Catching Thunder

by Eskil Engdal

  There is no ship other than the Bob Barker in sight, not a thing between the Devil and the deep blue sea. It is 4,000 metres straight down, in the middle of a lustrous ocean surrounded by an empty horizon.

  Captain Cataldo makes his way through the narrow corridors past the Indonesian crew’s cabins, knocking hard on the doors. Some of the crew are already awake, and in the chaos that ensues, the half-dressed and sleep-dazed deck crew members collide with one another. The two deck officers, the Portuguese Manuel Agonia Dias Marques and Spanish Manuel Ricardo Barcia Sanles, leap straight out of their berths and go below deck to get the entire crew out of what can quickly become a death trap. They scream that the ship is sinking and that they must put on life vests and come up onto the quarterdeck. In the course of a few agitated minutes the entire crew is on deck and the officers start loosening the life rafts.

  From the bridge of the Bob Barker the Sea Shepherd officers watch as the quarterdeck of the Thunder is filled with bodies dressed in orange. Is it raingear or life vests? Can it be a drill? Hardly. In the course of 110 days, Sea Shepherd has not seen a single emergency drill on board the Thunder.

  “How strange,” Hammarstedt remarks.

  He sends an officer to wake up the ship’s photographer Simon Ager. What’s happening must be documented.

  “There’s a dude at the top of the ladder and there’s a whole lot of people on the port side staring at the water,” the ship physician Colette Harmsen says while holding the binoculars steadily focused on the Thunder.

  “Yes, they are wearing life vests.”

  “How weird,” Hammarstedt says.

  Then the radio crackles.

  “Bob Barker. It is Thunder,” a high-pitched sharp voice says in stammering English.

  It is the same voice that Hammarstedt has communicated and argued with previously. He is sure it’s the captain, but he still doesn’t know what he looks like or his name. Luis Alfonso Rubio Cataldo has never introduced himself by name in their radio conversations and he has stayed indoors to elude being captured by Sea Shepherd’s many cameras.

  “Thunder. Bob Barker. Go ahead,” Hammarstedt answers.

  Cataldo quickly gives up his attempt to speak English and requests that they communicate in Spanish.

  “No hablo español. Espera un minuto,” Hammarstedt responds. He asks Meyerson to take the wheel and maintain secure distance between the ships while he summons the Spanish-born Alejandra Gimeno.

  Cataldo comes on the radio again, Gimeno translates from Spanish.

  “He says they’ve got a problem and that they’re sinking.”

  “Ask him if it is mayday?”

  “Mayday, mayday,” can be heard from the radio’s channel 16, the international distress and calling channel, before Gimeno has time to translate Hammarstedt’s question.

  “Say that we have received their mayday and that we are standing by to assist in any way.”

  Before Gimeno has a chance to translate Hammarstedt’s message, a peeping can be heard on the bridge of the Bob Barker, two high-frequency, piercing alarm signals.

  “That’s their distress call,” Harmsen says.

  Somebody on the Thunder has pressed the panic button – the so-called DSC-distress signal that will be picked up by vessels and rescue services in the area.

  Cataldo calls up the Bob Barker again. He explains what is happening.

  “He wants us to launch a small boat to help them to recover the crew,” Gimeno translates.

  “Tell him that we are launching a small boat,” Hammarstedt says.

  Then he presses the alarm on the Bob Barker. A series of five short rings is the signal for the crew to drop everything they are doing and go to their action stations.

  “Just keep doing circles. We’ve got to get a boat in the water. Quick as we can,” Hammarstedt says to Meyerson.

  While the crew of the Thunder begins climbing down the side of the ship and into the life rafts, Hammarstedt calls Captain Sid Chakravarty on the Sam Simon.

  Chakravarty immediately sits down at his computer and starts sending emails. Soon Interpol and the authorities in Nigeria, Norway, Australia, New Zealand, the USA, Great Britain and South Africa have been alerted.

  “You’ve got the bridge, Adam,” Hammarstedt says to Meyerson.

