1. GV Greenpeace vessel "Sirius" passing Gibraltar 0.12
2. GV Greenpeace spotter aircraft overhead 0.27
3. SV & LV British naval vessels (2 shots) 0.36
4. LV & SV Greenpeace vessel "Sirius" at sea (2 shots) 0.47
5. LV & SV Pilot whales surfacing and plunging (2 shots) 1.00
6. CU Greenpeace lookout with binoculars 1.02
7. LV Suspected Soviet whaling vessel 1.08
8. CU Greenpeace member receiving instructions to board Soviet vessel 1.12
9. LV PAN Greenpeace motorboat alongside Soviet vessel, activist boards whaler and climbs rigging to crow's nest and Soviet crew member approaches 2.10
10. LV Second Greenpeace dinghy approaches and more Greenpeace protestors climb aboard 2.32
11. LV Greenpeace member climbs rigging to join another activist holding banner from crow's nest 2.41
12. SV Greenpeace demonstrator chained to railings 2.50
13. SV Soviet crew members watch from forecastle 2.52
14. SV Demonstrators unfurl banner in Russian at railings 2.57
15. SV PAN & LV Banner "Stop bloody whaling" in crow's nest and Soviet officer looking on (3 shots) 3.19
16. LV "Sirius" alongside Soviet vessel 3.26
InitialsMOD/BB


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Background: AT SEA, OFF GIBRALTAR

Activists of the environmental organisation Greenpeace boarded a Soviet vessel in the Mediterranean on October 29. Their aim was to protest against Soviet plans to continue with commercial whaling despite an international ban taking effect from 1986 and running until 1991. The Greenpeace vessel "Sirius" was in the Straits of Gibraltar to block a Soviet whaling fleet which was said to be on its way from the port of Odessa to Atlantic waters with the declared aim of catching 3,000 whales. The factory ship "Sovietskaya Ukraina" and several whalers which use cold harpoons, outlawed by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in 1983, were sailing with the fleet, a Greenpeace spokesman said. "Sirius" spotted a suspected Soviet whaler, the "Dorby", and after tailing it for about an hour, an activist boarded it from a small dinghy. The activist, Xavier Pastor, head of Greenpeace's Spanish office, chained himself to the mast, and hung up a banner reading "Stop bloody whaling". Two others, Maggie McCaw from the United States, and Dutchman Leo Snellink chained themselves to the ship's railings and put up a banner in Russian. The protest ended when the Greenpeace interpreter came on board to speak to the Soviet crew. The captain was able to convince the Greenpeace members that he was on a fisheries inspection mission, despite the "Dorby's" listing as a whaler. Together with Norway and Japan, the Soviet Union refuses to abide by the IWC ban on whaling from 1986 to 1991, and the Soviets have also refused to accept a thirty per cent reduction in the catch quota for mink whales.

Source: TONY MARRINER - GREENPEACE