Whales Killed in the Faroe Islands
On my very first trip to sea and aboard the Sea Shepherd in 1985, we were crossing the North Atlantic from Halifax, Nova Scotia to the Danish Faroe Islands where we were to interfere with the annual pilot whale slaughter there. Along the way, we stopped to refuel in Reykjavik, Iceland. Home of the country's only whaling fleet, as soon as we docked police patrols were set up around our ship and the whalers. Also divers were sent down daily to check the whaling ships for mines we might have placed on their hulls at night. All pretty flattering stuff really.
Meanwhile, Greenpeace who had their ship, the Sirius there as well got jealous, as their visit had not merited such attention. They joined with the Icelanders and called us terrorists for sinking whaling ships, and banned our crew from visiting their ship even though journalists on board complained to us that while they were in port, Greenpeace had watched passively as the whaling ships went to sea to kill whales and did nothing. As long as Sea Shepherd was in town, the whalers refused to go to sea. Captain Paul Watson told them we were on our way to the Faroe Islands, but if Iceland refused to abide by the international moratorium on commercial whaling which would take effect the following summer, we would be back.
Whales Killed in the Faroe Islands
One day while in port, I walked to the part of the harbor where the whaling ships were and watched the police watch me and told myself, "I bet that if we were not here, there would be no police guard on the whalers..." Besides the cops, there was only one watchman onboard for all four whalers. I buried that information in the back of my head where I keep all my other little schemes to save the earth, and went back to the Sea Shepherd.
A year later, and I was onboard the Sea Shepherd again this time in Malmo, Sweden for the International Whaling Commission (IWC) conference. There the big news was that Iceland was refusing to cease their whaling operations, despite the world-wide moratorium to assess whale populations and every other whaling nation in the world was watching to see what the member nations would do since the IWC lacked any enforcement body, save individual member nations economic power in the form of sanctions. Captain Watson repeated his warning to Iceland to abide by the moratorium or face enforcement of the moratorium by Sea Shepherd.
Captain Paul Watson
Later Sea Shepherd would be the first and only non-governmental observer to be banned from the IWC for having done just that. That summer we returned to the Faroe Islands to successfully interfere with the pilot whale slaughter again. I got beat up, arrested and jailed by the police for the first time, and after my release rejoined the Sea Shepherd where we returned to have a running battle with the Faroeese Patrol Vessel, the Oliver Hagli.
It was awesome, they were trying to board our vessel at sea shooting tear gas bullets at us and lobbing tear gas canisters onboard, but we threw everyone back at them and I got to shoot flares and a firehose at the same Faroese cop who had beaten and arrested me. Very empowering stuff, but that's another story. Anyhow, in that battle, one brave crew member shined bright, and that was the young Cornish engineer David Howitt who kept the Sea Shepherd rolling by pushing our engines to the max despite the engine room being 120 degrees and full of tear gas. Had we lost speed or stopped we not only would have lost the ship, but probably would have gotten our asses kicked big time by the Faroese and gone to jail for a very long time.
But we didn't and sailed for Bristol, England. Now that our summer campaign was over, my thoughts shifted back to Iceland's whaling industry. News reports stated that Icelandic whalers had filled a self-imposed quota of 80 sei whales, and 40 fin both endangered species. I approached David who was by now a good friend, and late one night after our watches we sat on piles of ship's lines in the rope locker and shared a smoke. Finally I told him of my idea of trying to infiltrate Iceland with the sole purpose of causing maximum economic sabotage to their whaling industry. David agreed that it seemed an appropriate action against a whaling nation that was flagrantly violating the IWC ban on whaling. It was decided.
We would take action on behalf of the last great Whale Nations. Next, I approached Paul and told him of our plan. As we gently sailed the warm summer sea, we quietly talked of the plan as if we were discussing something as simple as the tides and currents, not something that if there was failure could land David and I in prison for years. Paul gave us his blessing, and with that our mission became reality. Looking back on that day, it is easy to understand why I have such great respect and admiration for Paul Watson. Here I was a 20 year old kid telling him how myself and a 23 year-old British hunt saboteur planned to carry out a major covert operation against an island nation that had already been threatened with the same action.