  “Wasn’t expecting this this morning,” the Bob Barker’s second-in-command mumbles.

  Hammarstedt must make a few difficult decisions and he has to make them quickly. Shall he fill up the Bob Barker with the crew from the Thunder? There are almost twice as many of them and they have thrown chains and a smoke shell at his crew. How dangerous can they be?

  And if he takes the shipwrecked seamen on board, where will he put them? In the bow? With a helicopter deck astern, there is limited space on the Bob Barker. Hammarstedt instructs two of his crew to take notes. Everything that happens now is to be documented. Then he gives the order for the Bob Barker’s dinghy Gemini to be sent out to the life rafts and asks Gimeno to call up the Thunder again and ask what has caused the ship to sink.

  “How much time does he think he has?” he says to Gimeno.

  What if the mayday situation is a prank? What if the captain is trying to dump the Indonesian crew so the officers can make a final desperate attempt to escape with the Thunder? He won’t let the shipwrecked seaman on board the Bob Barker now. Hammarstedt wants to wait until the Sam Simon is in position in a few hours. He doesn’t like what’s happening; he doesn’t trust the officers on the Thunder.

  “The Sam Simon is going to be here in about two or three hours. I don’t want to rush to get these guys on here. The weather is good, it’s nice and calm. I don’t want them to leave these guys behind on us and then they take off. So, we put a boat in the water and we keep that with them and we see if they need anything. Then we wait until there is another boat on the scene,” he says.

  Scarcely ten minutes have passed since the mayday signal and Hammarstedt is already convinced that the drama unfolding before him is being staged.

  “They have probably scuttled the ship,” he says to Meyerson.

  “Yeah.”

  “Everything that happens on the radio must be noted. Everything. Every word.”

  Now it seems as if the Thunder is lying lower in the water, but the ship is not listing.

  The Thunder’s life rafts fill up as one by one the crew members climb slowly down the ladder. The engineer Luis Alfonso Morales Mardones loses his foothold and falls into the water and must be hauled up into the raft by his arms. Some of them perch on the sides while others seek shelter under the tarp. Deck Officer Manuel Ricardo Barcia Sanles suddenly stands up, climbs back up the rope ladder, runs through the corridors and into the officers’ cabins and retrieves suitcases. Everything has been packed. Once back on deck he throws them over the gunwale and down into the life rafts, and then he fetches some bottles of water before descending into the raft again. The first two life rafts are cut loose from the Thunder and slowly drift away from the ship.

  Captain Cataldo has still not left the bridge. Chief engineer Agustín Dosil Rey is also there. Dosil Rey speaks English, but he stays away from the radio, choosing to let Cataldo handle the communication.

  Over the radio Cataldo tells the interpreter that the Thunder is on the verge of losing its electricity and that water is flooding into the engine room. He explains that there are 40 men on board and asks that Sea Shepherd launch its dinghy immediately so they can save his crew.

  “The ship will sink in 15 minutes,” he says over the radio.

  Hammarstedt does not believe that the Thunder is headed for the bottom of the ocean so quickly and asks Meyerson to follow all movements on the radar.

  Hammarstedt’s dream was to follow the Thunder into a port where the local police and Interpol would be standing by with handcuffs and available jail cells. Now he must in all likel
ihood save the crew, while the evidence of the illegal fishing activity disappears into the almost 4,000-metre depths. But a mayday signal has been sent, and has very likely been picked up by many. As a captain he must handle the emergency situation correctly.

  A trawler does not suddenly begin to take in water when the weather is good and the wind quiet. But what kind of captain sinks his own ship? How desperate are they? And what can he do to secure any remaining evidence that must still be on board the Thunder, such as fish, computers, logs, telephones, nautical charts and fishing gear?

  He must try and outwit Cataldo, get him into a life raft as quickly as possible. Then he will have better control over the situation.

  “Tell him that there is another ship coming,” he says to Gimeno.

