Rossano pointed the African Queen (one of our inflatables) into the mists and away we went. At fifty meters the big blue Esperanza turned into a puff of cloud. Our destination, the Eastern Princess II was equally obscured within the veil of fog, and for ten minutes we were between the worlds of Fisher and Greenpeace. The mists were a cool and refreshing escape from the balmy weather of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland.

One fish, two fish, a stream of little dead fish floated past the African Queen. We were in the water filming the haul of a trawl. The skipper of the Eastern Princess II, was a friendly, law abiding Canadian citizen, and he was fishing within the edge of the Canadian EEZ. It took him twenty minutes to bring his nets up from a depth of around five hundred meters. With a heavy clanging of steel upon steel, and a rattling of rusty chain, the huge steel doors that drag along the bottom to keep the nets open, rose up and out of the water, and were secured to the stern of the Fishers boat. They kept hauling, and then the rollers came out of the water, the rollers that roll across the sea bed and keep the nets dragging on the bottom. Finally a crescent of bright orange buoys popped to the surface and a long tail of green net floated behind. Rossano, with skillful boat handling kept the African Queen in a close up, but safe position. The cameras clicked and whirred, as the cod end, with little wriggling red fish, was winched up onto the deck of the Princess.

All of her gear now out of the water, the boat started to make way. We followed beside her at a safe distance. Then the skipper called on the radio, "Do you have anything for us to read" he asked. "Of course" I replied, "we will bring it right up to you". He slowed his boat and Rossano brought the Queen up alongside to hand over the campaign material to the Princess. "Permission to come aboard?" Bunny, (the lead campaigner from New Zealand and one of the survivors from the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior twenty years ago) called up to the crew. "You've got two minutes", the skipper called down to us. As quick as a flash, leaving only Penny and Rosso in the African Queen, the rest of us, being five in total, jumped on board. I went straight to the bridge to see the captain, leaving the campaigners and cameras to do their thing on the fish deck.

What a beautiful boat it was, immaculate condition. The bridge was panelled in oak and had a smell of polished leather. There was the skipper, sitting in a cock pit of highly sophisticated electronic displays. He swivelled around on his chair as I entered and held out a hand to great me. I introduced myself as the Mate from the Esperanza, and we talked a little about life at sea. "There are some big trawls out there" he said, and then he pointed out a position on the chart where we would find them, beyond the Canadian fishing ground, in International waters. We thanked the crew and skipper for their hospitality. Rossano, brought the African Queen alongside and we slipped back into the fog.

--Mike Mate