We were not Green Berets or Navy Seals, yet Paul never told us once he doubted our success. He just asked us what we needed, and by not questioning our abilities gave us the vote of self-confidence we needed to believe we could be successful. In late July David and I signed off the crew of Sea Shepherd telling others we were off on a tour of Europe. No suspicion was raised except by Nick Taylor, our British Boson who had fought the police alongside me and shared a Faroese jail cell with me too. Nick could not believe we were off to do something so frivolous and we could tell he was deeply disappointed in us. Later before our departure to Reykjavik, we would return to the Sea Shepherd and confess to Nick of our real intentions as we knew it had hurt him that we were leaving him alone to care for the Sea Shepherd through the long English winter. Nick was pleased, and the last words he ever spoke to me were, "it must be great doing something you really believe in..." a few months later Nick committed suicide as he slowly began to slip back into a life of drug abuse.
David and I spent the whole Summer of 1986 working to raise the money for our mission. I waited tables in a nightclub in London's Chelsea district during the nights, and refinished antiques on Kings Road during the day. David went to southern England where he picked hops. Every few weeks we would meet to discuss our plans and go over intelligence we had gathered on Iceland. When our work was complete, we would make a batch of paint-filled light bulbs and ride out on our bikes to redecorate London fur shops. Finally the day arrived when we rode the London Underground subway to Heathrow Airport to catch our IcelandAir flight to Reykjavik. As we rode to the airport, I removed a patch from my jacket that read "Save the Whales, Save the Earth" with a picture of a fin whale. All we carried with us was our cameras, clothes and raingear, underwater flashlights, knives and a couple maps. All the tools necessary for any action would be acquired in Iceland.
When we arrived in October only the hardcore tourists were still around. We got beds in the local youth hostel and one of our first tasks was to buy a pair of bolt cutters and a large adjustable wrench from a local hardware store. We wanted as much time as possible between the purchase of our tools and the action in case anyone might remember the purchase. On one of the first nights in the capital city of Reykjavik, we snuck out of the hostel late at night and snuck to a scrap yard from where we could view the four Icelandic 175 foot ships that comprised the nations entire whaling fleet. Hvalur (whaleship) 5, 6, 7 and 8 bobbed in the harbor tied along side each other like four Riders of the Apocalypse waiting to unleash their evil on the natural world. The ships superstructures were painted white with the bridge windows and portholes dark and imposing resembling the eye sockets of a skull.
Whaling
Needless to say, we were a little intimidated. The reality of what was so simple to discuss in England, but what was staring us in the face in the freezing Fall weather of a Reykjavik night was more than a little daunting. But we knew it would not be easy, so we began a series of late night observations of the harbor. Within two weeks of surveillance a definite routine began to emerge. Every Friday night, a watchman would relieve the day watch carrying with him two bottles of Brenivin, a strong Icelandic vodka. No activity could be seen on three of the ships, the watchman staying on the fourth ship, the one furthest from the dock. A weekend night emerged as the best night for action.
In Reykjavik we saw photos from the whaling station, which was 45 miles from town. Tours were offered for the station, so David and I hitch hiked to the desolate station and were dropped off near the entrance. As we approached, not a soul was visible. The whaling season was over, and with it the demand for tours. David and I began to walk throughout the premises in broad daylight, gazing through windows at offices, machinery and workshops and it quickly became evident to both of us that we might be able to strike the whaling station also. We knew we would have only one shot at the Icelandic whaling industry, and any risk to ourselves did not matter, already we felt the chances were high we would not get off the island once our sabotage was discovered.
Rod Coronado
Next our intelligence gathering revealed that Iceland was only allowed to export 49% of the whale meat to Japan, the majority would have to be for local consumption. Yet the supermarkets offered very little. Whale meat was no longer a staple of the Icelandic diet. We began the search for the Whalemeat Mountain as the newspapers called it, and this meant to take a job as a meat packer in the packing plant that packaged the whale meat. The job was easy to get as there is virtually no unemployment in Iceland, and unattractive jobs like meatpacking being given to foreigners.
