13 January 2006
The triumphant return of the Billy G
by Andrew, onboard the Esperanza
The first thing they did was take the Billy Greene over to the Kyo Maru to show them our new safety equipment. I'm calling it the "progecting-an-obscuring-spray-from-a-somewhat-safer-distance-device" or a PAOSFASSDD for short. Basically, it's a fire canon schnozzle mounted at the top of the pump pipe, sticking up from the back of the boat. The idea being that now we don't have to drive quite so close to the bow of their hunters in order to send up a whale protecting screen of water. And don't worry, we aren't going to hose anyone at close range (that's the whaler's job), we just create a heavy mist so they can't see the whales.
This afternoon's Billy G's crew line-up - Nathan, Luke, Slava and Joe - was no accident. Joe is our pump master - always tinkering and improving the setup; Slava is our ace fitter/welder who did the metal work on the boat; Nathan is the boat's sort of fairy godmother, and worked relentlessly to fix the sponson. Together they're like the A-Team, except pacifists. Oh, and Luke, I guess he'd be the Faceman. Not sure which one's Mr. T.
When they got over to the hunter, the Kyo Maru were once again quite chatty. John, our translator, was out on one of our other boats, the Mermaid, as part of the hydrophone team (we're deploying an underwater microphone to try and record the last sounds from a dying whale, but that's another whole sad story). He was asked the whalers what they thought about our new set up. They didn't like it at all.
It's clear this new technique will take some getting used to, but it's definite improvement over the previous fixed nozzle. It took them several hours to get a kill. When the shot finally came Nathan told me it was quite close to the Billy Greene, and that our boat was headed towards the whale when the harpooner fired.
Tomorrow afternoon it will be my turn out in the Billy G. again. I've missed a few days of boat work as we keep rotating to stay fresh, and I'm looking forward to getting back out on the water - doing what we came down here to do.
Comments
Is there anything that you can do, when you're in the boats defending the Whales, with Sound, that may make them run away to the deep Ocean?
Keep on!
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[Editor's reply: Whales have actually been known to swim to the surface from the deep ocean during sonar testing and so in addition to making them even more of an easy target for the whalers this can also cause them to die from rising to the surface too quickly. Find out more]
Posted by: Hugo at January 13, 2006 7:49 PM
Here are 3 items for reflection:
1. Remember the bison. In the early western US there were hundreds of thousands of the beautiful, wild animals. Then they were hunted almost to extinction. They extist today because a few ranchers domesticated them. But there is now way to effectively domesticate whales.
2. Do not let my grandchildren and their children ONLY able to read about whales in a history book.
3. Do not trust the Japanese with your safety. You must be responsible for your own safety.
And, congratulations on a most interesting, well rounded weblog.
Posted by: Neal at work at January 13, 2006 8:52 PM
Good work, your making the news almost daily in australia. Good idea to get dying whale noises, as horrible as it is, like the film and photo footage of slaughtered whales its good for people to see and hear what is really going on, if we dont see it, we dont appreciate how cruel the proccess is, certainly the japanease whalers, their controlling companies and japanease government supporters would rather we didn't. They certainly have a lot of gall to call it research and nobody I know of is taking serious, their counter accusations, to me they are comming across as desperate in their attempts to smear Green Peace.
Best wishes
nick.
Posted by: nicholas at January 14, 2006 4:25 AM
Uh, call me crazy, but I was looking at some of your photos with the banners you hold up for the whalers to read ... shouldn't it be in Japanese?
I wouldn't expect the Japanese whalers on these boats to read English :)
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[Editor's reply... Hey crazy ;-), the banners are actually for the rest of the world to read when they open a news paper/ watch the news]
Posted by: Nathan at January 14, 2006 5:45 AM
Thank you *all* for your work and your weblogs - the PAOSFASSDD ("pause-fast"?) is brilliant.
Posted by: Anita, Vancouver Island at January 14, 2006 6:04 AM
Keep up the great work. I check the web site daily and am so proud of the work you are all doing in horrendous circumstances.
I was very moved by Lally's story today too. That was a tough thing to go through. I've been in a similar situation with birds during shooting season and you just feel so desperate and helpless.
I'll keep writing letters to anyone I can in protest of the whaling, every bit must help...... but you guys are truly awesome.
Cheers.
Posted by: Karen, Australia at January 14, 2006 1:09 PM
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