September 24, 2005
Dreams and dolphins
Another night full of long and very clear dreams has passed. Dreams you have on ships are amazing, maybe its the motion of the sea, which starts to jog your memories. In the middle of the night I woke up and I couldn´t sense where I was. For 10 minutes I felt as though I was stuck in the interior of the earth, everything hot and moving around me and I felt really nervous. And later I dreamed I was on a very old but very fast sailing ship, out in the dark , way too fast to sail around the most beautiful blue whale, who suddenly appeared. Couldn´t think of anything else than that we might hit and hurt it... I don´t know, where the first dream came from, but I am damned sure about the origin of the second.
Yesterday was one of those outstanding days you can never forget. Crystal blue sea, flat as a mirror, leaving lonely and snowy Hopen Island in the morning. Before I started to work with Greenpeace, I did a lot of research with Cetaceans; whales and dolphins. So all the previous times I spotted these beloves creatures, I was in the middle of making an estimate of their abundunce for amongst others the Whales and Dolphins Conservation Society (WDCS) . So the first pod was quite easy to define: at least 12 white-beaked dolphins, feeding and breaching, later porpoising and changing direction towards the Esperanza, riding our bow wave, than travelling slow while heading off in a 94 degrees direction. At least two juveniles in this pod. When the sun travelled higher and the day grew older, after a short time of no spottings, we sailed right into Cetacean paradise. Dolphins in whichever direction, jumping, breaching, visiting us, leaving again and that game time and again. And as I can never take my eyes off them, I was very happy that I didn´t have to yesterday. There was no sound out there in the Arctic waters beside the breath of the dolphins and the blowing of some Minke-whales around.
White-beaked dolphins are quite stocky and robust. They have to be so, as they only occur in the cold waters of the Atlantic, including this ice-free Artic waters during the summer. Lagenorhynchus albirostris have a short, thick beak, usually white, which gives them a kind of cute look. They also have a prominent, sharp, clear-shaped dorsal fin, all black, which make them easy to define. Their diffuse coloration with the broad and grayish-white blazes on sides look like good pieces of art work. One more miracle in nature, that each of them is different.
Their behaviour fits in this environment. They are a bit slower and not as curious as the common dolphins I saw last time in the English channel, but not at all as shy as the little harbour porpoises I worked with in the North Sea. They are leisurely and pleasant. They come in groups of 5 to 50 and occasionally in pods of several hundred. They sometimes segregrate into age groups, which means that the juveniles form seperate schools from adults with calves, Indeed I saw groups of only youngsters yesterday, who seemed to have a lot of fun and were jumping higher than the adults. They hunt together with seagulls. The birds are spotting the fish from high above and splashing in the water. The dolphins sense those vibrations and come over to encircle the fish shoals to compress them. Then they feed joyfully together. Sometimes the dolphins bite into the feet of the gulls without hurting them, just to play. The outraged seabirds give quite a shrill anwer, which sounds really funny. Those dolphin-days are the best, where you always feel their presence around, sharing the same environment. The last things I saw was the huge blow spray of some big whale I couldn´t recognize, three times in the setting sun. The night, which followed, was also bright, no clouds, just sparkling stars. And as if to make the impression of the day complete, northern lights appeared in the lonesome frosty night, travelling through the sky like ghosts who had gotten lost, turning from white to green and red. Today the stormy weather is back. Very hard to recapture yesterdays feelings in this weather. But its in my memories... forever.
- Steffi
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September 23, 2005
Hopen Island - a wall in the the middle of the nowhere
Isolation, wild, icy, remote, inspiring, solitude all words to describe the island of Hopen and none of them adequate to quite capture the feeling of being two miles offshore of this remote island in the Barents Sea. After riding out a storm on the open ocean over the past two days, an awe-inspiring event in itself, the Esperanza finally came into the lee of Hopen Island yesterday evening.
