Report from the Farley Mowat

2300 Hours  ADT on 04/13/2005

Position:    51 Degrees 24 Minutes North
53 Degrees 20 Minutes West
80 Miles due East of St. Anthony, Newfoundland

This is the second day that the seal kill did not happen and tomorrow promises to be another stay of execution for over a quarter of a million seals.

The Farley Mowat is now in the midst of a raging tempest of high winds, freezing rain, snow, and heavy waves.

Hurricane force winds are slamming the coast of northern Newfoundland and the south coast of Labrador. The ice that had been pushed hard against the northeast coast of Newfoundland is not being pushed northward.

It will be impossible to open the seal hunt anywhere in this region tomorrow. The weather looks like it will continue to be bad for the sealers on Friday.

The crew of the Farley Mowat are weathering the blow with good spirits. Everyone prefers the discomfort of the tempest to the horror of the seal slaughter.

Captain Paul Watson will be doing a satellite telephone debate with Canadian Minister of Natural Resources John Efford at 0800 hours Newfoundland time on Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) Radio. He will also be doing the Rafe Mair Radio talk show in British Columbia tomorrow morning between 0900 and 0930 West Coast time.

The view from the bridge of the Farley Mowat is awesome. The ocean is being whipped into white streaming tendrils of spray as the ship bobs and wallows in the trough of the heavy seas. The freezing rain is slashing past the wheelhouse windows horizontally. The decks are awash when the waves slam into the side of the ship and cascade over the gunwales.

Out here in the darkness in one of the most inhospitable areas of the world, cradled in a formidable storm, the crew of the Farley Mowat continue to wait and watch for any sign of an assault on the seals. When the violence begins, the Farley Mowat will be there. The slaughter will not happen out of sight of our cameras.