Tuesday, December 6, 2011

A surprising encounter

Last night, we saw another ship next to ours … At first sight, it gives you a strange feeling realising that we are not the only human beings in this area of the world’s oceans, more than 900 miles / 1,450 km from land. As soon as we got close enough we figured out that it was a large trawler … and that they were actually fishing the area of ‘Sapmer’ seamount - the seamount we are starting to explore now– the 4th one on our itinerary plan. We watched them trawling up and down using a mid-water trawl and they fished all night long. The vessel was registered in Japan and must have sailed from a great distance (7,500 miles / 12,000 km) emphasizing the global nature of fishing on the high seas. This morning we saw them haul their net and then they headed to the south west and we can easily imagine that they are going to fish the other seamounts of the area –the ones we have just left– the ones we have just started to understand and whose mysteries have not yet been totally discovered.