This area is one of the biodiversity hotspots in the Barents. It is surrounded by shallow banks, and is a highly productive ocean area as the edge of the pack ice is nearby for much of the year. The entire region and the banks are of major importance to marine life, especially fish such as cod, haddock, capelin, polar cod and Greenland halibut. There is a large biomass of shrimp and many species of baleen whales in the nearby deep oceanic trench called Hopen Deep. The island is also an important hibernation spot for polar bears during the winter when they can simply walk across the pack ice from Svalbard. It is of course, also a popular area for fishing trawlers and illegal transfers of fish to freezer ships, which is why we are here, documenting and policing.
Hopen Island is a long ice-covered spit of rock some 16 miles long, and less than a mile wide, running in an NNE-SSW direction. It looks like someone simply built a 1000-foot wall in front of the ship in the middle of nowhere and put it in our way. The island has no natural bays or harbours, and landing here is notoriously difficult to do on in the best of weather. Discovered by an English whaling ship in 1613, and the skipper named the island after this ship, the Hopewell.
Since we have not found any illegal trawlers, just a few Russian long-liners and trawlers that the Russian coastguard confirms have legal quotas, we are now sailing towards the next area where illegal fishing and transfer has been documented before. Riding our bow wave is a large school of Atlantic white-beaked dolphins, a sure sign that the oceans are still healthy in this remote region.
- Brad
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September 20, 2005
We need more condoms!
Confessions of a pirate Captain
Another day on the high seas of the arctic and another illegal fishing boat. Monday night after our team returned from the MURTOSA fishing vessel we started following another blimp on the radar: 82m long fishing vessel KERGULEN. This ship also has an interesting recent past. When we spoke to the captain he said the vessel is registered under Guinean flag, according to the SeaSearcher database the flag is Mauritania and according to the latest EU information it is under Togo flag. Quite confusing, but this is common practice with illegal ships and is called flag hopping. We found out that the owner of the ship is French with a front office in the Falkland Islands and the ships crew of 42 men are mainly Portuguese.
We had earlier established that they had no quota to fish here and according to our information the ship has already been blacklisted in different parts of the world. This week the EU Commission had also blacklisted them as an IUU vessel (fisheries world is full of acronyms and this one stands for Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported). We did our thing, documented the ship and attached the pirate flag also known as the Jolly Roger on the ships side. We now have enough evidence on their illegal activities to demand their arrest at their next port call within the European Union.
We told shared this information with the captain and I think it got him thinking. After a while he called us on the radio again and wanted to talk about fishing and the problems we are addressing here. He admitted to us that the world's fish stocks are in danger. Everywhere he fishes, the catches are getting smaller and smaller.
He also wanted to know about the life cycle of the cod and how his fishing could be affecting the stock here. He had experienced the collapse of a stock before when he fished for orange roughy, a deep water fish that can live up to 150 years old and does not start reproducing until it is abut 30 years old. He had noticed that fishing had seriously harmed the stocks he had fished in the southern Hemisphere. Now he was here, in the Barents fishing cod with his huge ship.
The captain asked us what he should do? Stop fishing and not feed the starving people in the world? We didn't remind him of the fact that his fish was destined to the European market, as a luxury food for well fed Europeans and that similar ships to his also fish for the Europeans right now off the coast of Africa. These distant water fleets are literally stealing the fish from the starving people in West-Africa in order to satisfy the European taste for seafood. Although he has flagged his ship to an African country, those people in Togo have never tasted a Barents cod in their lives.
We did however tell him that to over fish now, is not going to be a solution to world's food production problems. It will only make it worse in the long run and we do not want to pass the point of no return. 75% of the world's fish stocks are now out of safe biological limits. We also told him that we are not against fishing. Us Greenpeacers also want to eat fish! But we want the fishing to be better regulated, enforced and sustainable over the long run. We told him about marine reserves. Large sea areas that should be closed to all fishing and other extractive use in order to make fishing sustainable outside the reserves in the long run.
The pirate captain grew silent many times during the conversation. So did those listening on the bridge. We all shared a common problem for a while. The captain of a pirate fishing boat illegally fishing and the captain and the campaign team of a Greenpeace ship. There we were, both sides hoping that the international community and decision makers would act soon and take some bold, unpopular but necessary steps to save both the fish and the hungry people of the world.
