After 100 incredible hours on Chevron’s anchor chain our occupation is over. The pod has come down. But we’re not leaving Shetland, yet.
I just got back from watching Timo and Naz lower the half-tonne pod, where with help from Victor in the safety boat, they used some more of their rigging magic to safely lower the yellow bubble into the rough seas. From there it was towed, bobbing and rocking, back to its home on the deck of the Esperanza.
Abseiling onto the anchor and stepping into our boat, Timo was bouncing around happy as ever, while Naz’s only wish was to ‘go for a walk’. After three days in eight-foot diameter pod, I think that’s fair enough.
Much as we would have liked to stay in the pod for weeks or even months, when Chevron brought their big money lawyers out to get an injunction against us, we really had no choice but to come down. We didn’t want to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds of supporter money daily in fines straight into the pockets of an oil giant.
What’s worrying us is Chevron’s reason for the injunction. They claim hanging on their anchor chain is “a risk to the vessel”, because it prevents them dropping their anchor chain if their thrusters fail.
The job of the eight thrusters on the Stena Carron is to keep the 228-metre drill ship within one metre of a designated spot, so that it can drive a drill into the ground and hunt for oil without the ship moving. So serving us with an injunction based on the possibility that their thrusters could fail is pretty terrifying.
Think about it. If they’re worried about the ship in the relatively sheltered waters off Lerwick, what does that mean when they’re in the rough seas north of Shetland with a drill stuck in the seabed? What if their thrusters fail then? Would we be facing another Deepwater Horizon catastrophe, this time in UK waters?
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A few days ago, we asked you – our supporters everywhere – to submit slogan ideas for a pod banner. We had lots of great suggestions, and it was tough to choose just one, but in the end we went for a suggestion on Twitter by Michele Westlake (aka @crazyladywriter) which we think is brilliant.
If you want to know what it says, watch this great little film, which shows that Victor, Anais and Phil had far too much fun making it.
So now we’ve got an excellent new banner, where do we put it? Stayed tuned, the Go Beyond Oil tour ain’t over yet.
-- James on the Esperanza
