I have to apologize for just dropping off the face of the planet once we returned from Taiji, last week. I literally started spring quarter at the college (8am class time!!) the morning after our return flight, and I am just now catching up with everything.

The flight home was long! I barely got any sleep, once I started to hit a lucid dream and almost lose conciseness the turbulence was so awful I would get woken up. But I was kept amused, one of the flight attendants walked up and down the halls while we ate and was picking up trash as we cleared our trays (it was kinda uncomfortable actually), but she took all my clean napkins and threw away half a cup of orange juice because she thought I was done with it… I thought it was funny!

I unpacked the second we got home and we washed all my clothes, I hate having packed suitcases around once I get back from a trip… it’s like this thing that just hangs over me! I went to bed super early and I was in class at 8am the next morning.

The end of the 2011-2012 campaign was sad. We found out that dolphins are slaughtered all year round in Taiji. We did, however, get a lot of questions answered for next year. It was a productive trip and I met some more amazing people who I will keep in touch with life long!

Of course when one door closes, another one opens… I have something very exciting to share!
I’ve found out I can join the crew of the Steven Irwin in August, in Australia. I expect there will be a lot of painting, cleaning, and all other kinds of chores I will be assigned to. I’m looking forward to all the new things I am going to learn!

After graduation this June I will take summer quarter at my community college (filling out my AA degree). I look forward to the new adventures to come my way this year, and as always I can’t wait to bring you all along!

This Saturday there is an Sea Shepherd event happening in Friday Harbor, my dad (Scott West) and Erwin Vermeulen will be speaking about their experiences in Taiji, Japan. I’ll be blogging about that and I look forward to seeing some of you there!

-Elora Malama West

P.S. I found this quote in a textbook of mine today, I really liked it and I thought I would share it!

“Rise Like lions after slumber…
In unvanquishable number!
Shake your chains to earth like dew…
Which in sleep had fallen on you-
Ye are many; They are few!”- Howard Zinn

We’ve been wrapping up this year’s Cove Guardian Campaign. It has now officially come to a close. I think that it is incredible we’ve been able to keep this campaign going for the last two years, and more years to come. I will personally not stop fighting for dolphins until the killing ends, or until the last dolphin takes its final breath. Thank you to all of you who make this possible, who support us, and who call/write the Japanese embassies everyday.

As you all know, if you have been keeping up with the Sea Shepherd website, we are making preparations for next year. But while we do that, we have also been taking this time to say goodbye to the various shop owners who we have all made friends with over the last two years. Yesterday (day 6) we spent some time up at the Handmade Cafe, where I had by 17th birthday dinner. I love it there SO MUCH!

Today we were packing and helping everyone who has been here many months get everything boxed up for next season. We did make one really cool stop on our way back from saying goodbye to the cove… My dad and I found this place when we first arrived here 2 years ago, and we’ve wanted to go into it ever since. But we never had time, or always forgot. Well today we stopped by and I’m really glad we did.

The building… well I should say the shack, it’s too clumsy to be a building… is this bright orange building with what looks to be a junk yard in front of it. I thought, at first, it was a dump… but we realized after a while people were going in and coming out with stuff. It looks like it is a Japanese flee market (of sorts).

When you walk inside, there are rows and rows of used stuff and trinkets stacked up on-top of each other.

Outside the market were piles of bikes, used tires, pipes, and the bottoms of plant holders that were filled with water from the rain (which danced and glistened in the wind).

We bought some Japanese fans, a candle holder that looks like a Halloween Pirate, and some other fun things to bring home.

We all leave tomorrow, so we had one final goodbye dinner at our favorite local restaurant. I am really happy I had the chance to meet everyone here! I’m going to miss this lot!

Tomorrow we fly home at 5:30pm Japan time! I will be blogging about our trip home/reflections on this trip on Sunday.

So… until tomorrow (unless you are in the West, then until Sunday!)

Elora Malama

They murder dolphins all year round. That is the conclusion we have come to. It seems like there are two different types of permits, one for drive hunting and another worded differently to continue the murders during the drive’s off-season.

Several boats came in with harpooned dolphins and this is something that happens casually all day, most likely everyday.

Watching the murdered dolphins being thrown around like they were nothing more than meat, was hard… but there was a moment of comic relief. When Private Space went to load the dolphins into the butcher house, their half closed-door was too low for their forklift…. this is what happens when they try to be sneaky:

Driving out in their boats and riding around until dolphins come by is not impressive. Dolphins love to see boats in the water because they come and play in the current the boats make. It makes it so easy to harpoon them if they come up… it is no different from enticing children with candy. There is nothing skillful about the way they kill dolphins…

There is another funny story that comes out of this sadness… this dolphin in the picture above was just being dragged in behind a fishing boat that had NO IDEA Sea Shepherd was here filming their activity. A dolphin drive boat came and tried to cover up the dolphin tail, but they failed to do so. Once the group made it to the butcher house steps, the driver of the unknown fishing vessel was being screamed at by five different people while they all tried to cover up the dolphin with a tarp. It was a little late for that.

