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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 a