In the end the pirate captain concluded that to solve these problems we need more condoms; there are too many of us and not enough fish!
Well, I can't argue with that one!
- Sari
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Action in the Barents Sea against pirate fishing
See video from the action (Windows Media, )
"How can we break the f**king law, when there is no f**king law", the captain of the trawler called Murtosa screamed at us as we sat on the fishing net onboard his ship.
Just because there is a loophole, a lawless area, does not mean that doing the wrong thing is the right thing to do, we tried to explain to him and his Portuguese crew. "We need to work", they replied. "We need to feed our family". And work they do. They work hard. But it is still the wrong thing to do. Many people on our planet don't have the luxury of a whole lot of options. But if these guys are allowed to continue, the cod stock in the Barents Sea, the last healthy cod stock in the world, will also collapse like the rest have already done. If ships like Murtosa are allowed to plunder the world's oceans, there will not be a hell of a lot left for the very children these hard working men are trying to feed.
Despite, the loophole is not a lawless sea. It is managed by and organization known by the acronym NEAFC. This organization gives quotas to its member countries to fish in its area and the member countries have to oblige to the rules set by NEAFC. Portugal is a member country, Togo is not. So flying a flag of a country, which is not part to NEAFC is enough to avoid the law.
It was a hardcore action. We boarded their ship with caving ladders and came in fast with the Hurricane, an inflatable with a 200 hp engine. This was the escalation after niceties earlier in the day. The campaign had been explained, the captain knew why we were there, we had befriended some of the crew, and they had a very nice dog onboard called Max. We called him Max havaalar. He also sat on the net with us.
"You are the pirates", the captain insisted, "boarding my ship for your f**king TV-show". The captain never really lightened up, but we worked wonders with the crew. They stay out at sea for months, and even though we were disrupting their work, it was probably an interesting experience for them. And we, of course, had some very nice women of exceptional beauty with us. As we all know, beauty comes from the inside, and that is what makes all Greenpeacers kinda beautiful, even Dima our hairy Russian campaigner. Anyway, it was interesting to notice that many of the young men onboard after a while appeared cleanly shaven, some with fancy little flip beards or sharp sideburns. Charming fellows with winks aplenty to all the pretty girls suddenly onboard.
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September 19, 2005
Kristin's first trip on a Greenpeace ship
German journalist Kristin was invited to join the Esperanza in the Barents Sea:
I am on board of the Esperanza for the tour into the Barents as a journalist from a German diving magazine. When Stefanie Werner from Greenpeace Germany called our office like two months ago to invite somebody from the Unterwasser magazine to be on board, we where convinced from the very first second that it would be a good idea to be doing a story about the trip.
As divers are committed to everything that refers to the oceans and what's hidden beneath the surface we know that they will be interested in the coverage. Especially since the Arctic for many divers is one of the last frontiers and one of the most challenging places to be diving in. And even though this story will not be about diving at all.
Ever since I am on board of the Esperanza I am impressed how everybody is dealing with each other. Like there is no difference between Campaigners and Crew members, since in the end everybody is an activist, and at last - we all sit in the same boat. Even though there is a large group of people often squished in little space, no one ever seems to be tense, and I have hardly ever heard a harsh word.
The mixture of nationalities is inspiring, so is the fact of being right in the middle of a group so committed to the oceans and to what they are doing. There's so many interesting things around, they are all lying right to my feet. But anyways for the next ten days my best for all your activities. I am happy to be a part of the group for these two weeks.
Read Kristin's updates from the Esperanza in German:
http://www.unterwasser.de/
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September 15, 2005
Well wishes in a bottle
This morning we had a nice start for the working day. After the ship clean-up duties we gathered together into the mess and Stefanie our German oceans campaigner delivered us a huge bottle filled with mysterious looking paper scrolls. Greenpeace Germanys GreenTeam, a Greenpeace activist group for children between 8-15, turned 15 years last weekend. They had a birthday celebration on a sailing ship where everyone was dressed up as pirates and they wrote messages for the crew on Esperanza and the campaign up here in Norway.
