Dylan Smith Dead: Surfer, Hurricane Sandy Hero Drowns In Puerto Rico

Posted: 12/24/2012 11:29 am EST  |  Updated: 12/24/2012 12:16 pm EST

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A young surfer-- who previously made headlines when he rescued several people stranded by Hurricane Sandy-- apparently drowned this week off the coast of Puerto Rico. From The AP:

A police statement Sunday has identified the tourist as 23-year-old Dylan Smith, whose body was found floating Sunday morning near his surfboard in waters off Maria's Beach in the western Puerto Rican community of Rincon. The town's beaches attract surfers from across the world.

Smith, you may remember, was on People magazine's "2012 Heroes of the Year" list, for his heroics in Queens during the storm.

According to NBC New York, "The night of the storm, Smith, who is from Belle Harbor, helped rescue six people using a homemade rope bridge and his surfboard as fires spread across the flooded Rockaway Peninsula."

FDNY Chief Michael Light, who knew Smith since he was a baby, told The Daily News, "The same sport -- the sport of surfing -- that he used to save all those people, it's so shocking that he perished that way."

According to the AP, the U.S. Caribbean territory's police are investigating the death.

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A Long Journey Home and Now The Voyage Begins -- Commentary by Captain Paul Watson

A Long Journey Home and Now The Voyage Begins

A Long Journey Home and Now The Voyage Begins

Commentary by Captain Paul Watson

Sunday was my birthday and a wonderful day it was indeed because I received the best of all possible gifts. The deck of the Steve Irwin is again under my feet. I have an awesome crew and our ship is on course for Antarctica.

It has been a long journey from Germany to where I am now.

Across two oceans. A total of some 12,000 miles covered from Frankfurt, Germany to the Southern Pacific Ocean.

A trifle inconvenient without a passport or any form of identification and all the more difficult without credit cards or access to ATM machines, without access to the internet or even a cell phone.

Dark to the point of invisible but it was this invisibility that has kept me out of the clutches of Japan. Despite their resources, their small army of lawyers and their ability to use their economic clout to place me on the Interpol Red List on politically motivated bogus charges.

It has been seven months since the Germans detained me at Frankfurt airport and four months since I left Germany.

I would not have made it here without the loyalty and resourcefulness of crewmembers, supporters, friends, and family.

And because of them, I now have returned to the Steve Irwin, traveling through the largest and most free nation in the world – The Ocean!

I can’t go into details of my travels over the last four months. I may have to do it again sometime in the future.

More importantly, we need to now focus on the immediate future and not the recent past.

Our ships and our crew are on the move. The Steve Irwin and I are at sea. The Bob Barker left on November 30th from Sydney. The Brigitte Bardot is also at sea and the Sam Simon remains in an undisclosed location amidst rumors and speculations as to what and where it is. All I can say is that Locky MacLean a citizen of both France and Canada, is the Captain.

I am now the Captain of the Steve Irwin once again. Peter Hammarstedt a citizen of Sweden and the USA is the Captain on the Bob Barker and onboard the Brigitte Bardot is world famous French sailor, the legendary Jean Yves Terlain.

Four ships with four captains and officers and crew, 120 people from twenty-four nations: Austria, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Great Britain, Ecuador, Finland, Germany, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, United States,

The objective of Operation Zero Tolerance is to intercept and intervene against the intent of the Japanese whaling fleet to murder 1035 whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. Our purpose is twofold. To save the lives of whales and to cost the Japanese whaling industry as much as we possibly can in financial losses. Last year we cost them $22 million U.S. dollars despite the fact that they received a $30 million dollar subsidy stolen from the victims of the Japanese Tsunami Relief Fund.

And as always, our actions are undertaken in the Buddhist spirit of Hayagriva where we do not cause physical injury to our opponents. We target their intentions and thwart their lethal ambitions, but we never harm them. Unfortunately they do not share our compassion and thus the risks our crews take are considerable.

We have never been stronger, nor more determined. Our dedication to defending the integrity of the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary is undiminished, for we know that the key to success is persistence, patience and perseverance.

