Whaling: Dangerous confrontation looms

We are now ten days out from Fremantle in Western Australia and for nine of those days we have had the Japanese security ship “Shonan Maru #2” on our tail preventing us from closing in on the main body of the whaling fleet.

Today we entered French Antarctic territorial waters. We had requested permission to enter and the French base at Dumont d’ Urville graciously gave us permission. The “Shonan Maru #2” did not ask for permission to enter French waters and have not been given permission to do so. Despite this they continue to follow us.

This is now an illegal pursuit on the part of the Japanese ship. We continue to head towards the French coastline threading our way through the ice. We encountered the Patagonia toothfish longliner ‘#2 In Song” registered in Korea fishing a quarter of a mile outside French waters in the Australian Antarctic territorial waters. We were able to confirm that it had a license issued by CAMMLR and so we carried on towards the coast.

If the Japanese ship does not depart French waters on the orders of the French authorities we may be forced into a dangerous confrontation with the “Shonan Maru #2” amongst the bergs and the growlers of the ice pack.

Today we saw our first penguins of the season – groups of Adelies resting on chunks of floating ice and staring comically at us as we passed by.

France has made it quite clear to Japan that they will not tolerate their whaling activities in French territorial waters. All of Japan’s proposed whaling activities for this season will take place in Australian territorial waters despite the fact that the Australian Federal Court ruled in January 2008 that Japan was prohibited from whaling activities in Australian waters. The Japanese whaling vessels are now in contempt of that court order.