David and I had to keep up our image of adventurers and travelers so we socialized with Swedish, German and Irish tourists. We would frequent the cafe overlooking the harbor where while socializing and drinking coffee we could keep an eye on the whaling ships. Then one day at work there was an immigration sweep and my boss was forced to fire me. But what really worried me was the back-round check they might run on me. Based on my actions and arrest in the Faroes I had been issued an expulsion order from all Scandanavia including Iceland, and I had violated that order by not only returning to the Faroes but also by fighting off the police as they tried to board our vessel. If the Icelandic authorities discovered I was wanted in the Faroes, not only would our mission be revealed by the tools and photos in our belongings, but also I might be extradited to the Faroes.
My boss was apologetic and even advanced me some money from his own wallet. Meanwhile David and I decided that we must either abort our mission and flee the country immediately, or stay and try to carry out the action. We chose the latter. We had been in Iceland for almost a month now, and felt familiar with the habits of the watchman aboard the whaling ships as well as confident we could also strike the whaling station. We also had visited a small zoo outside of Reykjavik which housed a few native animals including one Orca whale that had been captured recently and was to be sold to an aquarium. David and I looked at each other trying to figure out how the hell we could get the whale out of it's tank and into the ocean just a hundred yards away, but here we were forced to realize the bounds of our limitations. Still, it was decided that should time allow, after striking the whaling station and the whaling ships, we would hit the zoo and release as many native animals as possible.
Iceland in November was not a country that expected nor even remembered the threats of a militant anti-whaling organization. Just as I had expected in that Summer visit of 1985, without our visible presence, only one watchman was aboard all four ships. It was the off-season and the crews were ashore with work on the ships restricted to daylight hours. The week of our planned attack, the whaling ships were taken into drydock. One by one, they were pulled out of the water for repairs and cleaning which is a major operation. David and I had planned on attempting to sink all three ships minus the one that housed the watchman. Now we were forced to sacrifice our third target. Our money was running low, and the fear of my discovery still haunted us. Maybe we were already under surveillance ourselves, and the police were waiting for us to act before they could legitimately arrest us?
Already David and I had read up on the Icelandic penal system and learned that the longest sentence given to any crime was eleven years. We also learned that Icelandic prisoners were employed making cement sidewalk blocks. From that day on the jokes never stopped of how good we might become at building Icelandic sidewalks. Finally surrendering our fate to the whale spirits, we decided to act. We choose the night of November 7th for our task of vengeance. We said goodbye to our European friends and told them David and I were going to rent a car for our last day to do a little sightseeing.
We drove to the airport on the morning of the 7th to pre-check our luggage for the 6am flight out of the country the following morning. It was to Luxemburg, but we did not care where it went as long as it was not Scandinavia. Next we drove to Iceland's only vegetarian restaurant for what might be our last supper. We had been saving our money for this last luxury but found the restaurant closed. Not to be disappointed, we bought food from a supermarket and drove to a clearing above the whaling station to eat our meal and await the early winter darkness. While eating we listened to the car radio and after our meal discovered we had drained the battery dead. Here our mission might have ended had not a vanload of Icelandic youth, probably who were employed by the whaling station, came to our rescue. They towed our car until we could jump start it, and then we waved goodbye and drove to our prearranged hiding place for the car as night was fast approaching.
A rainstorm began to fall adding a brilliant cover as David and I pulled on our dark raingear, gloves, ski-masks and strapped on fanny-packs with flashlights and tools. I then placed the car keys on the top of the rear tire and we began the long walk to the whaling station in complete darkness, bending into the wind and increasing rain. As we approached the whaling station, we were surprised by the sight and sound of a front-end excavator that was digging a trench at the station. We dropped to the ground and spent the next hour lying in the freezing rain until the workman and his machine headed off to the local town. As the lights of the machine disappeared, we leaped into action.
After this task, we found the computer control room that kept the entire stations machinery fully automated. We smashed the computer panels until sparks flew and LEDs flashed and the beautiful music of machines dying all around us could be heard. There was no time to waste, so we moved next to the ships store where the spare parts for the four whaling ships were kept. Taking the most expensive pieces, we walked to the edge of the docks and tossed them into the waters. Finally we reached the offices where record books detailing the illegal catches were confiscated and cyanic acid was poured through out the building. Windows were smashed and anything that looked expensive met the business end of our wrenches and bolt cutters.
