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ACTION UPDATE: MV BENNY TRANSHIPS TUNA TO REEFER VESSEL Sunday, 7th May, 2000 Time: GMT+1

6:30am: Another early morning wake up call! In contrast to yesterday's crowded seas, today's first light reveals only the Jeffrey in front of us. It looks like the reefer (the Hatsukari) has given us the slip: she and Jeffrey separated in the night and we mistakenly followed Jeffrey.

But not for long! Tweetie takes off to investigate and finds that the blip on the radar behind us is Benny, who leads us back to - the Hatsukari!

9:45am: Tweetie flies again, this time to check out the Hatsukari. Benny is now alongside and thought to be about to tranship. (Puzzle of the day for this novice Zeevrouw: if ships are usually referred to as she, how can a ship be given a man's name? Is Benny then a he, a she or hermaphrodite even?) (S)he is lying low in the water which suggests that (s)he is fully laden and probably with tuna. We hold off for a while before moving towards the reefer.

12:00: Tweetie is in the air again, and flies over to the two vessels with Gavin belted in and hanging out of the right (or is that starboard?) helicopter door, which has been removed to enable him to film. The crew let out whoops of delight from the decks as we hear over the ship's radio that Benny is indeed transhipping tuna to the Hatsukari.

"Great, amazing, wonderful!" as Fred, who likes to speak in superlatives, would and did say! Great that is, in terms of providing the evidence we have been hoping to find in order to back up our suspicions, which are based on the latest information available. Not, of course, what this implies for the depleted stocks of tuna and tuna-like species and the oceans in general. For this clearly demonstrates that pirate fishers are now operating in the Central/South Atlantic ocean, targeting species which thrive in these tropical waters, such as bigeye tuna and tuna-like species such as marlin and swordfish. Not only this, but it is also clear from the proliferation of vessels circling the Hatsukari, that the pirate fishers are being serviced by reefers such as the Hatsukari and are indeed transhipping their catches at sea.

13:00: As the MV Greenpeace approaches the Hatsukari and Benny, we launch an inflatable with Jimmy and Babett on board.

13:15: The MV Greenpeace manoeuvres to portside of the two vessels.

13:35: Namhee calls the Hatsukari on the ship's radio, notifying them that we have a message we would like to deliver to them. The message is in Japanese, informing them why they should not be accepting tuna caught by Benny and appending the relevant ICCAT regulations (we have even underlined the relevant clauses for them). It explains that as a vessel registered on the flag of a contracting party to ICCAT, they are breaking ICCAT rules by accepting tuna caught by a non-contracting party; Benny is a vessel registered on Cambodian flag, and Cambodia is not a member of ICCAT.

13:40: Jo calls the inflatable back and we lower the message down to Babett. Jimmy and Babett return to the Hatsukari in the inflatable and attach the message to a rope that is let down from the Hatsukari, but the message falls into the water as it is being hauled up.

13:45: The inflatable returns with Tweetie who needs to refuel. A second message and another banner (the first has broken) are lowered down to Jimmy and Babett.

13:55: Tweetie disappears out of view behind the Hatsukari to film the delivery of the message.

14:00: Mission accomplished, Tweetie and the inflatable return and we continue to monitor the Hatsukari and Benny from the MV Greenpeace.

18:00: Benny and the Hatsukari separate.

21:45: We are following Benny into the night beneath a crescent moon.