Of all the things I wanted to do before I hit 50

30^th Sept (morning)

Of all the things I wanted to do before I hit 50 
I can honestly say standing out in a typhoon 
trying to photograph men buying freshly slaughtered 
dolphin meat wasn't one of them. But here I am ...

Up at the usual 5am we weren't expecting the worst 

of the typhoon till late afternoon and left the 

hotel to low winds and calm waters. Only the 

absence of the tourist boats and seeing the fishing 

boats had anchored away from the sea walls reminded 

us it was on its way. 

We arrived in Taiji to find the banger boats 

safely moored in anticipation of the typhoon. 

We checked dolphins in the sea pens and then sat 

and watched the rains arrive from the south… 

Thinking there wasn't a lot we could achieve for 

a while John and I decided to go get supplies. As 

we drove away from the town we passed a very 

surprised meat buyer with his police escort. 

They must have thought we had already 

left. U-turn!! 

And one thing lead to another, in u-turning back 

to the butcher house we stumbled across a skiff 

heading towards the cove … why would they be going 

there with the impending weather?!?! So another u-turn 

had us driving to the cove where 8 policemen watched 

us videoing the dolphin hunters remove the last of 

the nets and signs. It was lovely to see the cove 

as it should be.. a place of beauty, a place to be 

enjoyed.. It’s a shame that as soon as this weather 

passes Taiji will transform it back to be their 

dirty little secret, the thing that brings so much 

shame to their town. 

Net free cove

As I type it’s 12.30 and we can hear the winds starting to 

pick up. Soon the Cove Guardians will be going again to 

check the dolphins in the sea pens and my stomach is in 

knots. Not because I’m frightened to go out in the typhoon, 

but because I don’t want to see what I fear we are going to 

see… 

2012, First Day and First Slaughter.

First Day and First Slaughter.

29^th September

John & I should have arrived in Taiji yesterday lunch time, but we had a journey thwart with mishaps …  although worse than any of the travel problems we were having was the frustration we felt because we were not in Taiji standing with the other Cove Guardians as a pod of about 30 pilot whales were driven into the cove. The poor whales were so frightened they smashed themselves against rocks and tried to beach …. If you haven’t seen the footage please check the official facebook page 

Desperate pilot whales 

SeaShepherdCoveGuardiansOfficialPage

We arrived at the hotel at 11pm as a few of the Guardians were heading back to the cove to check on the pod. We exchanged a rushed hello, goodnight till we saw them again this morning….

By the time John and I arrived at the cove the dolphin hunters were already preparing for the slaughter.

They split the pod….. the police told me they were intending to release the younger ones, to drive them back out to sea … I don’t know if the police thought that news would please us? If they did then they really don’t understand why we are here.

Time after time the waters in the cove turned red, there didn’t seem to be any attempt to hide the blood. Then the skiffs would transport the slaughtered pilot whales, several bodies at a time, dragged by their tails, to the waiting banger boats that transported them to butcher house.

A break for lunch .. then more slaughter … about 20 in total. We can make a good estimation from the number of ropes tied to each skiff.

And then the younger pod members (looking at the size of the fins I think what the police told us was correct), scared, hungry and exhausted, without their parents and grandparents to look after them and lead them, were driven back into the ocean.  We watched for a long time after the  banger boats left them….., we watched the youngsters turn and head back to Taiji for a while …then they turned again and headed out to sea….  

pilot whales relesed , vidieo

The meal we shared tonight with the other Guardians was filled with long silences. Many said that is two days was the worst they had endured here.

A typhoon is expected tomorrow.. as we walked back to the hotel we could see people preparing for it. The boats in the harbour are prepared for it ….  But nobody will prepare the dolphins in the sea pens, or think to release them …we expect they will be left to their fate.

I will never, ever, understand how this town can say it loves dolphins. Murder and abuse isn’t love.

October (Red October) 2011

THIS WAS NOT POSTED LAST YEAR , I HAVE PUT IT BACK ON  IT AS THERE WAS A YEAR MISSING

12 hours is a long flight … Paris to Osaka Japan. Unable to sleep in the cramped economy class seats gave me lots of thinking time.. which wasn’t really welcome. Here I was, again, travelling to Taiji to be a Cove Guardian for Sea Shepherd… me, a Mrs Average 40 something-year-old working Mum.