  “OK, OK,” Cataldo answers over the radio and explains that he saw another ship on the radar early that morning. So did the watchstander team on the Bob Barker. At 3:35 AM the container ship the Thasos sailed onto the radar, but then continued on, disappearing into the night. The brief rendezvous with the Greek cargo ship gives Hammarstedt an opening. Perhaps it will be easier to lure the Thunder’s captain down into the life raft if he believes he will be rescued by somebody other than Sea Shepherd?

  “I wonder if they finally ran out of fuel? This is so crazy. What a thing to wake up to,” Meyerson says.

  “I bet the fishing log disappears with the ship,” Hammarstedt says.

  From the Bob Barker’s dinghy the Gemini, Lex Rigby reports that the crew of the Thunder is fine in the life rafts.

  “They have water, they have food, they are waving. Everyone is OK,” she reports over the radio.

  Rigby, who grew up in the Midlands of England and became fascinated by the ocean from watching David Attenborough’s nature programmes on the BBC, is on her fourth mission to the Antarctic. At Sea Shepherd crew members can ascend quickly through the ranks if they can withstand cold, winds and turbulent seas and Rigby, who signed on as a sailor, is now a quartermaster and one of Peter Hammarstedt’s most trusted colleagues.

  Sitting in one of the life rafts that are silently drifting on the light breeze is first mate Juan Antonio Olveira Brion. He is wearing a black fleece jacket and a life vest and looks worn out and furious, as if he is the only one on the raft who understands that this adventure can end very badly for the Thunder crew. He has good reason to be concerned.

  Lex Rigby thinks back to the day when a man wearing a ski mask threw a length of chain that hit the ship’s photographer Simon Ager. Could the man in the raft be “the Balaclava Man”?

  There are still at least five men on board the Thunder. The ship is lying lower in the water and has begun tilting slightly towards starboard. Hammarstedt calls up the bridge of the Thunder once more.

  “You have to pick up the crew from the life rafts. They are frightened and nervous,” Cataldo chides.

  “We will tow them over to Bob Barker,” Hammarstedt says.

  “OK. This is an emergency. You must take them on board; otherwise you are breaking the law.”

  From the dinghy Hammarstedt receives word that there are three men standing on the deck of the Thunder smoking. They don’t appear to be in any hurry to abandon the sinking ship.

  “The crew has been in the water for 20 minutes. Take them on board,” Cataldo continues over the radio.

  “Tell him to calm down. Tell him to handle his sinking ship. Jesus Christ,” Hammarstedt exclaims.

  “I’ll be the last to disembark. I am waiting for you to save the crew,” Cataldo says.

  The captain of the Thunder repeats himself over and over and Hammarstedt grows more and more angry. He has had enough of the charade. The usually so even-tempered Sea Shepherd captain is on the verge of running out of patience.

  “This guy’s a clown. Just theatrics.”

  The young photographer Alejandra Gimeno has been Hammarstedt’s voice when he communicated with the bridge on the Thunder. Again she finds herself in the midst of a duel between the two captains, trying to navigate a storm of abusive language. It is an emergency and communication is about to break down. Gimeno is convinced that Cataldo is playing a game. He wants to keep the argument going until he is sure that the Thunder will sink to the bottom with the evidence.

  “We take no one on board before the chief engineer and the captain have left the ship,” Hammarstedt says.

  “You are not following procedure. If anyone else is listening to this conversation, you will be fined,” Cataldo answers.

  “An hour ago you said that your ship will sink in 15 minutes. Get off the ship now,” Hammarstedt roars.

  There are still only 35 people in the life rafts.

  Peter Hammarstedt sees a possibility to send some of his own crew over to board the Thunder and secure evidence, but first he wants to be sure that there are no crew on the ship. Two hours remain before the Sam Simon will arrive.

  “Tell him to get off the ship. It’s sinking,” Hammarstedt repeats.

  “Why are you still filming? Why don’t you rescue us?” Cataldo replies.

  “Tell this son of a bitch that his crew has attacked my crew. I cannot take anyone on board before everyone is in the life rafts.”

