their crippled whaling vessel, the Nisshin Maru, out of here as soon as possible.
Melanie
It's now Monday afternoon and we've been with the Nisshin Maru for more than two days. Luckily the weather is holding - it's calm by Southern Ocean standards with light winds, relatively calm seas and this morning there was even a patch of blue sky here and there. But we are still at 73 degrees south latitude and it is getting late into February, which means the clock is ticking and at some point soon, this area will start freezing over in earnest. There's pack ice 14 miles to the east of us and 20 miles to the southwest of us, and things can change so quickly here in terms of temperature and wind that ice conditions can change radically in a matter of hours.
The Nisshin Maru (and the Esperanza, since we are shadowing it and the fleet) drifted 30 miles to the north in the last 24 hours. Thankfully, the overriding currents flow north, pushing the disabled ship, the whaling fleet and us toward open water. But 30 miles is an insignificant distance given the size of the Ross Sea, an area that will be completely frozen over once temperatures drop.
We are in regular contact with the whaling fleet to provide updates on ice conditions. They’ve thanked us for the information and have kept us posted on the progress of repairs on board the Nisshin Maru. One of the things they’re trying to fix is the ship’s heating system. They’ve been working on an unheated ship for days and that won’t change until the system is fixed. It's gotta be a nasty situation. In my experience, having spent a decent amount of time at high latitudes, being perpetually cold is a form of stress that affects not only your body, but your mind and spirit as well.
I'm feeling increasingly anxious and agitated as the days come and go and there is no movement on the part of the whaling fleet to get the disabled Nisshin Maru out of here. My agitation is not due to boredom or wishing I could be doing something else. I know from experience in the Arctic that at high latitudes, autumn can be a sudden flash of time that delineates summer and winter, and winter can come on suddenly and violently. We’ve been here for over two days, waiting on stand by, even though we have the equipment and expertise to tow the Nisshin Maru out of Antarctica. What are they waiting for?
The Nisshin Maru still has, according to media reports, 1,000 or more tons of fuel on board, and the whaling fleet has hundreds of people dispersed between its seven ships. I can't say in strong enough terms that this is not the time to be bobbing around like a cork in the Ross Sea. No matter how I try to think about it, I cannot understand why a decision was not made days ago to hightail it out of here as soon as possible. The Nisshin Maru first put out its mayday alert at 5:40am on February 15. That was over four days ago. They've waited long enough. It's time to start heading north out of these treacherous waters. Every click of the clock increases the risk that this slow motion disaster will take more lives and lead to an environmental disaster.
Melanie
Yesterday morning at 7am I was in the bridge with my morning coffee when third mate Zeger sited through binoculars the Nisshin Maru and other vessels from the whaling fleet. As we got closer, we saw that the re-supply and re-fueling vessel Oriental bluebird was on one side of the disabled Nisshin Maru, while one of the catcher boats (the vessels with the harpoons the actually kill the whales) was on the other side. Two other catcher boats were hovering near the Nisshin Maru. On our stern was the US Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Sea. The Polar Sea was doing just as we were: getting closer to the Nisshin Maru to assess the situation.
At 8am we radioed the Nisshin Maru, but the ship did not answer, which was not a surprise given the ship had a serious fire and is most likely without power. We radioed to the catcher boat, Yushin Maru, and told them we are here only to assist in whatever way was required. The Yushin Maru replied that it would be helpful if we could assess ice conditions in the area, and it may be helpful if the Esperanza helped them navigate once towing is underway. Since then we have been standing by, waiting to see if the Nisshin Maru and the fleet are in need of anything from food, water and blankets to medical care or anything else.
We’ve had a number of conversations with the fleet throughout the day where they have updated us on their progress and we have provided information on the location of the ice pack and ice-free waters. At around 3pm, the fleet contacted us to give us an update on their progress, and at that time they informed us that they had found the body of their missing crew member.
Needless to say it’s been an emotional day. My thoughts are with the crew member’s family and friends, as well as with the rest of the crew of the Nisshin Maru. I can’t imagine how they must be feeling right now. What a terrible tragedy. I will keep them in my prayers.