Same time last year, early October (Red October), John (my husband) and I had travelled to Taiji and the unknown. This year was different, we were not travelling into the unknown.. and worse than that... we weren’t unknown.   Last year we were tourists, right up until the moment we arrived at The Cove and police took our passport details, …. I knew this time we were “marked”.

So I spent that 12 hours going over every scenario.. every possible question and answer customs might have for me. I worried that if John and I were held what would Sarah do?? Sarah’s our 17 year old daughter who was coming with us. I worried that if they didn’t let us in we’d have spent £££££s on nothing …. I worried that if we did get past customs there was a 100 strong specially trained police squad waiting for us .. I mean, I’d seen all the media hype of them training … I worried and fretted while John and Sarah laughed at me.

So picture my surprise… Osaka airport.. customs .. I sailed past!! The relief!! So did Sarah (not that I didn’t expect her to). I turned to smile at John, only to see John being escorted away by a couple of officials.  Mmmmmm.

So Sarah and I made camp on the cold floor near the doors he’d vanished through and waited…. 90 minutes later a very elated John came back to us. He was elated because .. well.. if we weren’t making a difference they’d have had no wish to detain him. It was a measure of our success.   He’d been questioned by 3 guys with a translator … the usual, why are you here? do you have money? do you have accommodation? how are you travelling … then he was left alone for a while (John thinks it was to give him time to get worried so he just played games on his phone)… then they started again, only this time they asked the question he’d been waiting for “you are with Sea Shepherd?”. John didn’t deny it. He answered every question honestly … stressed he was not in Japan to break any laws ..and eventually they couldn’t delay him anymore.. they had no grounds.  We were not travelling in our colours or waving a SSCS flag so it confirmed to me our passports were marked. And if we needed any more confirmation Patricia (fellow 2^nd timer) who flew in later the same day from the USA was also held.

We were in Japan… phew.

Next we needed to collect the hire car … So picture another surprise .. we complete the paperwork and are escorted to the collection point. Nearly every car in Japan is white or silver… we are standing in a car park full of white and silver cars .. where we are presented with a green one.. a pea green one. Maybe I’m suffering from a little (healthy) paranoia .. but what’s the odds … John had told customs where we were hiring the car from and here it was .. a green car for the Eco-terrorists. We were not going to be missed.

So we drove the 4 hours to Taiji .. as we got close we checked the FB and Twitter updates. We knew the CGs were still around and when we saw a … what is the collective name for CGs??.. well anyhow when we pulled up along side them Sarah, in her excitement, tumbled (literally)  from the car and ran over.

It’s strange.. here was a group of people we’ve never met and we’re instantly good friends.

The CGs (Rosie, Marley & Carisa ) were watching for a baby humpback that had been spotted …the fishermen had been to investigate ..  but he’d disappeared. I’m still hoping his Mum was waiting for him to tell him off for venturing so shallow.

And so our 2 weeks began.

Rosie Kunneke was our leader.  I can see why Sea Shepherd picked her for the role. As a veteran of several campaigns, who didn’t appear to know the meaning of the word “fear” when it came to the protection of our dolphins, she instilled confidence in her “troops”.  Her bravery was infectious …. And her passion was unquestionable.  I think in the whole time we were with Rosie I only saw her frustrated once…sad lots of times when we witnessed the cruelty inflicted on those beautiful dolphins… but frustrated only once…  people had facebooked asking why we Cove Guardians “weren’t f **cking doing something”.  The comments really got to her…

And they got to me … because we are doing something. I agree this campaign is not Sea Shepherds usual direct action approach, but if any idiot, sorry I mean if anyone doesn’t think we’re making a difference I can only refer them to

Operation Infinite Patience: Return of the Cove Guardians

http://www.seashepherd.org/news-and-media/2011/08/30/operation-infinite-patience-return-of-the-cove-guardians-1277

If we weren’t doing anything why else would the fishermen go to great lengths to stop us getting photographs? The cost of the coastguards and police must be ridiculously high. One day Sarah, Patricia and I were at The Cove as a pod of dolphins were being killed and there were 5 officials to each one of us girls. They just stood and watched us … . 