QuickTime: See the crew on the Esperanza recieve the messages
Here a few translations from the letters:
For the Esperanza: I wish you much luck, much sun, much success, a lot of fun and calm nights!
Esperanza: I wish you a lot of fun and that you save the sea and that you wont get seasick! Its great that you are protecting the underwater creatures and that you convince the Norwegians that they wont start drilling oil. I find that there is too few great big underwater creatures left and it is great that you are protecting them.
We want no whaling, no polluting of the seas and no oil platforms. Good luck to you all: Your Green Team Green Trousers.
Dear Esperanza, I wish you much luck in saving the seas. I hope that whales and other animals in the sea would not be killed anymore and that they can live in clean water.
We also received many beautiful warm drawings of palm trees and tropical islands, which is nice as it is chilly 4 degrees today here at sea!
Thanks a million for all of you who wrote to us, you really made our day. We are laminating the letters and will hang them in our cabins to cheer us up when the going gets tough! Captain Pete has promised to write back to you and also to include a nice drawing just like you did!
Well fishes from Sari and the team on Esperanza
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Not a tanker in sight
We are arriving at Kirkenes, very close to the Russian border. The sun is shining and the even though the temperature has dropped quite a bit there is still a hint of summer. So except that we have not seen a single oil tanker on our way, the sailing up here has been very good.
The fact that we have not seen a single oil tanker in four says is quite puzzling. We do know that the average traffic is one tanker every day and that traffic is steadily increasing. And considering the current oil situation in the world the traffic of oil out of Murmansk should be quite high. Not the opposite. We have many theories about this, but I believe that Greenpeace is a part of the reason that we haven't found any oil tankers on the 12 nautical mile limit.
In April we had several actions against oil tankers outside the coast of Lofoten. We called them up on the radio and explained the vulnerability of the coast and the critical lack of preparedness if an accident should occur. The result was that all the tankers we met and spoke to sailed quietly out to a safer distance from the coast. And I believe that since it was that easy - just calling them up and ask nicely if they please would sail further out - the coastguard has started doing the same.
I hope that every single tanker that enters Norwegian waters get a pleasant phone call from the coastguard and then, after being explained the situation with the lack of oil spill preparedness and the vulnerable coast, they are asked to , please, sail further from the shore. And the reason why we haven't met any tankers on the 12 nautical mile limit might be because they are sailing further out.
So the lack of oil tankers could be because of a small campaign victory for Greenpeace.
- Martin
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September 13, 2005
Screams of laughter, shouts of joy
The red and green coalition beat the right wing in the Norwegian elections yesterday. This should make life a whole lot better for conscientious Greenpeacers with sustainability on their minds. It was touch and go there for a while, with the left and the right taking turns being in the lead many hours into the night. Not until the very end did we dare believe that the reds and greens had really won.
It was a close call though, and at the end of the day the red and green coalition consisting of the Labour Party, the Socialist Left and the Center Left had a 52% majority. This will be the first time in almost 20 years Norway has a majority rule in government.
With this constellation in power there will certainly be openings for putting good and responsible policies into place. Light years better than the alternative anyway, those right wing brainiacs who believe sound and visionary policies can be made by letting money talk and everything else walk.
It is especially reassuring that the Norwegian people decided to change their government during times of apparent prosperity. Norway is making money like never before, we got loads of cash in the bank, the interest rate is at an all time low, and Bush on the international scene includes Norway in the coalition of the willing. What do you have to sell to get cash like that?
So we had an unnerving and then a nice time at the Socialist Left party's election watch in Tromsø last night. We were invited to be there by Carine, a very nice girl from the Socialist Youth, who was onboard Esperanza together with other politicians for the protest on the Goliath oil field outside Hammerfest two weeks ago.
Yesterday was a pivotal day. We did the right thing by going left. But Greenpeace is still needed. This coalition is way better than the government they replace, but there are still issues on which we collide. Letting joy prevail for now, giving them the benefit of the doubt, but we go down just as hard on our friends, as on any other, when they do wrong.
Be good or be gone is still the name of the game :)
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September 12, 2005
The Esperanza is currently in Tromsø
Unfortunately I had to leave the ship. I want to thank the wonderful crew, miss you already.