I have read many times about instances where tragedy and misfortune break down walls and transcend differences between people. I know that right now, my heart goes out to the people on the ships in the distance. It sounds like they are appreciative that the Esperanza is here, on stand-by and ready to assist, and that they would not hesitate to ask us for help if they needed it. In times like these the walls come down and the spirit of compassion, kindness and cooperation take over. At least that’s how it feels from my vantage point.
Yesterday the Institute for Cetacean Research issued a statement saying that the disabled Nisshin Maru would not accept any help from Greenpeace because we are “terrorists.” I hope that the ICR executives sitting in Tokyo have finally come to realize that non-violence underlies all that we do, and that the “peace” in Greenpeace is an integral part of all of our words and actions.
Melanie
This afternoon (Feb 12) at 4:55pm the Esperanza received a distress call from the Japanese whaling fleet's unarmed sighting vessel, the Kaiko Maru.
The Esperanza offered immediate assistance, heading at full speed to its position.
According to the Rescue Coordination Center of New Zealand, first reports stated the Kaiko Maru was "under attack." Later reports claimed a collision between the Sea Shepherd vessel Robert Hunter and the Kaiko Maru, with the Robert Hunter receiving a hole in its hull above the water line and the Kaiko Maru suffering unspecified damage to its propeller.
We completely condemn any violent action by anyone. Potentially endangering lives in the middle of the Southern Ocean is completely unacceptable. In addition, while these three vessels are engaged in a potentially life threatening incident, just over the horizon hunter ships with grenade-tipped harpoons could be killing whales. That is where the focus should be.
At approximately 6:15pm, the Rescue Coordination Center of New Zealand requested that the Esperanza "stand down,” which means we could stay in the area but not go near any of the ships. We informed the Rescue Center that we would remain within VHF range in case assistance was needed.
Just now, at 8:15pm, the Rescue Coordination Center of New Zealand declared an end to the mayday by sending a fax that read, “seelonce feenee.” That’s the phonetic spelling for the French phrase that means “end of silence. ” In ship communication-speak, that means “enforced radio silenced is finished.” In plain English, it means the mayday is over and they’ve called it a day.
We now go back to the reason we came here: to stop the Japanese government from killing whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.
Melanie
Last night at around 11pm, the ship's engines were turned off to avoid having to navigate through ice at night. We spent the night quietly rocking back and forth, and as a result, I had my best night of sleep since leaving Auckland. I didn't wake up or move all night long, as evidenced by the neatness of the bedding when I woke up in the morning. I don't think I moved at all, which was a lovely change from the tossing, turning and rolling around in my bunk that usually takes place.
This morning when I got up, I could see the ice edge about half a mile from the ship. For me, that's better than coffee or anything else for jump starting a morning. Nothing (except for an ice sheet or a high latitude glacier) can beat the polar pack ice. I've been obsessed with it (and all things Arctic) since my first trip to the Alaskan arctic on the Arctic Sunrise in 1997. Since then I've buried my nose in books, research papers, news articles and just about anything I can find about the Arctic, as well as the people who have explored both poles in the past few centuries. It's fascinating stuff, and it can capture my imagination like nothing else. Up until now my obsession has focused on the Arctic since I'd traveled there, worked there and had a first hand "relationship" with it. I never thought I'd ever make it to this part of the world. Now I can feel my obsession shifting to include all things Antarctic, which means a trip to the book store when I get home and another pile of polar books amassing next to the bed.
A little while after I woke up, the ship entered the pack ice. I didn't have to look out the porthole, I could tell by the change in the ship's movement and the crunching sound of the ship's bow pushing large chunks of ice out of its path. The brash ice had formed a solid surface on the water that was punctuated by a mish mash of small and large pieces of ice, some flat, some more than 6m/20ft high, with slush-like ice forming a sort of mortar between the pieces of ice. The best part is watching this seemingly solid layer of ice move with the swell of the ocean…it's positively amazing, and very psychedelic. We saw penguins on the ice, which really drove home the fact that we're in the Antarctic. We also saw a few seals lazing around on ice floes, but I have no idea what kind they were. Yet another thing to learn about this part of the world...