I can assure everyone that we’d love nothing more than to jump in and save the dolphin, but we wouldn’t get close and even if we did cut nets to free them we couldn’t drive them back out to sea. Last year I watched as part of a pod were released ( a PR stunt??).. the banger boats really struggled to drive them back out to sea.  We guessed that they didn’t want to leave the rest of the pod that were being slaughtered and that they didn’t have a leader.

Someone commented on Facebook that this year there seemed to be a lot more pods being chased and escaping. I’m only speaking for me, what I believe, but I think it’s not that more dolphin are eluding the fishermen, it’s that we can see the chase through the better cameras. Last year what John and I saw as dots on the horizon are confirmed banger boats, we can see the formations, the black smoke they make as they speed up and change direction at about 10 miles out… we can see the pods breaking the water 2/3 miles out. 

The chase is the part I hate the most. Knowing there’s a chance…willing them to swim far, fast , deep….  2 or more hours most mornings with my heart pounding. They lose them, they find them, they chase north then south.. they cross the shipping lane… they break formation…and on it goes…..

Last year there were 2 occasions where I’m sure Scott West would have written on our CG report card “could have done better”  J and this year we did. Scott if you are reading this then know what a difference a year makes.

Last year John staked out for hours to get photos of a slaughter only to be found by the police/fishermen before it started … this year he stayed hidden from the police who only found a pea green car… he attributes this success to the hours he spent building tree houses with our kids J

The other time was when we went to photograph a dolphin being loaded onto a truck to be transported to its life in a tank. We got the photos and returned to the other Cove Guardians were Scott asked had we not thought to follow the truck … This year the truck was followed! Not very covertly in the pea green car … but successfully to Adventure World.

Did John and I do the right thing taking a 17 year with us? Taking her out of school in her A Level year?? We have no doubts that we did. What did Rosie call her..… oh yes, “Kick-Ass” . And she was. She did so much more than anyone expected of a teenager and showed no emotion in front of the fishermen. Her efforts to speak Japanese were a great help to us and appreciated by the locals.

It was a hard and bloody 2 weeks.  I am so grateful to Sea Shepherd for the opportunity for my family to join their team and be part of Operation Infinite Patience. I know we helped make a difference as more CGs meant we could cover more areas which was vital when so much was happening.

I am grateful to the change in the weather which kept the boats in as we left Taiji to travel home…appeasing our guilt …to leave knowing the boats were hunting would have been soul destroying.  

We leave our hearts with Rosie and the CGs to follow and will support them by contacting the Japanese Embassies each and every time a pod is driven towards The Cove.

Till next year xx

John and I are back home

John and I are back home in Manchester, UK. We have not seen a bed for over 45 hours, although we napped on the flights… At every opportunity we were logging onto facebook to see that was happening with our friends at The Cove on this day of protest, the 14th.  You guys did great xxxx
We are so happy to be back with the kids, but it was pretty bad planning on our part to spend the 14th in the air!! Doh. But we feel like we joined you by wearing our SSCS t-shirts all the way home. As I said in my last blog we were under surveillance at Osaka airport, and lots of people were taking photos of us, mostly the young Japanese… but we had nothing worse than a couple of dirty looks.

My ankles are swollen and my legs are bitten and I’m so tired I can’t see straight so this is a really short note to let you know we’re ok.

For the Oceans, with Sea Shepherd…our little bit …
Jackie

Today we are leaving Japan.

Today we are leaving Japan. We have missed the kids and want to be with them, but at the same time we want to stay here with the team and help keep the pressure on…

We didn’t have to leave till mid-day so we offered to be “lookout” at the vantage point for one last morning if the boats were out. They were… so off we went while the others headed to The Cove. There are 12 boats which normally break into 2 lots of 6, one group going North and the other South.. 4 came in by about 8.30. We were pretty relieved as leaving here would have been much harder if there had been dolphin in The Cove…  but the others didn’t follow. In fact it was a long time before we eventually located them, well 6 of them. They were miles out, but with the binoculars we could see they were in formation…not good, and they were moving slowly side on, backwards and forwards…really not good… They were too far away for us to be 100% sure, but we’d bet 2 years ice-cream they were driving dolphin. Our hearts sank. We watched for over an hour as they struggled with their task. The last 2 boats had arrived and were stationary just off the headland, they didn’t go into the harbour, it looked like they were waiting to help.  We think what eventually happened was that when they tried to cross the busy shipping lane the noise from the much bigger boats made them loose control of the pod  as they suddenly broke formation 2 dashing off to the side (we could see the clouds of black smoke caused by the sudden acceleration - their engines need a clean). After that there seemed to be a lot of confusion, they were all over the place…just like when they were driving the babies out to sea yesterday and it wasn’t going well. Nothing like the day before that when they drove the pod into The Cove with what looked to be effortless efficiency.

