by Eskil Engdal
But why is Nigeria waiting?
In Lagos Captain Warredi Enisuoh has received a disturbing letter. The sender is the Special Services Office from the office of the president of Nigeria and the letter is addressed to the Minister of Agriculture in Nigeria. Next to the threatening title of the letter – “United States Government Indicts Nigeria over Illegal Fishing”, the minister has written the word “Urgent” in red ink. The USA is threatening to impose sanctions on Nigeria because despite the fact that the country has two vessels on its ships register that have been fishing illegally in the Antarctic year after year, the authorities’ have failed to take any action. One of them is the Thunder. “I thought that actions were taken?” the Minister of Agriculture has written on the letter in the same red ink.
This turns the situation upside down for Enisuoh. Becoming involved in a dangerous, uncertain and expensive operation at sea with South Africa is no longer the best alternative for the Nigerian authorities. There is a much simpler solution for Nigeria, a solution nobody can blame them for and which will fix relations with the USA. Instead of asking South Africa to send out battleships, the Nigerian coast guard decides to throw the Thunder out of the ships register. With a stroke of the pen, the Thunder is made a stateless vessel. Now, in principle, anyone at all can go out and arrest the vessel without Nigeria’s help. At the same time, the country need not fear sanctions from the USA.
Enisuoh knows that Eve de Coning and others in the intelligence group will be disappointed. Everyone has produced strong arguments in favour of Nigeria’s taking responsibility and now they will probably think that he has found a simple solution to a difficult problem. But they don’t know Nigeria like he does, Enisuoh thinks. The worst that can happen is that the Nigerian prosecuting authority initiates criminal proceedings against the officers. The country is in the midst of a turbulent presidential election campaign, and the laws regarding the alleged infringements are too weak. The best and simplest solution is thus to remove the Thunder from the Nigerian registers, Enisuoh thinks. Nigeria failed to take action. And the members of the Interpol group think that’s worth weeping over.
Now there is only one remaining option. Take the Thunder when the ship puts in at port.
The Bob Barker and the Thunder have long since rounded the Cape of Good Hope and are at the latitude of the harbour town of Lüderitz in the south of Namibia. The Thunder continues north and shows no sign of moving towards land.
“On day 22 of the chase we all speculated what it would be like around day 90. Now you know what it feels like,” Hammarstedt says to the crew in the morning meeting.
The unfamiliar vessel they believed to be a battleship turned out to be a commercial ship on its way to Singapore. The captain asked where the Bob Barker was headed and Hammarstedt replied:
“We are bound for ports unknown.”3
28
THE BIRD OF ILL OMEN
THE SOUTH ATLANTIC OCEAN, MARCH 2015
It is a bad omen: an albatross whacks into the foremast of the Bob Barker. The powerful bird drops down onto the foredeck, and lies there flapping helplessly.
Peter Hammarstedt carries his superstition like a much older seaman. If he sees somebody spilling salt in the messroom, he gets up immediately and throws a handful of salt over his right shoulder. If he hears somebody whistle, he immediately orders them away from the bridge before they succeed in summoning a storm. To hint that one’s own or another ship could ever sink is also taboo. It is therefore one of the possible fates of the Thunder that is never discussed on board the Bob Barker.
To allow an albatross to die on the foredeck is also a cardinal sin.
For generations, the albatross has lived in the imaginative universes of sailors. For a long time nobody knew exactly where the bird came from or where it was headed. When it soared up along the side of a vessel, it was as if it was only making a brief visit to our world. In mythology, it carried the souls of drowned seamen. In Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” a ship is blown off course and finds itself helpless in the Antarctic. An albatross appears and leads it out of the ice and fog, but when one of the crew shoots the albatross, a curse is put on the ship. The cadaver of the albatross is hung around the neck of the shooter as an eternal burden, while the thirsty and helpless crew drifts towards the equator and death.
