It's late on a Sunday afternoon. It's a time of the week when most people are relaxing, maybe out walking the dog, or still digesting lunch. I am doing none of these things.
Instead, I'm 400 miles north-west of Ireland, standing on the top deck of a Spanish bottom trawler, the Ivan Nores, while it plies its trade. On the deck below, a team of fishermen are landing a net jam-packed with fish, dragged up from over a kilometre below the ocean surface. As the ship pitches wildly in the heavy swell, I momentarily catch a view beyond behind the stern, through cloud of hungry fulmars, to where the Esperanza, is holding its position. Close by are two inflatables - the African Queen and Grey Whale. On board the boats are Francois, Natasha, Daniel, Ollie, Alain and Erkut, who are patiently standing by, and filming the trawl from the water.
Ness, our campaigner, and Paul, our marine biologist, are both standing either side of me. Dave R and Mariajo are inside the bridge, talking to the skipper. 'I feel very privileged to see this', says Paul, looking down at net. I see his point - not many people have the opportunity to bear witness to the destruction of our seas.
The bottom trawling net had been dragged along the ocean floor, an incredible 1.2km below us. For over seven hours, massive steel rollers, attached to the net, had smashed their way along the ocean floor, clearing away any 'obstacles'. Once the hauling began, we had waited for 45 minutes, while 2.6km of steel cable (the amount actually paid out) was dragged on board by a straining, groaning winch.
First, the huge steel trawl doors - used as 'wings' to keep the net open - were slammed against the trawler's stern, and the trawlermen - kitted out in oilskins and hard hats - dodged their way around the steel cables, to make adjustments to the hauling gear. Then, another few minutes of tortuous hauling brings the net to the surface. The wind wafts a thick, fishy stench up along the ship. Every fish in the net is dead now, their internal organs exploded by the rapid decrease in pressure between their world and hours - down where they used to live, water pressure is 120 times what it is at the surface of the sea.
After the haul - a couple of tonnes in size - has been brought on board, it's lifted above the deck. The 'cod end' of the net is opened, and thousands of deep sea animals spill into the fish hold, down into the innards of the ship. Gav and Kate get down close to the net, filming and taking photos, documenting it all. In the pile were grenadiers, ray, squid, sharks, starfish and dozens of other species.
The trawlermen clear the net of the last few dead fish, casually tossing squid and grenadier over their shoulders, and prepare to drop the net again.
Electronic navigational equipment on board a bottom trawler, illustrating the impact of bottom trawling on the sea floor. All of these lines were made on a single fishing trip. (C) Greenpeace/Kate Davison
Later, we were allowed below deck, to where the same trawlermen were gutting and cleaning fish. What a life - half your time spent dodging steel cables, the other spent surrounded by fish guts. The processing room is a disorientating, noisy room full of conveyors belts and weird machines, where the fish are sorted, gutted, cleaned and packed. They allow us to take away 'bycatch' - the stuff they don't want. This includes a few oddities - including a snot eel, and a weird little worm (but looks like a caterpillar) that lives in the ocean sediment.
Back up in the bridge of the trawler, we watch the skipper as he takes the trawler to its new fishing point. He chats to Mariajo, who translates for the rest of us. As he throttles up, the sea is breaking over the bows, and splattering against the windscreen. There's a huge array of high-tech computer screens on the bridge. This isn't a small-time sustenance operation. This is industry and these guys mean business. They've invested heavily in high-tech equipment that allows them to find everything they can, no matter how deep. On one monitor, we can see the echo sounder showing the profiles of seamounts. On another, there's a digital chart of this patch of sea, with a crisscross pattern showing every bottom trawl that this ship has done. It's like looking an aerial photo of a madman let loose with a tractor and plough.
In reality, it’s a poignant visual representation of the systematic destruction of the deep sea floor.