Keep an eye on this blog - the team onboard will keep posting updates!
- Iréne
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September 9, 2005
Daily routines while looking out for oil tankers
The Barents Rescue 2005 is all good and well, and the emergency exercise is important, but we need to do all we can to prevent accidents from happening in the first place. One solution would be to move dangerous shipments to 50 nautical miles off the coast, instead of the current 12. Therefore the Esperanza currently patrols the coast of northern Norway, and try and keep oil tankers further out.
Meanwhile it is business as usual onboard the ship. We live together 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, from when we wake up in the morning until we go to sleep in the evening. Good thing we are such a nice bunch of people! You get to know each others little habits and peculiarities pretty quickly. You also learn to give each other space - some people should not be approached at all before nine oclock.
Wake up call is normally at 7.30. Breakfast is followed by cleaning of all common areas, and then we go on to our chores; Bent, Max and Måns disappear into the dark mysterious place called the engine room, Natasha, Penny, Martha and Steve work on deck, our cook Daniel puts the pots and pans into good use in the galley, Sabine does her magic on the boat engines and one of the mates or captain Pete is always on the bridge.
Of course we cant all just head for our bunks in the evening, someone has to navigate the ship, and somebody else is on watch. When you are on watch you do rounds every hour to make sure everything is ok on the ship, and that there are no technical failures or fires for example. This also means that somebody is always asleep, and we have to be a bit considerate and not talk or make too much noise in the alleyways. Sleeping during working hours can be hard enough when grinding and chipping rust is done on deck!
An additional routine on this particular trip is to make fun of my hair: youre like Leningrad Cowboys with their hair on the wrong way around or did you brush it with a hand grenade?. Very funny, somebody give me a bloody hairbrush.
- Iréne
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September 7, 2005
The North Cape 71° North
The northernmost little tip of Europe, the North Cape, gets a lot of visitors. People come here in winter to experience the northern light, and in the summer for the midnight sun, and ornithologists come from all over the world for the spectacular birdlife nearby at Gjesvær nature reservation. We went up there and had a chat with a few tourists.
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September 5, 2005
The Crew
More to come, but here are a few of us!
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Posted by Irene at 2:29 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Barents Rescue 2005 in realistic weather
Its been busy here in Honningvåg this weekend: all sorts of coastal authorities, military and rescue teams not only from Norway but also from Sweden, Finland, Russia and the United Kingdom will participate in a very big emergency rescue drill - the Barents Rescue 2005. Six ships and over 20 helicopters will be involved.
The rescue scenario is that a cruise ship has a series of explosions onboard and collides with an oil tanker in bad weather, resulting in causalities and a major oil spill.
Tons of popcorn will be used for "oil", which has of motivated a few jokes and laughs onboard: who popped tons of corn, and how will they spread it will popcorn come flying out from the funnel? I am sure we will get answers to these questions very soon.
While we make silly popcorn jokes we are aware of the sad facts:
- The number of tankers from Russian harbours increases from 166 in 2002 to at least 650 in 2015 (according to a little fact sheet I got from Barents Rescue 2005).
- These dangerous shipments are still allowed to go as close to the Norwegian coast as 12 nautical miles (around 22 kilometres for a landlubber) which is not safe distance if there is an engine failure and the tanker starts to drift towards the coast.
- Tugboats can be at a distance of many hours; the coastline between Kirkenes and just south of Lofoten islands is patrolled by 2 tugs in the summer and three in the winter. Its pathetic in a country that has earned unexpected billions of dollars because of elevated oil prices this year.
- Experiments have also shown that gathering oil in floating ice is almost impossible.
Do we really have to wait for that major accident to happen (no popcorn then) before the Norwegian government wakes up and does something to improve the situation? And can they really think its clever to establish oil rigs up here?
The wind picks up as I write this, I can feel the ship bump against the fenders. We are sheltered here in the harbour, but the rescue drill has started - it is probably getting rough for those out there. We just saw a boat full of journalists leave port, probably heading for the rescue drill. I bet there are a few that wish they had stayed on land.
