page 10, August 4, 1976 - North Shore News

At 7 a.m. on the morning of July 19, as
Greenpeace crew member Bob Thomas was just-
finishing his night watch, he spied several small
dots on the horizon. He shook captain George
Korotva from his sleep, and George was soon fixed
on the horizon with his field glasses. For five
minutes George ‘stared out of the wheelhouse
window, then he turned to Thomas and said,

**That’s them.’’

_ ‘Thomas ran through the
. boat like Paul Revere an-
nouncing to the waking crew

that the Russian whaling

“fleet was in sight. I climbed

out of my bunk and grabbed.

“my cameras, which ‘has been
loaded and ready since we
first heard the Russians on
the radio three days earlier.
As we approached,. 1 could
see that it was the Russian

factory ship ‘‘Vostok’’ and its -
fleet of 12 killer boats: the

same flotilla that we en-
countered off the coast of
‘California last year. Now we
were 800-miles northeast of
Hawaii, the sky was clear,
the sea was calm, and our

inflatable interference boats

were in the water within
minutes.

OFF COURSE

‘We had left San Francisco

WHALE-SAVERS in rubber dinghy manoeuvre hazardously
between Russian factory ship [left], killer boat (right) and

-the ship and the crew as we

Sattled a violent northwest

gale. Unable to run across it —

because of the tremendous
roll, we were forced to head
into the swell for two days,
driving us farther north than
we had wanted to go.

On the third day out the

‘sea sat down calm, and we
-changed © course, heading
southwest towards the Ha-
waiian. archipelago. ~The

storm had taken its toll on

our vessel; metal plates and

wooden ‘planks were torn
from the starboard side.

Water covered the floor in
one of the bunk rooms, and
the bilge pump was running

- Steadily. Our ecologist, Dr.
- Patrick Moore, who doubles

as shipwright, made what
repairs he could as we
carried on.

‘dead. whale [Rex Weyler photo.)

seven days earlier with full
fuel tanks and a vague idea
of where the Russian and
Japanese fleets must be.
Captain Korotva, 34, who
was a fisherman in Tofino
before joining Greenpeace
for last year’s vogage, felt
that, if we took a northern arc
to Hawaii and monitored the
radio on a 24-hour schedule,
we could pick them up.

‘The first two nights out of
San Francisco were rough on

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RUSSIAN VOICES

. On July 17th, while com-
munications coordinator. Rod

Marening, of 128 East 1st in.

North Vancouver, monitored
the radio on the several
frequencies that we suspect-
ed the whaling fleets to use,

he’ heard what sounded like
‘Russian voices. He called in

Korotva, who speaks Rus-
sian, to verify the signal.

Once we established that
we were listening to the

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whaling fleet, we took a
directional fix on the signal,
using the ship’s. radio direc-
tional finder. They were
slightly to the north of ms,
but more or less dead ahéad.
The storm that drove us
north had taken us right into
their path..

drifting killer boat. We took
their picture as they took
pictures of us. We approach-
ed cautiously as the crew

stood on the deck watching .

us. I noticed a young crew
member taking pictures who
ran out of film: I reached into

‘my pocket and took out a roll,

. we went close to the boat,

' We doubled up our watch-
es, and followed the signal.
For two days we saw nothing

‘and heard no further trans- -
-missions-on the radio. Then |

on the. evening of July 18, we-

' picked them up again on the |

radio.
| KILLER BOATS

_ We could not believe. what
‘we were hearing. This was
the-first year in the history of
modern whaling that a fleet’.
was in this area at this time
of year. In previous years the
fleet. was by this time.
operating off the west coast.
of North America. It had
altered its pattern, possibly.
due to the encounter we had
with them last year off the.
coast of California.

When we finally saw them,
the 150-foot killer boats were
dispersing from the factory
ship to go about their day’s
hunting. We picked out a
killer boat, and followed it.
Soon’ we saw sperm whales
spouting frantically in front
harpooner. We

launched our inflatable
boats, and positioned our." |

_ selves. once again “between
the. harpoon and: the whales.

At this” point | we became
aware of the numbers on the

' ‘side of this ‘particular boat:

“‘NK 2007”:. This was the

_ Valasnyi, the same boat that
shot’ a harpoon over our
. heads last year!

NO VIOLENCE _

We were astounded when
we found that they had

- changed their tactics. After a

few minutes. of maneouver-
ing in front of the harpooner,
we realized that they were,
slowing down. Then they
stopped dead in the water as

‘the pod of eight to 12 sperm

whales disappeared from
sight; we sat there with the

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and I tossed him the film.

- He asked me in English .

what we were doing, and I
“explained .to him‘ that we
loved the whales, and we

“were trying to. stop them
‘from being slaughtered. To

my surprise he' was quite
receptive to that idea.’ He

took a pin from his shirt and"

tossed - it to me. It was a

bronze service pin issued -to
“him for. his: work in the

whaling industry. I took off a
. whale pendant that I had
around my neck and handed
jit to him as we moved up

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