Then they broke any pretence at formation and we could see from the wake behind each boat that they were heading back to the harbour at full speed. At last we could relax, although we would not leave the vantage point till they were all in the harbour.  As we were packing up our stuff a man came walking around the corner, we had not heard him coming and he’d no idea we were there so he and I both jumped in surprise then laughed. He asked John to take his picture which he did, then he asked to take our picture. After he’d taken our photograph his eyes widened and he pointed at the SSCS emblem on John’s t-shirt saying Sea Shepherd? John replied “Yes, we are here for the dolphin” He shook John’s hand and told us we (that is SSCS) are famous… he didn’t say infamous..and I repeat, he shook John’s hand. I really believe steps forward are being made here all the time…We have been so proud to be just a small part of it all.

Then we had one last task, to count the captive dolphin in the tiny pens at the neck of the harbour.  We counted a definite 16, but there could be more. I don’t know how long they have been in these tiny pens as they were already there when John and I arrived… But what I want to know is why were the pens built at the neck of the harbour??? Because it narrows there the boats have no choice but to pass right by them, and then, because they are leaving the harbour they can speed up so go full throttle .. the noise must drive the dolphin mad… so very cruel.

So we took our leave,  Junior came with us,  so SSCS are 3 Cove Guardians down, but we took solace in the fact The Cove was empty and more people had arrived to help. Junior,  John and I will continue our work in the UK.

I am sat in the airport writing this. John and I are in our SSCS colours. I believe security are watching us and I’m playing a game called “How Many Times Can We Put Rubbish In The Bin Before They Stop Sending Security To Check It”…John thinks I’m being an attention seeker and that they’re constantly checking all the bins… who knows.

We have not had any reaction to the way we are dressed except the usual whispers and points so I’m feeling quite comfortable….just as I typed that someone took our picture, lol

If I can I’ll post this before I get on the plane… I’ll write again over the weekend to let you know we are home safe, but that will be my last blog…..for this campaign…..


For the Oceans, with Sea Shepherd, …our little bit ..
Jackie

And the sea ran red ….

And the sea ran red ….

I did manage to sleep a little last night, but it took a bottle of wine…and we were back at The Cove for 4.30am.. it was still dark and I think Steven was very happy to see us after his all night vigil.  The dolphins were still slapping their tails in frustration (they’d been trapped for 24 hours in that small netted off area) and it sounded even more disturbing in the dark. A noise I’ll never forget.

John and Scott went into the town to see if the gutting boat had left the harbour, it hadn’t. Was there hope??
John climbed a tsunami escape route to try and get photos from a different angle.. I didn’t envy him this task as this is a rarely used path (although clearly marked on all the maps) webbed by giant spiders..I’d gone up the same path with him during the days previously and, even though I’m not scared of the spiders back home, here they are something else…and he was climbing in the dark….no torch. He told me later he found a branch and waved in in front of him to break the webs. Unfortunately his efforts were in vain as we think it was noticed by the authorities that he was missing from the beach as guys went out searching for him..although it was the 3rd time walking past him before they spotted him dangling over the cliff edge.  I was very proud of my husband… even if he was discovered…..and the sight of him walking down the path back to us with his “guards” had me grinning but at the same time as I was very relieved he’d not been hurt. There have been several death threats against SSCS (being investigated by the police here) and he was alone up there, in the dark, with Sea Shepherd written all over him… yes I am very proud of him.
But a quick note to my kids…if the police ever bring you home to me I wont be so proud!! 

