Surfs Up

From The Sidney Morning Herald:

AN ILLEGAL fishing ship whose captain is rumoured to have been murdered has thrown plans for the World Surfing Championship in Bali into chaos by running aground on the island's best surf break.

This story has mini-series written all over it. It has includes murder, illegal fishing, Greenpeace, and a surfing competition. It appears that the boat, the Ho Tsai Fa, struck a reef off illegally fishing off Bali. From reading the article, I had a hard time determining the exact timeline, but it appears that the the boat's Indonesian crew had thrown the captain overboard some time during the fishing expedition. The crew then tried to return home fleeing the boat after it wrecked into the reef. Unfortunately, this section of reef has some of the best surf, thus threatening the World Surfing Championship.

According to a separate story in the Sidney Morning Herald,

The Taipei Times has reported that it was caught with 60,000 kilograms of shark fins in Costa Rica in 2003.

The previous article also mentions that Greenpeace had intercepted the boat in May, illegally fishing in the Pacific. On a positive note, at least for the locals, local residents helped themselves to the illegally caught fish.

The crew fled and, SurfingMagazine.com reported, local residents boarded the ship and helped themselves to about 500 illegally caught fish on board, including huge tuna, barracuda and shark.

This is a great picture:




HT: GCaptain