Our first task was the sabotage of the six huge diesel generators that provided power for the station. David and I were both experienced diesel engineers and we knew what was good for an engine, and what was bad. Before long we were stripping off our outer clothing and sweating profusely in our handiwork. Next we moved onto the centrifuges that processed whale blubber into a high grade lubricating oil that was used in missiles. Smashing the delicate gear, we next located what we could not find at the meatpacking plant. The Whalemeat Mountain. Housed in huge refrigeration units beneath the station, David had attempted to move the many crates of whale meat near the slipway where whales were dragged up for processing, but the forklift he drove ran out of propane gas. We were forced to wedge open the refrigeration units and then sabotage the refrigeration units themselves so that hopefully the meat would thaw and spoil.
Watching World News a few days later we would hear the Foreman of the station recounting with shock how it appeared that the whole whaling station had been the target of an air raid. We could have spent all night sabotaging the station, but the ships were waiting so David and I signaled a retreat and returned tired and sweating to our car. Once there I experienced a frantic moment as I reached for the keys on the tire and found them not there. The high winds had been so strong as to blow them some feet away where I found them with my flashlight. Now covered in grease and drenched in sweat we drove back to Reykjavik. The weather made the roads treacherous and often the car would start to slide when it hit ice.
I am convinced that many of my premature gray hairs were earned that night. An hour later we reached Reykjavik Harbor where three ships lie bobbing in the water, the fourth in drydock. Resting, David and I ate some quick energy food and stashed our confiscated record books from the whaling station in the backseat. Taking a deep breath, we opened our car doors and stepped back into the pounding rainstorm that made our ski-masks and raingear a necessity not just a disguise. With hands in our pockets like two cold fisherman, we walked down the dead-end dock towards Hvalur 5, 6 and 7.
The tides in the harbor were such as so we were level with the ships decks so to board all we had to do was hop a few feet from the dock to the steel plated decks. Moving quickly to Hvalur 5, David pulled out our bolt cutters and cut the hasp on the lock that shut the engine room hatch. Moving into the fully lit engine rooms, David searched the ship for any sleeping watchman while I moved into the engine room and began lifting deck plates looking for the saltwater cooling valve that regulated seawater that cooled the ships engines at sea. By the time I found it, David had returned to announce that the ship was indeed empty.
We began to wrestle off the sixteen or more nuts that held the valve cover in place and when most were removed water began to shoot out from the bolt holes. I tasted it, and it was salty. When the cover was fully removed, the ocean water would flood first the engine room and then the rest of the ships compartments dragging it to a water grave in Reykjavik's deep harbor. Leaving the cover as it was, partially removed we moved to Hvalur 6 where repeating the process we quickly located and began to remove that ships salt water cooling valves.
Finally with all the nuts and bolts removed, we took a pry bar to the valve and with a little persuasion the valve quickly popped free releasing a flood of seawater that drenched both David and I. Quickly returning to Hvalur 5, we removed the last of that ships cover bolts, and again the ocean began to rush in. Now it was time to execute our escape. The whaling station had been demolished, and two 175-foot whaling ships were sinking. The time was just before 5am and the airport was almost an hour away. Walking away from the two sinking ships we tossed our tools into the icy waters and pulled our ski masks off just as we reached the car. Hopping into the driver seat I started the car and pulled onto the road and not two minutes later was pulled over by a Reykjavik Police Car.
My first thought was, "No, they can't be that good, they can't have been watching us this whole time..." Still, there we were two ships quickly sinking, minutes ticking away before our flight to freedom would lift off maybe leaving us for the next eleven years to fine tune our masonry skills at the local prison, and a police officer walking to my window with David and I soaked in water with grease from engines all over our clothes. The officer asked me to get into his car. Looking at David who sat with eyes forward, I got out of the car and got into the backseat of the police cruiser. The officers ignored me and spoke to each other in Icelandic before finally turning around and asking me in plain English, "Have you drinken any alcohol tonight?" almost laughing I said, "No, I do not even drink!" which was a lie, and he then asked if he could smell my breath. It was tempting to utter a joke but hot coffee on an IcelandAir jet was calling, so I breathed on him, and he wished me a safe trip to the airport, knowing that is where we were headed because of the early morning departure.
