The preliminary survey results showed that whales and dolphins in the area are in serious trouble and that they face many threats, the most serious of which are over-fishing and high incidents of 'accidental' by-catch. For the official spiel on the survey, you can read the press release here. There's also more information on the comebackwhales.com site on scientific predictions and whaling in Korea.

Last night we had dinner with the very friendly and welcoming Busan KFEM folk. They took us to an amazing restaurant - it was called "Tofu Village", which I have to admit didn't sound entirely appetising, but turned out to be lovely. They even organised a traditional Korean singer to come and perform for us. She played a stringed instrument which produced sounds remarkably like the blues - you can see her in her traditional costume in the photo. It was a beautiful evening. We were then presented with homemade fermented rice wine, which, after sipping politely, we discovered was meant to be downed in one go with eye-watering effect! This was washed down with rice water, and Soju (my personal favourite), another variation of rice wine. As you can see from the photo, we all had big smiles on our faces by the time we left.

This morning Busan KFEM put on an extraordinary welcome, featuring an 80 piece orchestra (playing such Korean classics as "The Phantom of the Opera" apparently). Unfortunately I was locked away with my laptop at this point so I will have to trust Jim and Dave's enthusiasm.

Tomorrow we set sail for Ulsan. We have some new crew members on board and a new captain, Pete. I'm a bit nervous about Ulsan, because it truly is the "eye of the storm", so to speak.