It was tough to rip myself away from the bridge but I did just that since an important part of every morning is cleaning, and the showers were waiting for me. It was probably the happiest I've ever been while scrubbing down a shower stall, the ice buzz will be with me for quite a while. My face already hurts from smiling so much.
And today is Karli's birthday. So far I'm sure it's been a pretty good birthday given the pack ice and all. Now, if we can only find the whaling fleet today... that would be the best birthday gift of all.
- Melanie
On Sunday the ship started to roll and pitch again. It started at 4am, or at least that's the time that the movement woke me up from a sound sleep and kept me up for the rest of the night. The wind and waves increased for much of the morning so that by 11am, the ship was being pummeled by 10m/33ft swells coming from the starboard side, and the wind was regularly clocking in at the high 40 knot range with gusts into the 50s. A lot of us were in the bridge hanging on to railings or permanently mounted objects, leaning to the right and then shifting to the left as the ship rolled 30 degrees. I've finally gotten over my ridiculous fear that somehow the ship will capsize when it rolls, so I quite enjoyed it.
At around 11am Gavin, the videographer, fastened a camera (lens facing the ship) to the foremast. Once he was back inside Captain Frank turned the ship's bow right into the waves so Gavin could get some good footage of the ship plowing through some rough seas. The ship stayed on that course for about an hour, and every so often the ship would ride up on a swell and then slide down into a deep trough, sending tons of water (literally) spraying up and around the bow of the ship, filling the entire deck of the ship's bow with water. It looked like a white water river flowing toward the stern and out the scuppers on deck. Daniel, the photographer, was out on a bridge wing (the small decks on each side of the bridge) taking photographs and he got drenched by a wave... and that's 10m/33 feet up from the waterline!
The ship continued to pitch and roll all day yesterday. It's tough to do much of anything in that kind of weather, which leads to a wee bit of boredom. I didn't mind it that much because I know that once we find the whaling fleet we'll be working full-tilt for days or weeks without stopping. I also managed to get through the day without getting seasick, so perhaps maybe this is my first trip where I do indeed "get used to it" with time.
Last night we gathered in the mess to watch crew videos from past expeditions. The last one we saw was from last year's Southern Ocean expedition. It included very disturbing footage of a minke whale that had been harpooned, had a huge gash in its tail and was thrashing in the water, spewing blood everywhere. It was really, REALLY tough to watch, and after a while it just got to be too much and I had to leave the room. I can't believe the Japanese government has the chutzpah to call that "research." It is so wrong on so many levels. I mean, just what part of "Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary" don't they understand? But I can't direct all of my anger at the Japanese government since its governments like the U.S. who have stood by for the last thirteen years, failing to defend the Sanctuary, as well as failing to hold the Japanese government accountable for violating it. Surely the United States can do better than that. It's high time for the U.S., and other pro-conservation governments, to put their money where their mouth is and put an end to whaling in the Southern Ocean Sanctuary. What are they waiting for?
This morning we saw our first icebergs - big tabular giants that looked like they had just calved off an ice sheet or glacier. They were stunning. And it just started snowing outside, which makes me feel more at home! Time to break out the woolly hat...
More soon,
Melanie
After two days of rough weather the seas have calmed down once more. Hallelujah! I barely slept for the two nights we were in rough seas, the movement kept tossing me around in my bunk. The bow crashing into the water when the ship pitched forward created a loud bang and made the entire ship shudder. Not fun. I spent many hours looking at my watch and trying to will myself to sleep, which was an exercise in futility. It was so lovely to get a full night's sleep last night, I went to bed at around 10pm and slept until 7. Sweet.
