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On-Board the M/V Arctic SunriseDay Thirty-five - 22 December 1999"Santa Stops the Whalers"
"Now, that's what I like to see - a whaling ship at a stand-still with the cover on it's harpoon," said a grinning John Bowler, campaigner on board the Arctic Sunrise. "It's like an early Christmas present delivered by Santa himself." |
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Sometimes folks around the organization refer to the "Greenpeace spirit." Part of that outlook is the belief that a good sense of humor can be a very effective way to get your point across. And after yesterday's ramming, it seemed like a good time to lighten things up a bit. By 10:15 am, a Greenpeace 'Santa Claus' was on board one of our smaller inflatables speeding toward a whale 'catcher' boat preparing for the hunt. Deb, a deck hand, was driving Santa's "sleigh". Santa was actually Lena, one of our cooks, with plenty of warm clothes as extra padding. They were accompanied by the "Hurricane" with Daniel driving and our cameramen on board. As the Greenpeace inflatables approached they could identify the ship as the Toshi-maru and could see a crew member at the harpoon ready to fire. More crew were up in the crow's nest spotting for whales.
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Faced with a catcher in active hunt mode, Santa's inflatable swung into action. Deb maneuvered the boat around the whaler as a distraction designed to prevent the crew from from getting a shot at any whales. Santa (Lena) then tried to deliver a gift-wrapped letter to the crew. Meanwhile the crew of the Japanese whaling ship, apparently not feeling the Christmas spirit, started hosing down Santa! When they got the chance, both Greenpeace boats raced back to the Arctic Sunrise. Cameramen jumped out and raced to the helicopter while Deb put on the Santa suite, and jumped into the Hurricane with Daniel. Lena headed back down to the kitchen. "Got cooking to do after all," she said. |
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From
the more stable boat, Deb managed to toss the gift-wrapped letter to the
crew of the whaling ship. They threw it back. So, Deb tossed it back into
the ship. During the volley we realized that the whalers have covered
their harpoon. The priority,
of course, was to make sure that the Toshi-maru could not resume the hunt
, but Deb and Daniel were also determined to deliver their Christmas message
to the crew. The letter explains the illegality of Japan's whaling in
the Southern Ocean Sanctuary as well as Greenpeace's commitment to non-violence.
We figured the crew had probably been lied to about both, and deserve
to know the truth. Eventually,
we faxed the ship the letter but the captain may have chosen not to show
it to his crew.
After a while, our helicopter headed back to the Arctic Sunrise with cameramen inside, but the Hurricane maintained its presence with Toshi-maru for almost four hours. We have managed to stop at least one ship from hunting whales for at least one day.
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