  Gimeno translates everything with the exception of “son of a bitch”.

  “You are at risk of being sued. This is very, very serious,” is the response from the Thunder.

  “Tell him to get off his fucking boat. We can deal with this later. He is not taking this seriously.”

  “OK. Bob Barker. I will send word that you are refusing to rescue us.”

  “Fine. He can sue us when we get to port. This is fucking ridiculous. He needs to come on board so I can talk to him personally. This is theatrics.”

  “Take care of the crew. We are professionals, we are not terrorists,” Cataldo answers.

  “I am so tired of this guy. Tell him that this is the quickest rescue in maritime history. I could get his crew on in two minutes if I had to. I’m done talking on the radio unless it is an emergency.”

  36

  A WEIRD DREAM

  THE GULF OF GUINEA, APRIL 2015

  The Bob Barker’s chief engineer Erwin Vermeulen starts forming a bold plan. He wants to board the sinking Thunder. The Sea Shepherd officers are certain that the captain wants to make sure that the Thunder is so far under water that the ship can’t be saved before he gets into the life raft.

  “He is not going to let anyone on. One hundred per cent,” Hammarstedt states.

  “I am completely sure it’s staged. Destruction of evidence and a last ditch attempt to get off,” Vermeulen says.

  “We are meeting every moral obligation we have here,” Hammarstedt maintains.

  “I 100 per cent agree,” Meyerson chimes in.

  “As long as we keep checking on them, it is fine. At least now we know that he’s the captain – the guy with the moustache,” Vermeulen says.

  From the dinghy Lex Rigby reports that the Thunder crew is still fine, that the Indonesians are smiling, friendly and chain-smoking.

  “How are they going to deal with a non-smoking ship?” Meyerson wonders.

  Over the radio they can hear the captain of the Thunder speaking with someone in the life raft; he asks the person in question to make sure his bag doesn’t get wet.

  “This situation is just like the Twilight Zone. If my boat was sinking, I wouldn’t be arguing about this stuff,” Hammarstedt says.

  Then Sid Chakravarty calls from the Sam Simon. He has been in contact with the Nigerian authorities. They advised the Bob Barker not to let anyone come on board before there is another ship on the scene.

  “Persons in distress may be armed/hostile and could use request for assistance to disrupt your efforts towards bringing her to justice,” Captain Warredi Enisuoh of NIMASA, the Nigerian maritime administration and safety agency, writes i
n an email to the Sea Shepherd captain.

  Officially, it is the authorities of Nigeria who are now coordinating the rescue operation. The Navy, Air Force and the maritime rescue coordination centre in Lagos have been alerted and are standing by. Enisuoh has also asked the authorities of Equatorial Guinea, São Tomé, Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to make preparations to assist Sea Shepherd. The atmosphere on the bridge of the Bob Barker becomes calmer. The officers look out at the crew of the Thunder in the two life rafts.

  “Maybe we should get them some sodas? Red Bull?”

  “That will make them angry. Nothing with caffeine,” is the opinion of the ship’s physician Colette Harmsen.

  “Let’s give them Valium,” Meyerson suggests.

  The two life rafts floating between the Thunder and the Bob Barker bear the name Ming No. 5, Ulaanbaatar, one of the Thunder’s many identities. In the intensifying heat, the crew of the Thunder eat oranges and drink soda. The empty bottles are thrown into the ocean. The Sea Shepherd crew in the Gemini try to fish them out. Both the fishing pirates and activists have the ocean as their place of work, but the similarities end there.

  Soon the hunters and the hunted will be on the same ship.

  “Tell him that the shipping director in Nigeria has said that we will stand by. Another boat gets here in two hours,” Hammarstedt says.

  “How far away is the next ship?” Cataldo wonders.

  “25 nautical miles,” Hammarstedt replies.

  He neglects to tell him that it is Sea Shepherd’s the Sam Simon who is heading towards them.

  “Is it a ship that wants to pass us?” Cataldo asks.