I love sailing and many of my most joy filled memories involve sailing with dolphins on my bow wave, so it was with tears in my eyes that I watched the scenes of dolphin slaughter in the movie “The Cove”.Susan heard about the movie through an email form Patagonia. It sounded interesting, we searched for a local showing for weeks before one finally popped up in Mystic and we went.It’s a powerful story about natural beauty, extreme human injustice, dolphin exploitation and murder.The central character of the story, outside of the dolphins, is Ric O’Barry, the man who captured and trained Flipper (actually the five different bottle nosed dolphins who portrayed Flipper) for the TV series.
It’s poetically ironic that the man who was a major force in the inception of the dolphin exploitation industry is now a major force in saving them.The story of Ric’s inner transformation and is one of the gems of this movie.
Who could kill a dolphin, an idea that is so foreign and adherent to me that it’s hard to imagine.What kind of men could be so hard hearted to do such a thing?While The Cove shows us their faces and even their horrible actions, still I wonder.If such a thing is in the hearts of men, any men, can it be somewhere in mine?
The Cove documents live capture of wild dolphins for the worldwide entertainment industry as well as the accompanying slaughter and consumption.In the course of the movie two startling facts are reveled: 1) Most Japanese don’t realize that their fishing industry is killing dolphins and they are eating them packaged as whale meet.2) The dolphin meat they are eating is loaded with mercury, up to 2,000 PPM (parts per million) when 0.4 PPM is supposedly the safe limit.
After the tragedy of Minamata I would have thought that the Japanese would have been the last people on earth who would mess with mercury in the food chain.For decades mercury was inadvertently introduced into the aquatic food chain of the fishing village of Minamata Japan resulting in horrible birth defects, sever neurological damage and death.It started out early on with crows falling from the sky and cats dancing strangely in the streets before falling dead. It ended with the poisoning of the entire village.In spite of the large number of deformed babies and sick adults the government and local industry hid evidence of mercury poisoning and continued to pollute.
In the early 1970s the American photographer William Eugene Smith traveled to Minamata and documented the tragedy that was on going.In the course of living with the people of Minamata Smith produced one of the most beautiful and moving photo books ever made.(the book is now out of print but you can click on this link to see some of Smith’s photos)That book awakened the world to the horror of marine mercury contamination.In the course of his work Smith was beaten blind by the Japanese industrialists; fortunately he later regained his sight.
Minamata is now public knowledge and a horrible part of Japan’s history so why are the Japanese feeding dolphin flesh contaminated with mercury to their children?The film does a good job of answering that question as well as showing how Japan has succufucly co-opted the IWC (International Whaling Commission) by buying the votes of a number of small and improvised countries.
The Japanese people are being stubborn in their persistence in killing dolphins but I can’t imagine that they’ll be able to continue peddling dolphin flesh as the truth about the mercury contamination spreads.That leads to another of the great ironies of this story; the one thing that may save the dolphins, mercury poisionng, must also be killing them too.
Our plan :
To take a leisurely sail around the world exploring new lands and new cultures as we go. On the way we intend to place equal importance to the inward journey as to the external journey. On our path we’ll strive to live in harmony with nature and to travel in as self-sustaining, low impact way as possible.
What Dan says About Susan:
She is a nurse, a mother, a yogini, a dancing-singing-earthborn-spirit and a friend to many. She is my beloved.
what susan says about dan: a wise and gentle man, respectful of the earth and all that is within; an accomplished student of the energy disciplines, a yogi. dan is serious and responsible about the things that matter; playful and witty in the balance. an observant with his third eye, his trusty camera, a photographer. an ex-rock climber, a kayaker - disciplined, patient and purposeful; all this and a humble man - this is my beloved...
About Us:
as Snatam Kaur says;
“We are light, we are love, we are dreams…”
