December 16, 2013 — A state board has fined Greenpeace $15,000 for traveling through Alaskan waters without a marine pilot.
The violation occurred during Greenpeace’s “Save the Arctic” tour to protest Shell’s oil exploration in July 2012.
Greenpeace had sent the Esperanza, their 237-foot, Dutch-flagged research vessel. The Esperanza were supposed to study corals and sealife in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas.
Along the way, the vessel stopped into a few Alaskan towns. That’s where it ran into trouble.
Crystal Dooley is a coordinator for the Alaska Board of Marine Pilots. She says that for large, foreign vessels, "pilotage is compulsory at all entrances from seaward to Alaska’s bays, sounds, rivers, straits, inlets, harbors, ports, or other estuaries or passages within three nautical miles of the state's coastline."