Special Report Two: Footnote From Peter
In my first couple of Round the World races, our yachts, when in the Southern Ocean, would be surrounded by large albatross, day after day, in all weathers. As the years went by (I raced every four years or so through the same waters), I noticed there were fewer and fewer of these great birds. The last time through the Indian Ocean, in 1994, we were lucky to see one large albatross a week. Their numbers have been decimated, mainly by indiscriminate fishing techniques. And they are being killed at a faster and faster rate. It has to stop or very soon we will have killed off one of the most beautiful and awe-inspiring creatures on the planet.
I have also been fortunate enough to have had encounters with whales that have left me with no doubt as to their intelligence and understanding.
I have watched a large female fin whale come up behind our race yacht, on a light-airs day in the cold of the southern Atlantic Ocean. The whale closed in until its ‘snout’ was only one metre behind our transom. We could clearly see it examining us with its enormous eyes. Its cream underbelly sported a patch that extended up and over its right eye.
After a while, it turned belly-up and swam under our yacht from stern to bow, the great flukes of the tail wider than our boat. It then surfaced just in front of us and blew – ‘whoosh’. Then it turned on the surface and took up station astern of us again, just a metre away. It did this several times.
Our yacht was 24.5 metres long. The whale, we estimated, was approximately 23 metres long. A magnificent giant of the oceans – yet they are still being hunted.
Again, the needless and senseless slaughter has to stop, or the world is going to be a much poorer place for losses of species that can never be replaced.
Sir Peter Blake
"Having vision is not enough. Change comes through realising the vision and turning it into a reality. It is easy to espouse worthy goals, values and policies; the hard part is implementation."
Learn about Sir Peter Blake and his journeys around the globe