On board the Thunder nobody can afford to believe in the dead albatross’ curse. At first the illegal fleet fished toothfish with longlines. The albatrosses that always followed the ship dove for the bait, were dragged down into the depths and drowned. The loyal giant, which can live more than 50 years and remains faithful to one partner throughout an entire lifetime, was almost wiped out. At most, the illegal fleet killed 100,000 albatrosses a year. Of the 22 different species, 19 were on the verge of extinction.
While the Thunder was wreaking devastation in the Southern Ocean, Prince Charles, the British heir to the throne, wrote a letter to the Labour Party government’s Minister of the Environment to bring the poaching of toothfish to his attention. It was the fate of the albatross that triggered the prince’s concern.
“I particularly hope that the illegal fishing of the Patagonian toothfish will be high on your list of priorities because, until that trade is stopped, there is little hope for the poor old albatross, for which I shall continue to campaign,” he wrote in a letter in 2004.
The Prince of Wales also suggested that the British Navy should be involved in the search for the illegal toothfish fleet.1
To save his own disabled albatross, Hammarstedt slows down the Bob Barker and calls the ship’s physician and veterinarian Colette Harmsen. Folding its wings together, Harmsen picks up the bird and carries it out onto the quarterdeck. There it has a runway long enough to allow it to take flight.
When the albatross is airborne once more, Hammarstedt returns to the great cabin and closes the door behind him. The cabin is situated directly under the bridge, so he can get there in just a few seconds. The portholes in the cabin face forward, so at all times the shipmaster can see what is happening on the foredeck.
It is the only place where he can remove himself from the questions, speculations and expectations. Some of the crew view him as being private and reserved, bordering on anti-social, but they appreciate his dark, cunning sense of humour. Few have heard him raise his voice.
In the corner of the great cabin there is a small desk and a tiny kitchenette with a freezer that is always filled with blueberries for Hammarstedt’s daily smoothies. The bulkheads are clad with dark, African bamboo and decorated with a replica of a sword bearing the eye of Odin embedded in the haft and a painting of a sperm whale. The berth is luxuriously wide, but runs lengthwise across the cabin so the pitching of the ship is transmitted through its entire breadth. When the Bob Barker is plunging in the waves, Hammarstedt lies rolling back and forth like an empty bottle.
When Hammarstedt found the ship it was called the Polaris and was abandoned and forgotten in Abidjan, the capital of the Ivory Coast. The Polaris was covered with a fine layer of red dust found only in West Africa. Streaks of moisture were running from the bulkheads, and when Hammarstedt swept the beam of his flashlight over the flooring, he saw the cockroaches scurrying into their hiding places. The motor started with a reluctant sigh. Nonetheless, she was the vessel he wanted.
The Bob Barker was built as the Pol XIV in Fredrikstad, Norway in 1951, and became a part of the fleet that made Norway a whaling superpower. For ten years the ship operated out of Grytviken in South Georgia. By the time it was removed from service, more than 350,000 blue whales had been slaughtered in the Southern Ocean since the beginning of the century. The Norwegian whalers were so effective that they boasted about being able to cut up 50,000 kilos of whale meat in the amount of time it took a housewife to clean a mackerel.
Then the fate of the ship underwent a series of strange reversals. Back in Norway it wa
s converted into the coast guard vessel the Volstad Jr. and used to chase Sea Shepherd’s Whales Forever out of Lofoten during their action targeting Norwegian whalers in 1994. Three years later, the Volstad Jr. was rebuilt for the transport of tourists in the waters around Svalbard, but the ship never had any success there. Finally, it ended up in the Gulf of Guinea as a bunkering ship for the fishing fleet.
Sea Shepherd had long been looking for a new campaign vessel. During a meeting with the American television host and multimillionaire Robert William “Bob” Barker, Paul Watson claimed that for 5 million dollars he would manage to stop the Japanese whaling crafts in the Southern Ocean.
“I think you do have the skills to do that. And I have 5 million, so let’s get it on,” Barker replied.2
This saved the vessel from being scrapped. Subsequent to rebuilding in Mauritius, in 2010, painted black and under a false flag, it sailed into the Antarctic as the MY Bob Barker. The ship was registered in Togo, but the Norwegian flag fluttered on its bow.