The trainers arrived and were taken around to the Cove, they selected 2, which surprised me as they were Risso Dolphins, so John and I left the guys at the Cove …jumped in the car and drove into the town of Taiji  expecting to film them being put in one of those tiny holding pens…but they drove straight past the pens (the dolphins in the pens were jumping, it was probably the noise from all the boats ..busy day at the neck of the harbour…but I want to think it was in support of their brothers being dragged through the water strapped to the side of a motor boat...past the ..I don’t know what you call it… the building where they chop up the bodies ?? and to a waiting pickup truck with a crane which lifted the 2 terrified dolphin and  dumped them in the open back as the caring (not) trainers made a pretence of making them comfortable by pouring scoops of water on them…oh how kind…not. We are guessing from the crude form of transport they were not going far, but we didn’t follow them because while we were trying to get footage of this (suggestion for would be activists - invest in a good zoom lens) we saw 6 banger/hunting boats leave the harbour…here we go again …so headed to the vantage point to watch what was happening…
We were in phone contact with the guys at the Cove so we knew they had started the slaughter, they could hide the act inside the Cove and behind tarpaulins but not the blood…We knew as well that they had decided to release the juveniles, but we’d been lead to believe it was the juveniles and the mothers. When you watch the video we took you’ll hear  us discussing what a botched job the XXXXX’s were making of driving them out to freedom, but now we know the kids were released without any parent to lead them, no wonder they were all over the place and acting out of character..I can’t get that thought out of my head, a bunch of kids, alone, scared, disorientated, tired, hungry…and having just witness the slaughter of their family.. I just keep thinking where are they now? But we’ll never know if they made it or not.
We were told the XXXXX’s had released the youngsters “for the survival of the species“…mmm yes of course they did..because they are so experienced at this “ release stuff”  that they’d pick the group with the least change of survival to set free…..no …in my mind it was a PR thing.…a way of saying to the world, who are watching, that “we are not the bad guys“. As my teenage daughter would say “you fail”.
How much thought was put into that? None??!?  What dip stick dreamed up this PR stunt!

John and I are 100% SSCS …no dolphins should have been killed …..so today was not a good day…but releasing the babies as a PR thing (I’m not speaking for SSCS I’m only a supporter) but it did show that world pressure (go Steven xx ) is having an influence..I’m begging you to keep that presure on.

The other thing you might notice about the our filming of the dolphins being driven out is that we find it hard to spot them…that was not a problem on the drive in…work out the math….we don’t know specific numbers, we can only give best guess, but we think 20 - 2 (captive) - 12 (for meat with a mercury garnish) = 6 babies  driven away from the place their family was slaughtered and into the open sea with a slim chance of survival…yes..go Japan… this is the way to conserve you stock and jobs for the future,,, DOH! Are we on the same planet??? I’m so frustrated.

Earlier today, after the slaughter I was numb, now it’s all gushing out…sorry you guys are on the receiving end..anyhow.. the rest of today…

So we’d seen the 6 boats leave harbour, they came back empty handed :> .. We told you the fishermen had made real hash of driving the babies out to sea… So now the nets were down and we could swim The Cove again.. We didn’t want to, I mean, would you? Could you?  But there were reporters and film makers wanting to film us, and the whole idea of SSCS in Taiji is to bring focus, so we swam.

Quick note for all you fellow 40 something’s who have had babies and might not be feeling so good about stripping off in front of cameras…don’t forget your swim kit, like I did today….. Luckily….emm yes luckily John had his swimming trunks in the car and I borrowed them…
(We got a call this evening to say SSCS had reached the news channels (pretty cool considering we are “terrorists” and should be in jail just for entering the country lol)….but not so cool when you are in your husbands trunks…doh…hey ho all for a good cause !!

The film guys got the footage they wanted of us in the water but I am glad they could not film us in the Cove as it got intense …. they’d not washed away the blood. I wish we could give you a photo of what we saw, but we had problems with the camera, sorry. Elora (and I cannot tell you how hard this was for a passionate vegitarion 16 year old child) , wiped her fingers in the blood then swam back to the shore one handed , so show people well done you xx

Tomorrow …I was just going to write tomorrow is our last day, but it’s not, it’s our first… the start of our lives as people who care, who want our planet to still be here 2 generations forward…..and  the rest….

A reporter interviewed me today, she was shocked that John and I had funded this trip..she asked could the cost of this not have bought a pretty amazing holiday?? Well yes it could..obviously..but I can’t think of any holiday that could compare with this opportunity we had to make a difference, learn so much and meet some pretty amazing people..