That police officer is probably still cursing himself after having the nations only saboteur since the second World War in his police car and then letting him go. Returning to the car, David told me he had almost bolted but thought it best that he wait for another moment for some signal from me. The zoo liberation was now out of the question as we sped towards the airport to catch our 6am flight. Pulling into the airport we grabbed our daypacks, quickly changed our clothes, dumping the grease covered ones in the airport garbage can. We next went through Icelandic Customs without any incident and checked in, and grabbed our boarding passes. The polite ticket agent told us the flight was delayed due to the harsh weather. The words were what we least wanted to hear, and David and I spent the next 30 minutes staring at the clock imagining the chaos erupting at Reykjavik harbor just about now. Finally, our flight was called, and we quickly boarded still not feeling safe until we landed in Luxembourg.
Hours later we did just that, David and I gazing out the window half expecting to see Interpol agents waiting for our arrival. They were not. We collected our luggage and walked out of the airport after making an anonymous call to the Sea Shepherd offices in the U.K. saying only, "We got the station, and two are on the bottom..." We hitchhiked to Belgium where we caught a ferry to England, and then a bus to London. Getting off the bus now 36 hours after our action, I walked to a news agent and picked up a copy of the morning paper. A story on the front page said only, "SABOTUERS SINK WHALERS photo page six..." flipping to the page I saw one of the most beautiful sights in the world. There was Hvalur 5 and 6 resting gently on the bottom of Reykjavik harbor only their skeletal superstructure peeking above the waves. Paul Watson was quoted as accepting responsibility for the attack which he said was an enforcement action of the IWC's moratorium on commercial whaling that Iceland had violated. David and I embraced in the streets laughing with the elation that only a realized dream can bring.
The next few weeks were to see David go into hiding in the Mediterranean not knowing Britain's response to his actions while I flew back Stateside to join Paul in a press conference in Cleveland Amory's office at the Fund for Animals to accept personal responsibility for the raid. The confiscated record books would prove that Iceland had cheated with it's own imposed quota, having shipped more than the maximum 49% whale meat catch to Japan. A special meeting of the Icelandic Congress was held to address the act of sabotage and the extradition of those responsible called for. Paul could not agree more and said it would give Sea Shepherd an opportunity to put Iceland on trial also in the spotlight of international media where their pirate whaling operations could be exposed. Iceland never pressed charges against David or myself. Though Hvalur 5 and 6 were finally resurfaced, the saltwater submersion had destroyed all their engines, electrical and navigational equipment. To this day neither ship has killed a single whale and the harpoons are silenced in Iceland...for now.
Upon my return to California where I was living, in nearby Monterey Bay a strange occurrence was taking place. A huge pod of rare Blue Whales, the largest animals to ever live on earth, were converging in the Bay where they could be seen breaching out of the water with their young in the calm waters. All the thanks I was to need came that summer when David and I were sailing once again on a Sea Shepherd ship towards the North Pacific where we would confront Japanese drift netters. On my birthday while sailing off the Queen Charlotte Islands of British Columbia, I was on the bridge once again with Paul when a whale was seen approaching our ship from the Northeast. As the humpback whale came alongside our ship, we gathered on the aft deck as it repeatedly threw it's entire body out of the water swinging it's angel-like pectoral above it's body before crashing back into the sea.
As our paths passed, and the whale disappeared tears were pouring down my face as I then knew beyond any doubt, that all the Animal Nations are aware of the sacrifices us five-fingered people make in our quest to reclaim our bond with all life. The path I crossed with that humpback whale was only one of many I would have in my life as I search for the relationship that is quickly slipping from our fingers as we execute unspeakable cruelty to the fellow Nations of Animals which we share earth with. It is a relationship that can only be saved by continued human intervention in the destruction of everything once wild and free, intervention that calls upon us to risk our own lives and freedom for the love of others. But only by doing this can we prove to the Nations of Animals that we are fit to share the Circle of Life with them once again. Our place is waiting all that is necessary are the actions to rightfully earn it.
This text was taken from Rod's zine (while in prison) Strong Hearts #2, which is available for $1 from Oak and Cactus Distro