I was feeling so puny during the rough weather, my grand proclamation about making it through the entire trip without getting seasick went by the wayside. Being seasick is a pretty miserable feeling, particularly when it seems like most of the folks on board are immune. I have to keep telling myself that it's not a sign of weakness, that it's just a physiological thing. Plus, I hear that folks who are physically fit and have good balance are more prone to seasickness, so I'll assume it's all of the yoga and running I've been doing that's contributing to the problem. I wound up taking seasickness pills yesterday morning after being miserable for a full 24 hours, but the turning point about whether to take them or not was when I was told that Henk Haazen, a long-time Greenpeace ship person who now sails the Southern Ocean in his handmade yacht, gets horribly seasick and takes loads of pills for it. There is nothing about Henk that is weak or puny, so I figured if he can get seasick and take pills, then so can I.
We're now officially in the Southern Ocean, having crossed the Antarctic Convergence (the line where the Pacific Ocean ends and the Southern Ocean begins). It's pretty ironic that the seas are so calm now, I mean, I've heard horror stories about the Southern Ocean and so far it's been like sailing along on a lake with a gentle swell every once in a while. I’m sure I’ll wind up eating my words in a few days' time. Things are noticeably colder now that we've crossed the convergence. I’ve stowed my sandals in favor of boots, and I don't go anywhere without at least one layer of polar fleece. I have no idea when we’ll see our first iceberg but I'm hoping it'll be soon.
This afternoon the crew is practicing putting boats into the water, loading people into and out of the boats at the pilot door, communicating with each other and the ship, as well as some maneuvering. The practice is essential for fine-tuning equipment, finding things that need to be fixed or adjusted, and basically orienting themselves with the equipment and how it works. Many folks have been on board for previous trips to the Southern Ocean, but even more have not, so it's an important orientation for everyone. I spent the entire training on the bridge keeping track of who goes into what boat and when, which is a tad bit boring, but I know I won't always be on the bridge scribbling things down into a notebook. It's pretty impressive to see the boats out in the water, it’ll be even better when they’re being used to stop the whalers.
More soon,
Melanie
The seas have picked up significantly since yesterday and the ship is rolling about 20 degrees to port and starboard, sometimes more. I'm psyched that I haven't had to take any seasickness medicine at all, and while I have a constant lowgrade headache and a tinge of nausea, I'm certainly nowhere close to how sick I've been on past expeditions on the Arctic Sunrise. This ship is so much more stable than the Arctic Sunrise, and I'm pretty confident that I'll be able to make it through the entire expedition with my stomach contents intact.
And just as I finished typing that paragraph Captain Frank took the wheel and the ship started rolling more than 30 degrees. My chair slid on the floor all the way to the port side of the ship, but Sara was between me and the wall so the two of us jumbled up in a pile. But just for a moment, because then the ship rolled to port and we slid in a heap into Sakyo at the other end of the office. All the while trying to keep our chairs from flying out from under us, clutching our laptops and trying to prevent notebooks and other office paraphernalia from sliding onto the floor. The office we work in is on the same deck as the bridge, which is about ten meters/33 feet above the water. So when the ship rolls, it's amplified up here. The best place to be is as close to the water as possible where the movement is least severe.
Word of mouth is that the maximum roll on this ship last year was 40 degrees (compare that to the Arctic Sunrise whose maximum roll was 70 degrees in the Southern Ocean last year), so I figure we've already experienced ¾ of it. It's a bit novel right now since it's our first day of big seas, but I know in a few short days (or by the end of today!) we'll grow tired of this game of 3-dimensional Twister on a roller coaster.
The only good thing about the rough seas is that it forces the whalers to take a time-out. Hopefully these conditions extend all the way to the whaling grounds and has put a halt to the killing of whales.
More soon,
Melanie
Yesterday was Sunday, and traditionally, someone offers to cook dinner so the cooks can have at least half a day off.
