I’m out in the middle of the North Atlantic. All we can see is the night sky, the deep, dark blue of the ocean and the green lights of the radar screens on the bridge of our ship, the Arctic Sunrise.
We’re chasing longliners; industrial fishing vessels that use vast lines, sometimes over 100kms long, with thousands of hooks attached. These boats have pushed the North Atlantic’s ecosystem to breaking point. They’ve pushed species like mako sharks close to extinction, to feed a billion dollar global industry for shark products which Europe is central to. We want to find and confiscate these lines and hooks from the sea and the mouths of sharks and other wildlife.
‘Cat and Mouse with radars in the night’
We need to wait until after midnight to see when and where the Siempre Perla, one of these industrial longliners from Spain, will start to set its hooks. We then give it time to move on so we can follow its tracks and find its fishing buoys, without being spotted. Cat and Mouse with radars in the night.