We have succeeded in bankrupting the whaling fleet. We have sunk them economically. Now we need to sink them politically.

Back in 1977 we opposed the slaughter of whales in Western Australia when Australia was a stubborn whaling nation. Today Australia is the leading nation in the world defending the whales. That gives me great hope for Japan. Japan can be a great force for good with marine conservation, and more and more Japanese are supporting us every year. I believe that one day Japan will be a nation that also protects the whales and no longer kills them, just like Australia has become today.

Whaling is becoming unpopular in Japan. Only a few years ago, the Japanese whaling fleet would depart from the dock with cheering crowds, bands, ribbons and widespread media coverage.

They departed this week from an obscure location, without fanfare, shamefully sneaking out to sea for fear that we would see them.

Earlier in the month we issued a statement saying that we would confront them off the coast of Japan and apparently they believed it. Their Coast Guard mobilized and they went to a great deal of expense and effort to sneak quietly out of port.

Of course we had no intention of heading North at all. We are waiting for them in the South, but before they reach the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.

Our ships will spread out to guard the approaches to the Sanctuary and once the Nisshin Maru is found we will block any attempt to undertake whaling operations.

I do hope that this will be the last year we must make the long, expensive and dangerous voyage to the Southern Ocean but we will return again next year and the year after that, and every year thereafter until the whale killing is ended.

We have become the guardians of the whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary and we will never surrender to these killers.

A special thank you to all of you who have donated to Sea Shepherd and made it possible for our ships to be where we are now. We still need your help to refuel the vessels to allow us to keep our stations down here at the bottom of the planet as the guardians of the great whales.

We do what we do so the whales may live. We do what we do for the children of the future that they may live in a world with whales for when the whales are no more, the sea will die and when the sea is no more – we, all of us, will die!

As I stand on the bridge wing of the Steve Irwin looking over the vast inky blue shroud of the ocean, I see between the sea and the amber cloud speckled golden sky - a single spout directly ahead and that spout symbolizes life.

As the sun sets to the west, a flash of green sparks on the horizon and I feel that there can be no place I would rather be or anyplace that I could be more happy than upon these life sustaining waters on a quest to defend Leviathan.


Whales Weep Not!

They say the sea is cold, but the sea contains
the hottest blood of all, and the wildest, the most urgent.

All the whales in the wider deeps, hot are they, as they urge
on and on, and dive beneath the icebergs.
The right whales, the sperm-whales, the hammer-heads, the killers
there they blow, there they blow, hot wild white breath out of
the sea!

- D.H. Lawrence

Thoughts and Observances from the High Seas by Captain Paul Watson

Captain Paul Watson

Sea Shepherd/Bob Barker Antarctic Mission 2009/2010

Jo-Anne McArthur/Sea Shepherd

Thoughts and Observances from the High Seas

The Steve Irwin is at sea and the Brigitte Bardot has departed from Los Angeles. The Nisshin Maru remains in dry dock in Hiroshima. The Bob Barker is preparing for departure from Sydney and the Sam Simon and myself remain in an undisclosed location. The manager of the El Torito restaurant in Marina del Rey reported to the crew of the Brigitte Bardot that a Japanese man with a video camera kept asking to move his seat to get different views of the Brigitte Bardot. The restaurant was overlooking the berth where the Brigitte Bardot was moored.

The Japanese spy for the whaling companies would have seen hundreds of supporters visiting the Brigitte Bardot bring donations of food, equipment and cash to support the campaign to stop the Japanese whaling fleet.

He may also have been looking for me, but I was not there.

The Japanese whalers can send in their spies but our spy network is much more effective, because our spies are whistleblowers who come forward to volunteer information on their own, like the manager of the El Torito restaurant in the Marina. By the way, if anyone goes for a meal there remember to thank him for looking out for the whales.

One very generous and moving donation came from Robin Pozniakoff, who brought down and presented the Bardot's crew with binoculars used by her father in the United States Navy in 1944. It is an honor indeed to have onboard binoculars that were used in the fight against Japanese military imperialism nearly seventy years ago. The crew reports that these binoculars, made especially for the United States Navy by Bausch and Lomb in 1943, are superior than most of the modern binoculars on the market today.