Last night the campaigners on board (me from the US office, Karli from Greenpeace International and Sakyo from Greenpeace Japan) cooked a Japanese dinner for the crew. We started at 1pm and it took the entire five hours to get all of the food ready for the crew by six pm. We had a pretty ambitious menu: nori maki (seaweed wrapped rolls of sushi rice and vegetables), onigiri (triangule-shaped rice balls with a pickled umeboshi plum in the middle and a seaweed wrapper), miso soup and two kinds of shiratame (sticky rice balls) for dessert: one with sweet adzuki beans called oshiruko, the second served with soybean powder called kinako. We had a lot of fun, and of course the best was learning from Sakyo how to make rice, the nori maki sushi rolls, miso soup and shiratame. I love Japanese food, and at home I frequently make nori maki and miso soup, but I learned last night that I've been using a lot of non-traditional (read: wrong!) ways of cooking Japanese food. Sakyo was very polite and diplomatic about my and Karli's non-traditional ways of cooking Japanese food, calling it "interesting."
But there was another reason we wanted to make a Japanese dinner for the crew, and that's because the campaign to stop high seas whaling is more than just this ship's expedition to the Southern Ocean. At the same time, our Greenpeace colleagues in Japan are running a targeted campaign to unravel the misconceptions being told to the Japanese public by their government. For years, Greenpeace and the pro-whale/anti-whaling movement has been characterized by the Japanese government as "anti-Japanese," playing to the nationalistic sentiment of the Japanese public. This is flat out false, our campaign is and has always targeted those responsible for high seas whaling: the Fisheries Agency of Japan and companies with a financial interest in high seas whaling, NOT the Japanese public.
In fact, our campaign is on-side with the majority of the Japanese public. Greenpeace Japan conducted an independent opinion poll and found out that two-thirds of the Japanese public are against high seas whaling. The poll also found that 95 percent of the Japanese public has never or rarely eaten whale meat. Contrary to what the Japanese government may say, whaling and eating whale meat are not a traditional part of Japanese culture. It was introduced by General MacArthur after World War II to deal with the starvation ravaging the country. As Sakyo tells us, older Japanese in their 50s, 60s and 70s may have eaten whale meat, but younger generations of Japanese don't touch the stuff.
The most important message we are trying to get across to the Japanese public is that we love Japan, but we don't love Japanese high seas whaling. So last night's dinner, besides being a nice thing to do for the cooks on a Sunday, was a way to bring a part of Japanese culture that we love to the messroom of the Esperanza.
- Melanie
We've now been at sea for a little over 24 hours. We departed Auckland yesterday and it was quite emotional. My eyes welled up with tears and I was a bit embarrassed by it, but then I looked around and realized I wasn't the only one without dry eyes. We had quite the nice crowd on the dock to wave us off, including the folks from the Greenpeace office in Auckland and some folks from the land-based campaign team who have been working hard to get the on-board campaign team prepared and ready for the expedition.
I had one quick flash of terror as the stern of the ship started to push away from the dock. I realized I would not be able to get off the ship for the next long while, which is different from other expeditions I've been on. Even on Greenpeace ships in remote parts of Alaska or Greenland, I always knew I had a way to get off the ship since there was always a small community within a few days' sailing. That's not the case in Antarctica. It's not that I've ever wanted or needed to get off a GP ship, it's just that psychologically, it's comforting to know that I have a way out and can push the emergency escape button, just in case. In case of what, I have no idea. It's just a security blanket type of thing. I always like to know that I have a way out of the situation I'm in, regardless of what or where it is.
We are still sailing under sunny skies and warm temperatures. It's cooled down a bit since we left Auckland, mainly because there is a refreshing sea breeze circulating through the ship. It was sweltering hot and muggy in Auckland so it's a nice change. Uh oh, was that me complaining about the heat? Given it was 20 below zero Fahrenheit when I left Anchorage, I should shut my mouth and not complain about the hot summer weather in Auckland.
A comet was visible in the western sky last night. The last time I saw a comet was Hale-Bopp about 12 years ago, so I take last night's comet sighting as an omen.
We are still hugging the coast of New Zealand so the seas are not bad at all. Things are starting to pick up gradually but it's not gotten to the point where I have to retreat to my bunk. From what I have heard, we will have another night of decent sleep before getting to the Southern Ocean, and that's when things will really start to move. I've decided that I'm going to go for as long as I can without taking seasickness medicine. I'm hoping my body can adjust to the gradual increase in the ship's movement. If I drop out of sight for some time then you can assume that my strategy didn't work.