“The Japanese could be forgiven for thinking that the pro-whaling Norwegians had sent a ship to support their illegal whaling activities in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. But any excitement turned to disappointment quickly as the Norwegian flag was hauled down and the black and white skull with crossed Trident and Shepherd’s crook was raised to announce the arrival of the Bob Barker,” Sea Shepherd bragged after the incident.3
She was the most important tool he had in the search for the Thunder. The Bob Barker’s radar has a range of 20 nautical miles. If the Bob Barker were to let him down, the Thunder would be out of sight in less than two hours.
29
THE WANDERER
GABON, MARCH 2015
“It is a whole world of crazy,” Peter Hammarstedt thinks as he looks at the map lying in front of him on the bridge.
The Thunder and the Bob Barker are sailing north at the outer edge of the Benguela Current, the cold ocean current carrying nutrient-rich water from the South Atlantic Ocean along the West African coast that has made Namibia and Angola into wealthy fishing nations. The interior is a scorched and ruthless landscape that was desiccated 80 million years ago. When the warm, dry air from the Namib Desert meets the cold, damp ocean air, the coast is enveloped in a thick belt of fog. More than a thousand ships have perished due to the fog, currents, cantankerous winds and waves along Namibia’s Skeleton Coast. It could just as well have been named the Dictator Coast, the long strip of land that without warning veers off to the east: Angola, Congo-Kinshasa, Congo-Brazzaville, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon, all brutal, corrupt states disguised as democracies and republics. Pirates are known to wreak havoc in the surrounding seas, so Hammarstedt gives an order that the Bob Barker is to be made unassailable. A guard is posted around the clock on the helicopter deck to ensure that they are not boarded from behind, additional locks are welded onto all the hatches and bulkheads, and the jack ladder is covered with aluminium plating. Iron spikes are installed along the railing pointing down towards the water like spears.
On the Angolan coast, a mere two days’ sail to the east, there are small port towns scarcely anyone on the ship has heard of before. Namibe, Porto Amboim, Lobito. If the Thunder were to make a quick move towards one of these ports, the local authorities and Interpol’s emergency response team would have little time to respond.
Peter Hammarstedt needs all the help he can get. The Sam Simon has been at Mauritius to deliver the nets the Thunder left behind; now he asks Captain Sid Chakravarty to sail towards the Bob Barker as quickly as he can. In this area they will be much stronger if there are two ships. To gain some time, the Sam Simon will follow close to the coast of Namibia. Then the Benguela Current will provide him with added propulsion.
Hammarstedt must also find an ally on land. In the dim light of the great cabin he sits down to write an email to the only person he believes can help him in this situation: the explorer J. Michael “Mike” Fay. Besides having a doctorate on the western lowland gorilla, he has flown into war zones to protect elephants from guerrilla groups, been shot by poachers and barely escaped with his life when an elephant attacked him, inflicting him with 13 deep stab wounds. Mike Fay has been called “the world’s greatest living explorer”, and he has powerful friends in the area that can come in handy for Hammarstedt.
“Dear Mr. Fay, for the past 92 days I have been in physical pursuit of the internationally wanted Nigerian-flagged poaching vessel FV Thunder,” Hammarstedt begins.
“I am currently chasing the FV Thunder north along the Namibian coast and believe that the poachers will attempt to offload their illegal catch in a West African port.”
When Mike Fay came wandering in onto the coast of Gabon in the late 1990s, it was after 455 days and some 3,500 kilometres on foot. He appeared wearing salt-water sandals, shorts and a thin synthetic T-shirt that could be washed every morning. His entourage consisted of 13 pygmies, serving as pathfinders, baggage carriers and assistants.
Fay had covered the entire Congo Basin, the fertile landscape along the river Congo with the world’s second-largest tropical rainforest and its unique animal and plant life. The purpose was to quantify, measure and document the vegetation and ecosystems that were not cultivated or razed by humans in this vast natural landscape.