-Iréne
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September 3, 2005
Threatened beauty
"To the Italian oil company that wants to drill here I want to say, quoting Monty Python: ROMANS GO HOME!"
See Martin's pictures from the island of Hjelmsøy. This fragile area is threatened by the plans for oil drilling and the lack of preparedness in case of an accident.
click to enlarge!
Here is our ship Esperanza in front of the rock wall of Hjelmsøy. These are the last islands in Northern Norway before the Barents Sea, the pack ice and the Arctic.
This is the ghost town of Sandvikvær on the island Hjelmsøy. About ten years ago Norwegian authorities compensated the population for leaving their homes and move to the mainland.
What remains of the quayside in Sandvikvær the years of neglect show.
The bird colony of Gjesværstappan is one of the largest in Northern Europe. Here gulls have gathered for a morning meeting on a sunny rock.
A few seabirds enjoy the evening sun. There is a lot of cormorants in Gjesvær, in addition to land puffins, sea eagles and many other species. Even if the puffins had left when we reached the area, there are about 400 000 pairing puffins in this area every spring.
We also saw sea eagle during our visit in Gjesvær, not only one or two but we saw ten at the same time. One of the local fishermen mentioned he had seen 22 of them once!
Cormorants and puffins winging their way through the air. In a few weeks time there will be an oilrig test drilling on the Goliath oil field visible on the horizon behind them.
Miguel and Steve, crewmembers from the Esperanza.
Hurtigruta heading northwards from Tromsø with tourists and other passengers. The North Cape is one of the most famous tourist attractions in Norway with hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. Wonder what they will think about having those oilrigs in their view.
Steam between two of the islands at Gjesvær.
Sunrise at Sørøya. Sometimes this job is not so bad!
[This picture was shot by Christian Åslund]some of us take a swim at the Goliath oil field with Norway in the background. Knowing that this is one of the most vulnerable areas along the whole coast, and also one of the most important fishing grounds in the Barents Sea, doesnt it seem pretty meaningless to drill for oil here?
To the Italian oil company that wants to drill here I want to say, quoting Monty Python: ROMANS GO HOME!
- Martin Norman
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September 1, 2005
The Goliath oil field a conflict between plan and practice
We are currently in the Barents Sea, more precisely just outside the Goliath field. Goliath is the name of an offshore oilfield just northwest of North Cape. Two test drillings have previously been made by the oil company Eni and a third test drilling will now establish how much oil there really is. Today there are no oilrigs are in place, but very soon the rig Erik Raude will head in this direction.
This is happening despite the fact that the Barents is theoretically closed for drilling. I am trying to get my head around it: something smells rotten, and it is not fish.
We are currently in the Barents Sea, more precisely just outside the Goliath field. Goliath is the name of an offshore oilfield just northwest of North Cape. Two test drillings have previously been made by the oil company Eni and a third test drilling will now establish how much oil there really is. Today there are no oilrigs are in place, but very soon the rig Erik Raude will head in this direction.
This is happening despite the fact that the Barents is theoretically closed for drilling. I am trying to get my head around it: something smells rotten, and it is not fish.
THE PLAN
An integrated Management Plan for the oceanic areas off northern Norway in the Barents Sea and Lofoten is in the process of being created. It started in 2001 and it will be finalised in 2006. The aim is to manage the natural resources for coming generations, to manage the area in a sustainable way from a long term perspective, and not only about maximising the financial gain for large factory fishing fleets and the oil industry. The Barents Sea has been closed for oil drilling up until this year because of its ecological sensitivity.
The representatives involved in this process are scientists from different areas, the government, and all other stakeholders including the oil industry. At the last stakeholder meeting on the Integrated Management Plan no less than one quarter of the participants came from the oil industry and oil-related government departments. The representatives from the oil industry looked at the plan and considered where they could drill and how soon, not if.
THE CLASH
Despite the fact that the Barents Sea has been closed for drilling, and the management plan is not finalised the Norwegian government has already caved in to industry pressure and given away the rights to drill for oil in certain areas like the Goliath field.
The Goliath field also happens to be one of the most vulnerable areas in the Barents Sea:
- Iréne