A good day for the whales
Saxon Blue's Blog
Harvey Jones and Andrea Stokes
Thu 17 Feb 2011 02:14
I was surprised and pleased today to read the news on the BBC that the Japanese whaling fleet have called off their hunt this season as Sea Shepherd have made it unsafe for them to continue. I'm sure there's a lot more to it than that and that the economics of the hunt no longer make sense (if they ever did) but it's a fantastic victory for direct action and Paul Watson. I've read all his books on this trip so I can guess how pleased he'll be and he really deserves it. His uncompromising stance on protecting his friends the whales against their enemies the people is something that's really made me think and I hope I can take some small part of that idea home with me when we return to the UK.
Apart from that news, it's been a pretty quiet day today in Nelson's Dockyard. Kali and I Sikaflexed the keel strip back onto the tender so I'm hopeful that it'll stay there. We had a good joke about Sikaflex and how it's used for absolutely everything in boatbuilding. We're going to build a boat entirely out of it, just get loads of tubes and squeeze them into a mould. That way, we'd only need to carry one spare part - more Sika. We discussed the perfect boat. I think it would be about 60 feet in length, cost as much as a boat 70 feet and have the accomodation of a boat of 50 feet. All the extra money and room would go on machinery space and ease of access. I can't imagine it would be very popular, though, as the current trend is to pay for a boat of 50, get one of 60 and have the living space of 70 with all the money and space gained coming from machinery and access.
Andrea spent the morning chatting to a lovely French guy who's retired from UNESCO and is now sailing around the world. After lunch, Andrea and I went off to Falmouth to book my diving course so I've come back with a book and a DVD to do some homework prior to actually getting wet on Friday. It'll be good to get a new skill and I'll be able to rent equipment in lots of the places where we go and go out with the local operators. Should be good.
We also heard from Cind and Christine that they're going to come out and join us on 16th March so that'll be great. Andrea's really excited about it tonight and we've been chatting about it while we ate another huge dinner at the Caribbean restaurant down the road. As you can see, we haven't really done all that much today. Just enjoyed being in this lovely harbour with good people and great food. A bit of boat maintenance to feel like we've done something useful and then a lot of just enjoying ourselves. I think we've earned it.
Harvey
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