In Gabon Mike Fay contacted the dictator Omar Bongo and proposed that they must establish national parks to protect the rain forest of the sparsely populated country. President Bongo allocated more than 10 per cent of Gabon’s land to 13 national parks.
His explanation for his collaboration with the dictator was simple. It was better to work with him than to watch the final remains of the African rainforest disappear. When he went to work cleaning up the beaches of the country (amongst the piles of garbage he found 100,000 flip-flops and a kilo of cocaine), he became aware that the ocean was also threatened by the insatiable greed of human beings. Along the mouths of the rivers by the Atlantic coast there were fleets of Chinese trawlers sweeping up shoals of fish as “thick as bouillabaisse”.1
The realization led to Fay’s commencing work initiatives geared to protect Gabon’s maritime zones.
“I understand that you are a special advisor to the President of Gabon and that you have a passion for combating illegal fishing in Gabonese waters,” Hammarstedt continues in his email.
“I would very much like to keep you updated on our movements so that authorities in Gabon can have as much advance notice as possible of any attempt to transship or offload. Thank you for your tireless work in protecting natural areas. I look forward to hearing from you.”
The next day Hammarstedt receives a short reply.
“No problem. Keep me informed and I will get proper authorities in action if necessary. I would be surprised if she put into Gabon, more likely her home in Nigeria, but if she does, we will be ready. Mike.”
Fay alerts the fisheries authorities and the admiral who has command over Gabon’s tiny fleet of small, but robust, French-built patrol boats. He also alerts the fisheries director of the tiny island nation of São Tomé and Príncipe and has his acquaintances in Gabon’s Navy warn colleagues in Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon. If the Thunder attempts to put into port in Gabon, the ship will be denied entry. Another option is for the Gabonese authorities to lure the vessel in and detain the crew long enough to allow Interpol time to arrive in the country.2
At the very least there is one country in the region that has an unpleasant welcome prepared for the Thunder, Hammarstedt thinks before curling up in his berth in the great cabin.
30
THE MAN IN THE ARENA
THE SOUTH ATLANTIC OCEAN, MARCH 2015
Every morning at 7:30 Hammarstedt walks up to the whiteboard at the end of the lounge, wipes it clean and writes a new number. “110 days at sea.”
The monotony of the chase has converted his existence into a series of numbers: the number of nautical mil
es to the closest port, the speed of the ships, the amount of fuel in the tanks, the height of the Thunder’s freeboard, the barometer’s pressure reading and the height of the waves.
The inactivity takes its toll on the crew. In the morning meetings they sit silently and listen, staring down at the flooring or at one another. Hammarstedt has no clear answer to the question of how long the chase will continue; he has no more theories about what is happening on board the Thunder.
The two ships maintain a steady speed of between 6 and 7 knots and cover 200 nautical miles per day. Now it is only the remaining amount of food and fuel that will determine how long the chase can continue. Cataldo’s fixed and goal-oriented course makes Hammarstedt believe that he has a plan. He rules out that it involves Great Britain or crossing the Atlantic. The Canary Islands or one of the many ports along the west coast of Africa are possibilities discussed on both the Bob Barker and in Interpol’s restricted corridors. If so, the chase will be over in the course of three weeks.
“For them it’s about finding a port where they will be least likely to go to prison,” Hammarstedt tells the crew at the daily morning meeting in the lounge.
Although he is located a few days’ sailing east of Angola’s capital Luanda, Hammarstedt has a road map of the USA lying on the bridge. When the chase is over, he is going on a road trip in the USA. He will walk through national parks, see bison, climb glaciers, stomp his feet against solid ground. He wants to see trees and forests – and they are to be the thickest and tallest trees in the world.
On the table in the great cabin he measures the distance from Sequoia to Yellowstone, finds the names of motels where he will spend the night, restaurants he will visit, and fantasizes about a world completely different from the empty horizon’s imperceptible changes from blue to grey to the black standstill of the night.
Then the Thunder stops. Peter Hammarstedt runs quickly up to the bridge and the moment he enters, he asks Adam Meyerson what is happening.