Dammit, Jack!

He is Da Man!
The right man in the wrong place all of the time... but still Da Man!
Regular followers of this blog will need no reminding that I'm a BIG fan of the tv action series 24. In fact, right now I'm working my way (for the fourth time) through the entire set and am halfway through Series 5!
But yesterday came confirmation that fans of Jack Bauer have been waiting to hear. The long-rumoured movie based on 24 is scheduled to begin shooting in the Northern Hemisphere spring.
Kiefer Sutherland played the beleagured Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU) agent Jack Bauer for eight years, and will reprise the role for shooting starting at the end of April or early May.
In the finale of 24 in 2010, Bauer slipped away with virtually every government agency hunting for him (and Chloe covering his back one more time), and there was a tacit promise his adventures would continue in a movie.
Fellow cast members have always expressed interest in such a sequel. I can't wait!!

Another Stranding in Golden Bay

Farewell Spit - photo: Brian Robinson

Farewell Spit strikes again.
Last Friday, this marine mammal deathtrap caught 25 long-finned pilot whales, close to Triangle Flat in Nelson's Golden Bay. This followed the refloating of a single stranded pilot whale on Friday.
The 25 whales that beached on Friday afternoon were part of a pod of 70, seen swimming close to the beach that day. Seven whales died overnight Saturday, while cool overnight conditions worked in the surviving whales' favour. They suffer during daylight - if it's sunny they get sunburnt - so the whales had the best possible conditions for spending the night on the beach.
The remaining 18 were refloated on Saturday morning's high tide, and encouraged to swim away from the beach, but they were lethargic. In their disoriented state they could have easily restranded, so Dept.of Conservation staff and locals kept a close watch on the coast.
(You may recall last November, 47 pilot whales died and 18 were euthanised after they stranded on tidal flats about 3km offshore at the tip of Farewell Spit, marking the start of the stranding season.)
As of yesterday morning, there was no sign of the pod returning... with one tv channel hailing it a "triumphant mass whale rescue".

Divine Wind: Japanese POWs

Three Oz activists are today POWs - Prisoners Of Whalers - having been detained after boarding a Japanese vessel yesterday.
Sea Shepherd helped three men from the Forest Rescue group to board the Shonan Maru 2 in Oz coastal waters (here's the video clip of the boarding).
The men sailed out to intercept the ship off the WA coast, as it tailed Sea Shepherd's Steve Irwin (which had escorted the damaged Brigitte Bardot to port). They were met by two SS zodiacs: these approached SM2 at night and the three climbed past razor wire, spikes and rails to get aboard. They delivered a message: "Return us to shore in Australia and then remove yourself from our waters."
The trio acted because they feel the Federal Govt is not doing enough to stop the killing of whales. They say the Japanese are operating in contempt of Australian courts and in defiance of the will of Australian people. They hope the action will remind the OZ govt of its obligation to prohibit whaling vessels in its waters.
Spokesman for the Institute of Cetacean Research, Glenn "Ginza" Inwood, confirms the men are still aboard SM2: "They are unhurt, they're being questioned and there's been no decision on anything beyond that at this stage." He claims the men boarded the vessel well outside Australian territorial waters - about 40km from the coast - and any suggestion otherwise is false. SS and Forest Rescue say the incident happened 16.2 miles off the coast: outside territorial waters but inside Australia's 24-mile contiguous zone. The
Greens are calling for Federal Govt intervention, saying SM2's position when boarded was 32 degrees, zero minutes south and 115 degrees, 21 minutes east: inside the zone. Australia's Tokyo embassy has contacted the Japanese government seeking urgent clarification of the vessel's location.
Meanwhile SM2 cannot legally leave Oz waters with the men aboard and, if they approach land to offload the three, this would give SI an opportunity to slip past and rejoin Bob Barker and the chase for the Nisshin Maru factory ship. Of course, this may also be a ploy to draw the Australian Govt into a diplomatic incident with Japan.
Watch this space...