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Resting Sea Shepherd: a pause in the whale war saga : Comments
By Binoy Kampmark, published 30/8/2017Against absurdly gargantuan odds, a small organisation's resources were mustered to save whale species from imminent extinction.
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Way back in October 82 I was sailing south down the Queensland coast from Island Head Creek to Keppel Island, in a very stiff northerly. Quite a steep sea had built up, with a lot of breaking waves. I was surfing about every 3Rd wave, & traveling quite fast.
I had been caught by a sudden unpredicted increase in wind strength, & would have liked to be sailing slower with less sail up, but it would have been difficult to get the sail off, single handed in that seaway. I had passed another yacht with at least 3 crew, who were having difficulty getting sail off her. Better for me to get into calmer water in the lea of the Keppel Islands to drop sails.
Then it became impossible as I sailed into a pod of Minke whales. I did not see many of them in the steep sea, but was surrounded by their spouts for an hour or more. My yacht was self steering on the windvane, but I could not leave the helm as at any moment I expected to find a Minke at the bottom of the wave I was surfing down. I needed to be ready to at least try to dodge on if one appeared.
There was not much chance of dodging a large whale, & not much chance of staying afloat or alive if I hit one. At 10 miles offshore, in rough conditions neither were likely outcomes.
This & once out in the middle of the coral sea, when some new rigging started failing are 2 of the 3 times in my life when I have been scared.
Was I lucky, or was there little danger? I don't know, but if I was still sailing, I would like to see a lot less whales swimming along the Oz east coast.