The Sam Simon and I remain in an undisclosed location making preparations for the upcoming interventions against the Japanese whaling fleet. Despite the cadre of lawyers with lawsuits and bogus charges they have thrown at us, despite their diplomatic pressures, despite their public relations expenditures all financed by the money they stole from the Tsunami victims, they have not shut down our campaign and they have not stopped me.

But we fully intend to stop them, because I intend to demonstrate that passion trumps money and my crews are more passionate about defending the whales than the whalers are about killing them, because we are driven by compassion, whereas they are driven by greed.

I have to say that the Solar eclipse yesterday was a fascinating sight for those of us fortunate to see it. It won’t happen again until 2015.

I was thinking today of the few people who write to tell me that they hate me because of what I do, or how I do what I do. They do not like that I protect whales, or they just don’t like the way I go about saving whales, apparently. Not that I care, since I work to protect whales for the sake of the whales and not to please people, but it is a curiosity as to why people take the time to write to tell me that they hate me because of what I do and how I do it. 

Not that this is a revelation. I have received thousands of hate messages and hundreds of death threats over the years, and for the most part, I have found it all very amusing. 

I especially like the ones that accuse me of being violent and follow up with the accusation that they hope someone kills me.

In my entire career I have never injured a single person, but these people don’t want to confuse their ideology with reality and thus the simple fact that they don’t like what I do or how I do it translates into me being a violent person.

But the reason I bring this up is because of the fact that many people, especially on internet social networks, are attacked and bullied by others. For some this is intimidating, threatening, and depressing.

As someone who has been most viciously attacked for decades, I simply would like to offer some advice.

Ignore these people. They are simply energy sucking vampires.

As Chris Guillebeau wrote in his book The Art of Non-Conformity: “If you want to make a lot of people hate you, all you need to do is be successful doing something you love.”

And the more you succeed, the more vicious become the critics.

What I have found is that those who waste energy attacking the deeds of others do not themselves contribute anything positive to the world.

As Albert Einstein once observed: “Great spirits have always been violently oppressed by mediocre minds.”

And don’t worry if people talk crap about you. As Oscar Wilde once wrote: “The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.”

So the more haters and the more angry critics that you recruit, the more reassurance you will have that you are on the right path and doing the right thing.

These are my rules for dealing with haters: (1) If you don’t know someone personally i.e. if they are not close friends or family, their opinion of you is irrelevant. (2) If you are criticized positively by friends and family, listen to them, if criticized negatively, or with malice, ignore them also. (3) Any comment left on internet postings by people you don’t know, are unimportant and should not even be read. (4) If someone leaves a negative comment on your Facebook page all you need to do is delete the comment and ban them. DO NOT respond because that just encourages and empowers them. (5) Most importantly of all, remember that you need not answer to anyone but your own conscience. Thus you need not respond to any criticism unless you can determine if there is anything positive to be gained by responding, and usually there isn’t.

The one thing I have found is that these kind of hateful people absolutely despise being ignored, and thus, that is the best way to deal with them.

I used to respond sometimes to people I did not know because I found it amusing to do so, but over time I realized that giving encouragement to these kind of faceless people was not a positive thing, no matter how amusing I felt it to be.

I do, however, respond to some of my traditional enemies, people I knew or know, that have actual faces, like corporate public relations whores like Patrick Moore or the public relations lackey for the whaling industry Glen Inwood, for example, because I know them and what I can gain is to expose their hypocrisy and provoke thought about their championing of industries assaulting nature.

Update from the High Seas by Captain Paul Watson

Update from the High Seas


The Steve Irwin has departed from Melbourne and Operation Zero Tolerance has officially begun.

That floating industrialized slaughterhouse called the Nisshin Maru is still in dry dock in Hiroshima but the Japanese Fishery Agency and the Institute for Cetacean Research are boasting that they will get their quota this year of over one thousand whales.

I really don’t

 think so, but hey, let them dream.

My dedicated officers and crews on our four ships intend to see that they don’t take a single whale.

The ships are ready. The crews are ready.