With that, I'm going to end for today and quit staring at this computer screen. It's a beautiful, sunny Saturday at sea and I'm willing to bet we won't have another Saturday afternoon like this one for quite some time.
Melanie
Greetings from the Esperanza in Auckland New Zealand. It’s 8pm at night and we were supposed to be underway today at noon, but our departure was delayed due to something in the engine room and some epoxy that needs to dry before we can go. The epoxy is pretty important since from what I have heard (and don’t quote me on this since I’m anything but an engineer) is that it is fixing a crack in the engine block. Sounds pretty serious. Definitely worth waiting for. But I’ve been on board the ship for a week and after a week of preparation, I’m ready to get out of here and head south toward the Southern Ocean and get on with the campaign.
We had a press conference this morning which was pretty well-attended, especially considering the real news will start when we find the Japanese government’s whaling fleet. A reporter from AAP (an Australian wire service, no relation to AP in the U.S.) today asked me if I was scared of dying if I put myself between a whale and a harpoon. The question flummoxed me for a few seconds. The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind. It’s not that I’m fearless or anything, when push comes to shove I’m a pretty cautious person. But I guess it’s a matter of being offered an incredible opportunity to participate in one of Greenpeace’s iconic campaigns, and that overrides any thought of the risks and dangers inherent in this kind of expedition. So many folks who I’ve talked to during my time here in New Zealand have commented on how brave I am to be going to the Southern Ocean, which is a lovely compliment, but really, wouldn’t most people jump on the chance to be on a Greenpeace ship sailing south to Antarctica to do righteous work trying to prevent whales from being killed by the Japanese government? That’s how it seems from my vantage point. Plus, the odds are on my side. After many expeditions to the Southern Ocean to peacefully confront the Japanese government’s whaling fleet, no one’s ever been seriously hurt. I figure it’s a heck of a lot more dangerous to stay home and drive a car.
At any rate, I spent the rest of my day after the press conference doing seemingly mundane but important tasks. I was advised to stow away and batten down everything in my cabin that can move. Including books on the bookshelf. Boots. Any hard objects that are not nailed down. I’ve been on a number of Greenpeace expeditions in some pretty rough waters, but the rough waters and storms usually struck for a few hours or a day or two or three and then relatively calm waters followed. Not so in the Southern Ocean, from what folks have told me. They ask if I’ve ever been to the Southern Ocean, and when I answer, “no,” they either laugh, or smile, or shake their heads. Today I was looking at a picture of this ship on last year’s expedition and the port side railing was just about in the water. I also heard that the Arctic Sunrise, the second ship that went to the Southern Ocean last year, rolled 70 degrees. As my Grandma Naomi would say, “oy vey.” I am praying that I don’t get seasick, and still have not decided if I’m going to take anti-seasickness medicine before we even set sail or wait and see and try to make a go of it without medication. Quite the conundrum.
I also took one last trip to the grocery store down the street to buy some last minute “personal items.” Much to my horror, I found out that the ship’s provisioning did not include more than just a tiny amount of oatmeal. To me, a morning without oatmeal is like a morning without, well, coffee. So I stocked up: six kilos. I also bought a few kilos of local, freshly roasted coffee since, as Hughie the helicopter pilot on board says, “the coffee on board tastes like kitty litter.” A very apt description. I picked up some bran for Sara, some soft brown sugar and fresh milk for Karli (the latter she’s put into the freezer for use later on), and spent my last six New Zealand dollars on CCs corn chips, the Kiwi brand of Doritos. They’re for emergency use, only. Gotta have junk food every once in a while. Weird things happen without it.
I think that’s it for me for now. Gonna catch the last of the sunset and then wander around town a bit more. I want to get my last few hours of walking on terra firma since, if there are no more unforeseen delays, we have to be on board at 9:45 tomorrow morning for customs and immigration, and we’ll be outta here in a mere 15 hours.
More soon,
Melanie
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