Some of the crew saw North Atlantic right whales, which are the most endangered of the great whales, with only several hundred left in the world. Meanwhile, the African Queen has been visiting bottom trawlers, which we came across at mid day in between the Grand Banks and Flemish Pass.

I never knew that deep sea trawling has a direct impact on marine mammals until today when I was reading some campaign material. Sperm whales for instance, eat orange roughy, which is one of the most heavily fished deep sea species. Narwal whales and hooded seals feed off Greenland halibut, which is a major fishery in the North West Atlantic and, as with all high seas fisheries, is unregulated in terms of the damage it is allowed to cause to other deep sea life. So you see, it's not just bits of inanimate coral and ugly looking deep sea creatures that are affected by this destructive fishing method.

It's incredibly challenging to obtain permission to board these vessels so that we can document what goes on, since the fisherman are very skeptical about Greenpeace and most of them don't want us to come anywhere near them. We had several radio conversations with the bottom trawlers in this area today and since I was helping out on the bridge I was able to listen to and monitor what was being said. In order to build trust with fishermen we always offer to deliver information about the campaign to them, but even this is difficult. Here's a rough transcript of some of the conversations we had so you can see how hard it is to accomplish what we are trying to do out here.

Lomur II, Estonian trawler
1pm
The captain of Esperanza called the Lomur, which was catching shrimp...

Espy "We would like to deliver some written information to you with our inflatable?"

Lomur II "I do not want you to come near our ship because an accident could happen, your engine could stop and your boat might get tangled in my net"

Espy "We will not come by when you are fishing. We will wait until after you have hauled"

Lomur "I will be fishing all day without stopping until tomorrow" Espy "Thanks you very much, have a nice day"
Estonia has quotas for the following deep sea fisheries: skate, Greenland halibut, redfish, shrimp and white hake

Petur Jonsson
Icelandic trawler
1:30pm,

Iris, Greenpeace campaigner from Germany spoke with this vessel...

Peter Jonsson (PJ) "Hello Esperanza, I want to know about your campaign."

Espy "We are here to document bottom trawling on the high seas including illegal fishing because we want to ensure that there is plenty of fish for the future"

PJ "There is no illegal fishing here, none at all"
Espy "Do you catch any other species in your nets" (shrimp trawling is well known for bycatch)

PJ "No, only shrimp. We use a technology with our nets, which lets out the bycatch and only allows us to catch the shrimp. The shrimp here is doing very well, so you have nothing to do here" Espy "Do you sell your catch in Iceland?"

PJ "I don't want to answer any more of your questions, you offered me information, you did not say you wanted to ask questions"

Espy "Can we come to your ship to deliver some information about the campaign?"

PJ "I have all the information I need, thank you"
Meanwhile the African Queen and her crew were watching the trawlers while they dragged their nets along the sea floor and hauled their catch up. Thankfully, the fisherman allowed them to do this.

-Lisa.

Common dolphins have frequently visited the Esperanza