Mediterranean pirates discovered by Rainbow Warrior
© Alain Combemorel/ Greenpeace
Last weekend - Greenpeace found and reported a pirate fishing vessel off the coast of Sicily
Since July 22nd and until the 31st, our team on board the Rainbow Warrior is back in Sicilian waters to raise the alarm over illegal drift netting and to document seamounts in international waters and other areas that could be rich in biodiversity in the Sicilian channel. To do this they are diving and using a deep submersible drop camera. The results will be used to highlight the need for a marine reserve in this area.
This is how the crew of our ship woke up in the morning of the 26th of July and this is how Alain, a member of the on board campaign team explains his day; a day that started slow and easy and suddenly turns out to be exciting day for the campaign...
Yesterday we had a bit of weather; a dive was scheduled for this morning so the decision was made to look for shelter. The Rainbow Warrior was drifting on her engines around Pantelleria Island (South of Sicily) for the whole night.
I was on watch from 4am to 8am, we were sitting close to some amazing cliffs, (well that's what I could see after sunrise) and 2 other boats were sitting close to us, probably for the same reason: sheltering themselves from the bad sea conditions. Around 8 o'clock the diving team was waking up, starting to get ready for their dive, and Alessandro our on board campaigner, came to the bridge to organise the coming activity. Looking around he saw the vessels, and out of curiosity had a look through binoculars to the fishing boat. He noticed that she was carrying what looked like drift-net gears.
We decided to launch one of our inflatable boats to have a closer look and made our way to the fishing boat. While we were approaching them we didn't get any reaction from the crew, they watched us coming and in the meantime our videographer and photographer shot footage of the boat, getting pictures of the illegal drift-net gear and the name of the vessel.
Once they realised who we were, they started their engine, heaved up the anchor and started to run away from us. One of their crew threw a wooden crate at us and gave us some international signs of diplomacy....
We pulled away, not wanting to build up any violent situation and headed back to the Rainbow Warrior. Back on board, we checked the European online fleet database. The Frederica II is registered as a trawler but definitely not as a drift-net fishing vessel (which are illegal here). The Rainbow Warrior continued to tailing her while Alessandro, our campaigner, was calling the authorities to tell them about what we just found. The divers and the scientist will have to wait, the diving plans were postponed. We spent one hour following the fishing vessel that was trying to escape into international waters - but eventually a coastguard vessel arrived and escorted the Frederica II to harbour. Once again we followed.
We launched again one of our inflatables and went to the harbour to see and document what was happening there. As we arrived, we could see the fishing boat alongside and many coastguards on the quay side. They told us that they were confiscating the nets and seizing the catch. The Frederica II was carrying between 10 and 15 km of net, and had 16 swordfish and 14 bluefin tunas (some undersized).
We spent about 5 hours there, documenting the whole process. The most important and satisfying thing for me was when I realised that the coastguards were supporting our campaign work!
I got painfully sunburnt doe to the long waiting hours in the harbour, but well, I can tel you - it was a beautiful day!
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