Later this afternoon: Scott met with an attorney who drafted a document to give to the police. Regarding the criminal actions of the nationalists. We provided video evidence to the police. He spent about an hour in the police station making the report, the five of us who came with him were not allowed into the building. So we stayed in the car until he was finished talking with the police. They have now been put on notice, next time they will have to give the nationalists more than a warning.

Until tomorrow…

Swim Far, Swim Fast, Swim Deep,

Elora Malama

Today’s posting will be short and simple, there wasn’t TOO much going on today and I am not yet able to describe what is going on inside my head. The killers did unload some harpooned dolphins… we think this kind of activity happens all year round. It’s sickening.

WE started our day at one of the look-out points in the hills. All the boats went out today, and we were trying to get a look at what they were doing. You get there by walking through a bit of greenery and then climbing down the rocks.

We ended up sitting there for about an hour, just taking in the scene. The way the rocks are formed makes it easy to climb down just close enough to get your feet wet. You feel so secluded and calm there, at least I did. I would say it was beautiful, but every time I thought that… I would see red water.

When we saw some fishing vessels heading into Taiji harbor we drove over to take a look… sure enough these vessels where dropping of dead dolphins they harpooned out at sea. I think it is interesting that all the dolphin catches seem to be taken to Taiji, because the boats dropping them off were not the hunters, but random fishing vessels we did not know. The dolphin killers were desperately trying to hide their activity with the blue tarps… they hid it, but WE all know what was under there. One of the guardians did get pictures of the three dolphins and it will be on the SSCS website this week.

There were three in the first drop off we saw today, and I believe there was another one that I missed.

Later this afternoon we went to the Cove, it was the first time I have been back to the beach since 2010. I can’t explain it… it was as if I had never left.

Tomorrow is a new day, and I guess we will see what that brings.

Swim Far, Swim Fast, Swim Deep,

Elora Malama

~Sponser my Whale Warrior Page, and donate to Sea Shepherd for the Cove Guardian campaign, if you like the work that we do.~ (I still need to update my bio on this page, but it is me!)

Today we hit the road at about 10am, we were headed for Taiji!

I don’t have too much to say about our road-trip up here. We took a new route that neither of us had taken before, it looked something like this:

We stopped to say hello at our friends who work the Handmade Cafe! I love this place so much, I wish we could have stayed for lunch. But there was business going down in Taiji and we needed to get there.

We did take the time to stop at my favorite waterfall along that same road, however the waterfall is almost non-existent now. The land slides that took place late last year took out the bridge, the falls, and the small shack that was built on the same patch of land. A road across the water had been completely whipped out as well, as if it was nothing. Water is a very powerful thing.

Our next stop was Taiji… and I don’t know how to describe what it felt like driving back into that disgusting place. It almost felt as though I never left… and I suppose that is because I see this place in my head and in my dreams constantly. It sounds a tad theatrical, but a piece of you is left here once you’ve witnessed the slaughter, and it is hard to get it back.

We spent an hour or so watching Private Space and his lot unload their harpoons and other tools of torture from the boats. The dolphin killers killed at least 4 dolphins today, but that was all the the team saw going up the stairs. For all we know there were many more before that.

It was nice to finally meet the team on the ground here, and I look forward to getting to know them all this week.

Swim Far, Swim Fast, Swim Deep,

Elora Malama

Sorry about last night’s attempt at a blog! The jet lag really hit me yesterday!

Tuesday, day 2, was very eventful. We stayed the entire day in Osaka for meetings and catching up with some old friends.

The first thing we did when we woke up was get breakfast at our first hotel. It was actually really good! The buffet was adorable, they had some English translations for things, but for the stuff they could not translate they put little laminated cut outs of the different types of animals in each dish, so you knew what you were eating. (I realize there is a huge controversy over the consumption of animals, and I’m not trying to condone it, I just thought it was an adorable way of letting foreigners know what they were eating). My dad and I stuck with eggs, fruit, rice, and toast.

Once we packed the car up we headed over to the United States Consulate, to stop in and say hello to the representative that has helped us out this last year and a half. (He was the one that I got in touch with when my dad was detained for crossing the police line etc). It was nice to finally put a face to the name, and the three of us had a good talk for a little while.

Next we met up with our Japanese translator and her daughter! They have got to be some of the sweetest people I have ever met! The four of us went out for vegetarian curry and walked around downtown Osaka. We all were waiting for it to be time to meet our Japanese Attorney (the same one who helped us to win Erwin’s case).

We had a meeting with him for almost two hours, and got a lot of our questions answered. He was a very nice man who, I think, genuinely wants to help us out.

My dad and I were staying in Osaka one more night before we traveled to Taiji (today). So our translator and her daughter helped us find one! Once we checked in all four of us drove further into Osaka and met Steven Thompson for dinner at a vegetarian Chinese restaurant (haha, I feel like most of what I did today was eat!).

