From the Steve Irwin

Captain Paul Watson
I am hoping to engage the Japanese whaling fleet before Christmas. We need to stop them earlier this year before they can begin to kill too many whales.


Captain Watson and friend. Pictures: Rachael Tuffin

OUR SHIP is making good time and the weather is in our favor. We’ve seen dolphins and a few whales and we are being accompanied by a couple of albatross.

I am hoping to engage the Japanese whaling fleet before Christmas. We need to stop them earlier this year before they can begin to kill too many whales.

We had a great send-off in Hobart with Green Party Senator Bob Brown giving us his full support. The people in Brisbane, Newcastle and Hobart were very supportive and encouraging.

We are now south of fifty degrees in the area known as the Furious Fifties. It is getting colder each day we move further South.

We have an excellent crew this year and I am confident that they will be up for the task of shutting down illegal Japanese whaling activities.

Paul – via email.

The Steve Irwin, the flagship of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society made port at 6 am last Wednesday to receive final supplies before heading south to intervene in the Japanese whaling program.

The crew, who will be at sea for two months or more, took a last opportunity for shore leave; enjoying coffee at Retro, visiting the Seafarer’s Mission, posting letters and calling relatives and friends. Final equipment deliveries were made, along with a tonne of food donated by locals and 25 tonnes of fuel and water. One crew was spotted with a personal supply 15 bars of vegan dark chocolate!

Laura and Shann, the dynamic cooking team, made a last run for fresh tofu and other supplies, while Chris, the unflappable campaign co-ordinator, was taken around Hobart’s engineering shops to fill final orders from the deck and engineering sections. The ship was a hive of activity as supplies were stowed and deck-work completed. The retractable helicopter hangar had a final inspection. The ships divers spent the day doing final hull inspections.

The ship, a former Scottish fisheries patrol vessel, is clean and strong and shows the effort of the 50-strong crew in preparing for the campaign. The main deck is dominated by a long-range, radar equipped, rigid-hulled inflatable boat (rhib, as in; ‘We’re taking the rib out for a engine run-in’). This $300,000 high-speed, military standard rhib is similar to Hobart’s Wild Thing tourist boat but has been hardened. It is partnered with a smaller, eight metre pursuit rhib.

The crew is clearly well trained and competent, with a clear and united purpose: to defend ocean life. They are well matched with over half of them being long-time crew, each with more than six direct-action Sea Shepherd campaigns under their belts. The newer crew all have over six months of ships time working to prepare for the campaign. In other words; a tight crew and a tight ship.

Shore leave ended at 2:30 pm and the ship was closed for customs clearance. At 5:30 pm the pilot took the ship out and the crew will be settling into the routine of a long voyage of continuous, 24/7, duty rosters in the big seas of the Southern Ocean. They have one purpose: to engage with and stop the whaling fleet. With open eyes they have all signed on to a job that is, in the words of the famous Sea Shepherd ad:

Help Wanted – Volunteers Needed!
Job description:
No pay, Long hours, Hard work, Dangerous conditions, Extreme weather.
Guaranteed
Adventure, fulfilment and the hardest work you will ever love. The experience of a lifetime.

Steve Irwin in Hobart: