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The Forum > Article Comments > Resting Sea Shepherd: a pause in the whale war saga > Comments

Resting Sea Shepherd: a pause in the whale war saga : Comments

By Binoy Kampmark, published 30/8/2017

Against absurdly gargantuan odds, a small organisation's resources were mustered to save whale species from imminent extinction.

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Yes Nick, the sea is going to become quite dangerous in some areas.

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.
Posted by Hasbeen, Thursday, 31 August 2017 2:15:42 PM
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Did you have a bowsprit with guys ? You could harpoon a minke in a trough and use the next wave to push into a vital organ. Throw an anchor across and tow in for BBQ .

Russia kept the Antarctic whale-free for its subs until Greenpeace revolutionaries sabotaged the Red Navy . Now the traffic is like Thailand and a blue whale is no joke.
Posted by nicknamenick, Thursday, 31 August 2017 5:15:27 PM
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NNN ...

Holy cow...any of them up there? Some of them are red!
I had a red headed girlfriend once. She was in the Russian navy. She confirmed what you have said.
It's how Putin got elected. It isn't a red herring, but it sure was a blue!
Posted by diver dan, Thursday, 31 August 2017 8:49:33 PM
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"The Aral Sea is situated in Central Asia,. Up until the third quarter of the 20th century it was the world's fourth largest saline lake, . The Soviet government decided in the 1960s to divert those rivers so that they could irrigate the desert region surrounding the Sea in order to favor agriculture rather than supply the Aral Sea basin.. the majority of it was being soaked up by the desert and blatantly wasted (between 25% and 75% of it, depending on the time period). . the origin of the imbalance that caused the sea to slowly desiccate over the last 4 decades.., causing some or all fishes that either survived or had been reintroduced in the 1990s to die."

The Russian Aral naval fleet and whaling factories became white with salt, the cotton mills were in the red, holy cows were banned and Krushchev asked the Australian Communists about whaling on Lake Eyre. Greenpeace had a black ban.
Posted by nicknamenick, Thursday, 31 August 2017 9:06:52 PM
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Hey NNN,

Come to think of it, maybe she was a blue mink whale in disguise. She was fond of blubbering. I called her blue for short, (as you would of course).

Till I read your post, I wasn't aware a whale would fit on a BBQ plate. Holy cow!
Assuming all our governments don't sell off the entire coal reserves of Australia first, as they conspired to do with gas, we could save a few shovel fulls for a whale of a BBQ.

I got lost at sea once dodging a whale. Had to wait till night fall to find East. How's that you might ask, I can hear you say?

Luckily I had a spare copy of the Australian flag with the picture of the Southern Cross on it, (as you'd expect it would), but I couldn't remember if the St George's cross was in the bottom right or top left corner. Think I got it wrong cause I ended up in Auckland . Great holiday though. I met a bruinett from a visiting US nuclear sub. Quite a girl she was!

Yes, you think there is a hole in this story Nick, I know. True it is; no nukes in NZ. However, if you park the sub in Rico's cave at the Poor Knights island , it fine.
Here is a picture! That's me feeding the fish!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Tje7-T5-O2A
Posted by diver dan, Thursday, 31 August 2017 9:51:27 PM
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I'm very sceptical of Watson's 'environmental' bona fide as he does have a history of liaising with well known nativists (especially now with Trump, Bannon, Sessions et al.):

SPLC (2004) 'Former Sierra Club (US version of ACF) Director Discusses Hostile Takeover Attempt by Anti-Immigration Activists'

'We read the original Tanton memos and became even more alarmed as we began to put some of the pieces together — the convergence of anti-immigration groups and Watson's particular wing of the animal rights movement.'

https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2004/former-sierra-club-director-discusses-hostile-takeover-attempt-anti-immigrant-activists
Posted by Andras Smith, Sunday, 3 September 2017 2:37:05 AM
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