It was great to see Steven again! He cares so much about this cause and he is such a character to talk to. We all sat in the restaurant and talked about the campaign among other things for a couple of hours. When we were packing up to leave, Steven gave me some copies of a questioner that he had some of his students fill out in English. He said they watched the Cove and had a debate in their class that was televised. These questions were a part of that assignment. I thought I would share some of their answers with you, because they are quite interesting. Most of the kids said they did not support dolphin and whale hunting, but some did. You can get an idea of why these kids think the way that they do, because they do explain their answers. All the kids answering these questions are Japanese and are about 17 years old. Being only 18 myself, I was curious to see what kids my age (living here in Japan) thought about the issues of Dolphin hunting/Dolphin captivity.

I will post the questions below, with a positive and negative answer for both.

1. Are you for or against eating dolphins? Why?

“I Don’t agree because I think that eating whales is not Japanese traditional culture and dolphins are not food”.

“I am against eating dolphins, because I can’t think that I eat dolphins meat. I have been liking to watch tat swimming dolphins since childhood. Dolphins are loved by many people all over the world. Dolphins are pets rather than food.

2. Are you for or against eating whales? Why?

“No, I”m not. Whales are very delicious food so I like to eat it. Everyone doen’t know that whales are very delicious”.

“I object to eat whales and dolphins, because they can’t die easily and quickly. So we go out of the way to hunt and eat them but they are needed for ecosystem research. And they died after it, then their meats are a waste. I think we would eat before we would throw away”.

3. Are you for or against catching dolphins? Why?

“I’m against. I think that dolphins are very beautiful and cute. I like them. Moreover I think they are beautiful”.

.
“But.. but if we pitied only them, we should pity all the animals. Such as cattle, pigs and chickens. In which case we will be unable to eat anything. I don’t know which to choose”…

4. Are you for or against catching whales? Why?

“I’m not against. Whales have been very important for Japanese since the Jyomon age. And whales can make a lot of meat for eating”.

“I dislike IWC hunting whales and dolphins in my honesty opinion. Because I felt unhappy when I watched the situation that they were caught and killed by fishermen. It was a fearful thing for me as I like whales and dolphins very much”!

~     ~    ~

My dad and I leave for Katsuura/Taiji today (here in about an hour)… so I will be posting again later today!

Swim Far, Swim Fast, Swim Deep,

Elora Malama

Hi everyone!

I know it is has been a few weeks since I last posted on my site, I was waiting for spring break so I could start some new projects. However! Then something drastic happened, and to make a long story short I am back in Japan (Taiji) for the next 6 days. I am traveling with my dad again, and we are here to help wrap up the second successful Cove Guardian campaign and get some questions answered (information) regarding the Cove Guardians in Taiji and in Japan.

So in my normal blogging fashion… I will tell you all about my trip over here!

I didn’t have much notice, but I did have one WHOLE day’s notice more than the last time I took this trip. My dad was coming back over to close out the campaign and felt like I would be helpful in getting some of our questions answered. While wrapping up my finals at the community college I was packing for six days in Japan. Needless to say, it’s been a long week.

The flight was nice enough. It went by extremely quickly, which was great cause I hate feeling trapped in those little chairs. It wasn’t till we reached immigration that things got interesting.

We stood in line for about 30minutes, it was finally my turn to go up and have my passport scanned and fingerprints taken… I stood at the counter for maybe a minute. Once my passport was scanned a man came out of the side office and hustling towards me. He asked me who I was traveling with and I responded with, “my dad, why is something wrong”? “Just please step this way ma’m, into the office”.

They had me sitting in their waiting area. The couch (chair) things were a neon blue color and the walls plain and white. It looked like I was going to be there a while, and it wasn’t a very cheery place.

A few moments later my dad was being escorted in as well. We were asked to wait there for a few moments while he got a translator. I kicked off my shoes and pulled out my book, I knew we weren’t leaving anytime soon so I made myself comfortable.

The man asked to speak with my father in their “interviewing room” (cough, interrogation room). I sat in the waiting room for about an hour and a half until both my dad and the immigration officer appeared again. We sat there for another hour or so waiting to be either deported or admitted, while being asked follow up questions about our intentions in Japan. I was told that if I had been traveling by myself that I would have to go through the “interview” process as well.

Finally! We were admitted. I wouldn’t have been surprised if we weren’t, but I would be confused. We have never broken Japanese law and never will.

Not much was said after that, we went down to customs and claimed our bags. We got on the bus to our current hotel, where I am writing this blog… and I hope to get some sleep tonight!

We spend tomorrow in Osaka and then we move on from there. I’ll be blogging this entire trip, and I hope you all follow along

~Click here for the link to the Sea Shepherd posting about today~

~Sponser my Whale Warrior Page, and donate to Sea Shepherd for the Cove Guardian campaign, if you like the work that we do.~ (I still need to update my bio on this page, but it is me!)

As always,

Swim far, fast, deep…

Elora Malama