“We mean no harm and you should not worry, as we are compassionate people who follow the law. We really appreciate it if you can trust us. If you need help we will help you. If you have any problems about pay and your treatment we will fight for your rights under international law. Please tell us how we can help you? Do you need any food, or medical help, or other help?” Hammarstedt writes in the letter.
He continues with an invitation to join forces in a joint venture.
“When you see our small boat in the water, you can throw us messages in a plastic bottle, especially messages for your families. We will pass your messages to your families and their replies to you. We understand you are just workers and only do everything according to the orders of your superiors. You may not even know that the company you work for was illegally fishing. Our target is not you and we have no intention of causing you any trouble, that’s why we should work together.
“As your captain and officers are criminals according to the law, we want to see them prosecuted. We have more fuel and more food than Thunder and will stay with the ship until the Thunder goes into port. The captain and the owner must be brought to court to answer for their illegal fishing but you have done nothing wrong. Any information about the names of the officers and owner of the ship, including their nationalities will greatly help us.”
Through a contact in Australia he has the letter translated into Indonesian, prints out numerous copies, and inserts the messages into plastic bottles containing rice to give them ballast.
Then they lower the dinghy from the Sam Simon, which has come from the Southern Ocean to join the Bob Barker for a few days. The dinghy first sails in along the starboard side of the Thunder, and as soon as they see somebody from the Indonesian crew, they fling the messages on board.
The sight of the plastic bottles pelting down upon the Thunder’s deck is like a spark for Juan Manuel Patiño Lampon’s easily ignited fuse.
“Bloody punks,” he shouts.
He grabs one of the black ski-masks on the bridge and pulls it down over his head. Then he runs off the bridge and down the ladder to the deck, where he orders the crew to collect the bottles and deposit them on the bridge. He walks toward the quarterdeck, picks up a bottle, opens it and sits down on a crate under the wheelhouse to read the message. He promptly gets to his feet, tears it up and throws it into the ocean. For a while he remains there, walking back and forth on the deck looking for more messages, until he bends down, picks up a short length of chain and walks towards the railing.
Peter Hammarstedt has navigated the Bob Barker as close to the Thunder as he can get to gain a clear view of what is now taking place on deck.
“The Balaclava Man has got something to throw,” Hammarstedt warns on the radio as Lampon moves toward the stern of the Thunder.
He hurls the chain towards the dinghy with all his might. The Sea Shepherd photographer Simon Ager sees it coming through the camera’s viewfinder. As he ducks to the right, it grazes against his helmet. Then a short metal pipe flies through the air and hits the photographer on the inside of his thigh.
“Are you all right, Simon … What was it?” asks the boatswain Giacomo Giorgi, also in the dinghy.
“A bolt … It was a good shot,” Ager answers.
Simon Ager is uninjured and Peter Hammarstedt has a good story to sell. The episode reinforces the image of the Thunder as a bandit ship on which officers wearing balaclava helmets refuse to allow the crew to communicate with the surrounding world, something which strengthens Hammarstedt’s theory about their being held on board the ship against their will.
“The metal implements were thrown with the intent to cause injury or death. The deck officer wore a balaclava to conceal his identity. One RHIB crewman was struck but sustained no serious injuries,” Peter Hammarstedt writes in the report he sends to Interpol.
The police and authorities following the ship’s progress from land are gravely concerned that the chase will end with a loss of human lives.
25
RAID ON THE HIGH SEAS
THE INDIAN OCEAN, FEBRUARY 2015
The operation was planned in detail and cleared all the way up to the minister level. For the first time the Australian authorities would board one of “The Bandit 6” vessels in international waters.
On the morning of 27 February, the group of silent, armed agents dressed in black climb on board the Kunlun.
The Peruvian captain Alberto Zavaleta Salas is asleep while the plans are being made. When he is awakened and learns what is about to happen, he trots up to the bridge. There, right beside the Kunlun, he sees a strange and awkward military-grey ship with three hulls and the word “CUSTOMS” painted in clear letters on the side.
A feeling of invincibility had spread on board the Kunlun after they had outmanoeuvred the battleship from New Zealand. During the last weeks of January they filled the cold storage room with 181 tons of toothfish worth in excess of 3 million dollars, but then Sea Shepherd showed up and chased them away from the fish bank. Now their course was set for Sri Lanka.
On the bridge the fishing captain Sevilla is working frenetically to ward off the pending catastrophe. Over the radio he tells the captain of the Australian patrol ship ACV Triton that they are in international waters and that the agents are not authorized to board. But his words fall on deaf ears.
It is the first time the Kunlun is boarded on the high seas. On the