To Scott and Elora.. Your hospitality was second to none…
and during our time here you did not stop looking out for us… I mean…I was clueless that we were being followed again today till you sorted it …turned the tables and followed them lol  But seriously I know you guys are emotionally drained and very tired, but you have been amazing. Thanks.

For the Oceans, with Sea Shepherd…our little bit…
Jackie

Why we are here...the reason has arrived ,,, and we are expecting them to be killed tomorrow

Imagine the scene, two 40 something’s sitting on a beach laughing at the fact they have just heard that there have been more death threats made against Sea Shepherd in Japan. And both ladies are wearing Sea Shepherd colours….surreal…well I’d have thought so except one of them was me..

I don’t want to write a blog tonight, I just want to sleep…if I can…so I’ll just give you a quick run through the day and then attach a link to Elora’s ..she’s the reporter

As we drove to Taiji this morning we expected the fleet to be in the harbour respecting the festival /holiday as we’d been lead to believe by differing sources. We’ll never know who lied to who or even if it was disrespectful for the fishermen to go out today….but as soon as we saw guys walking around in white wellies we knew what was going to happen. The boats had gone out and the sea was flat calm…
John and I went to the vantage point and the others to the beach with our only “weapons” ..the cameras.
It wasn’t long before we saw the boats coming in in formation. The water was breaking in front of them and for as long as possible we could tried to convince ourselves the white water was, well, anything except for  dolphin, although we know it was .. And eventually we saw the first fin.. I cried and John told me to toughen up, there was so sympathy, we had a job to do.. I could cry later, at home in Manchester.

So we filmed the drive in ..the panicked dolphin, the sound of the banging boats and as soon as they were in The Cove we dashed back to the others.  We had not been able to see the species from the top of the hill, but they are Risso Dolphins.. Guess that means their fate is sealed, they are not as pretty as “Flipper” (bottle nose) so they’ll be meat with a mercury garnish….

A lady said to me on the beach that the Japanese have a longer life expectancy ..the longest in the world ..
I didn’t know anything about this subject so I’ve just googled it. And yes, she was right, although they tip the chart for death by strokes, and looking at the faces of some of the fishermen today, for reasons I’ll go into later, I don’t doubt it!! I’m happy for them. But I’m not here to worry about their life expectancy, I here to worry about the life expectancy of our oceans as they, and other countries, “farm”…..no not farm, as that implies sustaining your stock, no.. the only thing I can liken the human race to is a parasite, something that feeds of something till that something dies and then the parasite dies with it. Clever hey? Not !!

We had a busy beach ..and lots of fishermen watching their ££££££’s We were reminded of our promise not to swim in The Cove when £££££££’s of meat, with a mercury garnish,  were trapped there … we’d be arrested…..scary hey?? I mean they can hold you here for 28?days……
Hmmmm well did the police ended up looking really silly or what??… ‘cos when Steven Thompson dived into the waters and swam out to the dolphin the police could not arrest him as he’s done nothing wrong (??!!?!). As SSCS drove away there were at least 12 of the fishermen’s Tonka Trunks  = apx 24 fishermen who’d been told what Steven had done and dashed up for their little victory,… probably all wanting to know why Steven was not under arrest.. Lol .. Explain that one…please …  and explain, at the same time, why a Sea Shepherd member is in Japan and not under arrest .. You start to think…., well you start to…how do I put this this, I’m a Mom and if I lied to my kids well, I’d lose control as they’d have no respect. So what I’m asking the police is,  if you have a request, ask…don’t dress it up as “The Law” and make it scary… 28 days detention, when it’s not. Be honest.
Steven is not Sea Shepherd but has been spending time with us. This guy is still at the beach now, cold and hungry, I’m honoured to have him as a friend. His intention is to remain their all night on watch.
We’ll be back at The Cove in a few hours and are in phone contact with Steven. When we join him, at dawn, we expect to watch these dolphin be slaughtered … nursing mothers and babies too…

I feel like I have lived a week in this one day, from our first sighting to sitting here now it seems so long ago.. I want to sleep but ..well could you?

For the Oceans, with Sea Shepherd,… our little bit….
Jackie