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!