Posted by Dave (in Anchorage, Alaska)
Humpback whale with seabirds, off the coast of Alaska
© Greenpeace/Walsh
Well, the whale blog is coming to a hiatus – not a permanent end, just a hiatus. It’s been a crazy few months, with the expedition to the Southern Ocean, the launch of whales.greenpeace.org by our team in Argentina, and finally, the International Whaling Commission meeting in Anchorage, Alaska. There’ll be plenty more happening later this year on the issues of whales – stay tuned to www.greenpeace.org for developments.
Last weekend, after the IWC craziness had ebbed away, and the frustration of listening to national delegates talking the most shocking rubbish (don’t worry, most of those delegates were on the pro-whaling side), I hit the road to Homer, on the Kenai Peninsula. With me were Maarten, our Dutch cameraman video maestro (you may remember his dulcet tones from shows like “Ocean Defenders TV” and other video clips) and Junichi, the Greenpeace Japan whales campaigner.
Homer’s an interesting place – especially as half the town is built on what is essentially a sandbar, and contains a bar called the Salty Dawg (“A drinking town with a fishing problem” reads a sign inside). The Esperanza will be making an appearance in Homer in the near future, but we headed out with a boat from Rainbow Tours (no connection to the Rainbow Warrior that we know of) to see some whales.
Continue reading You can watch a whale a thousand times, but you can only kill it once…