Toftevaag arrives in the port of Marin after a successful last campaign against the Moroccan pirate driftnet fishing fleet in the Alboran Sea. On the quay, Toftevaag is welcomed by the Consul of Estonia, the Mayor of Marín and the families of fishers who remember the rescue of the Prolific in 1948. 

Toftevaag left its home port in Almerimar on the 10th of April, as planned, stopping over at Motril to prepare the trip to Moroccan waters. On board, together with Alnitak, a team of the Environmental Justice Foundation was equipped with aerial and underwater drones to try document illegal fishing operations in the southern Alboran Sea. 

After a smooth sail with a light easterly breeze, the Toftevaag put down all the canvas a few miles to the west of the Island of Alboran, waiting for sunset to enter Moroccan waters. The crew of Toftevaag had been warned to avoid entering Morocco given that the Moroccan authorities had issued information about Alnitak’s intention to expose Morocco’s massive pirate fishing operations at ICCAT and the FAO General Fisheries Council for the Mediterranean. Tension was building up as Toftevaag was drifting close to fast ribs of the drug and people trafficking mafias. Under cover of darkness Toftevaag proceeded to cover a series of transects through the region where the pirate fleet had been encountered in 2022 and 2023. 

It wasn’t long before the first lights of illegal pelagic driftnets were spotted. And soon after the Toftevaag could hardly make way through the labyrinth of these “curtains of death”. Around us, to our physical horizon (6 nautical miles from our crows nest) we re surrounded at all times by nets ranging over 5 nautical miles each. At sunrise we started our aerial drone filming operations of Moroccan vessels hauling in nets. We caught one ‘red handed’ just about to haul in a common dolphin. They stopped hauling in and let the net down, waiting for 2.5 hours for us to go away. Seeing that we were determined to document the catch of a protected species, they finally manoeuvred to cut the piece of net with the bycatch and sailed away. 

For two days and two nights we managed to survey the area, avoiding Moroccan patrol boats. In total we spotted 36 driftnets and over 40 vessels of this pirate fleet. We spotted only a few scattered common dolphins that seemed as bewildered as us trying to make way through the maze of nets. Sadly, this survey for the fourth consecutive year highlights the collapse of cetacean populations in the Alboran Sea. With the miles covered under survey effort, we should have encountered dozens of large pods of dolphins and pilot whales. We have witnessed how the unit group size (family) of the long finned pilot whale has plummeted from 14 animals to less than 8. This year, we encountered only a group of 4 whales, despite the perfect conditions for visual survey detection. 

It is not surprising though. In 2005 Tudela et al presented the results of a study that estimated a bycatch of over 5.000 dolphins, whales, and sea turtles per year, and over 50.000 elasmobranchs. 

Just before reaching Ceuta, at the Straits, we encountered a loggerhead turtle and deployed a satellite transmitter. This turtle, named “Johnny” has since travelled on a constant speed and course heading to the other side of the Atlantic to initiate its reproductive cycle. Toftevaag’s crew celebrated 33 years of research in the Mediterranean on the 17th of April, heading for cape Saint Vincent.  

With a beautiful forecast of favourable winds, Toftevaag seemed happy sailing into the Atlantic and North! Toftevaag will now be working in the monitoring of the Marine Protected Area of Cañon de Aviles in collaboration with WildSea Cantabrian.