And I am ready, although I remain in an undisclosed location.

A spokesperson for the Japanese government told the media this week that he “hopes” that I will be arrested before the whaling fleet departs.

Well, good luck with that, and all I can say is “hoping” is the best they can do.

Japan has not stopped us in the courts. They have not stopped me. They have not stopped our ships from sailing and when they see our new ship the Sam Simon they will be most assuredly awestruck and shocked.

The Brigitte Bardot was escorted into Marina del Rey last week by none other than Baywatch superstar and fellow Canadian, Pamela Anderson on her jet ski. After repairs and provisions the crew of the Brigitte Bardot will head out to meet the other three Sea Shepherd vessels as we bring the campaign North towards Japan.

The Bob Barker will soon be departing from Sydney and the Sam Simon will soon be departing from an undisclosed location much closer to Japan than the other three ships.

All systems are go, and all ships and crews are on schedule.

It will be a most interesting year.

Melissa Seagal has been doing an incredible job as leader of the Cove Guardians in Taiji, Japan. Operation Infinite Patience has saved hundreds of dolphins despite the legal and physical obstacles. Sea Shepherd is committed to remaining in Taiji for as long as this horrifically cruel slaughter continues. We are the eyes of the world and the Japanese fishermen and the politicians are very much aware of this. We are also dedicated to maintaining a legal non-violent presence in Taiji, and this allows us to continue despite the threats, the dangers, and the constant exposure to one of the most cruel massacres of wildlife on the planet.

An interesting news story out of Eastern Canada today: The Canadian government finally cut through their own red tape and obtained a court order to seize the sack of doubleloons that I presented as ransom to them in 2008 to secure the release of Captain Alex Cornelissen and First Mate Peter Hammarstedt of the Farley Mowat.

Alex and Peter were arrested and charged with the heinous crime of witnessing the slaughter of a seal, thus violating the Seal Protection Act. Farley Mowat put up the bail money of $10,000 and I delivered the ransom in a large heavy sack filled with 5,000 Canadian two-dollar coins. Since the one dollar Canadian coin is a Loon, it stands to reason that the two dollar coin is a Double Loon and thus it was fitting way to secure their release with the currency of the great pirate age.

Both Alex and Peter were prevented from returning to Canada by Immigration Canada but the trial began without them, with the Judge citing that it was the responsibility of the defendants to attend the trial and that being barred from entry into the country was no excuse.

Thus, it was no surprise when both Alex and Peter were found guilty, having not been allowed to present a defense. The fines totaled $46,000 and the government imposed a fine on the Farley Mowat of $75,000.

I told the government that I was not interested in paying the fines. They responded by saying that if the fines were not paid, they would seize the Farley Mowat.

Now since it was our intention to retire the Farley Mowat, and the cost of retiring a vessel is about $250,000, it was in our financial interest to have the Canadian government take care of the retirement for us.

The government sold the Farley Mowat at auction for $5,000 after racking up a bill of over one million dollars for 24 hour security for two years plus berthing fees. The vessel was bought by a private party and taken to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia where the new owner neglected to pay berthing fees racking up a bill of some $50,000, causing the vessel to be arrested once again.

The Farley Mowat was truly our gift to the Canadian government that just keeps on giving.

So the government got a total of $15,000 from the bail and the sale of the ship. It cost them over a million dollars in losses. They failed to collect their fines and there was, of course, the cost of the trial including the cost of flying in sealers and putting them up at hotels and feeding them so they could provide evidence against the two men not allowed into the courtroom to defend themselves. Now they have another $50,000 in uncollected fees and more legal costs.

On the other hand, Sea Shepherd saved $240,000 by not having to retire the ship because our only cost was the $10,000 Double Loons.

All in all a very good deal from a financial point of view.

And most importantly the arrest and the seizure of the Farley Mowat in 2008 got a great deal of publicity in Europe. This contributed greatly to the passing of legislation in Europe banning seal products from Canada.

So in addition to saving Sea Shepherd a great deal of money, we also scored a great political and legal victory for the seals with the European ban on seal products.

It was a great trade-off for the old ship and a worthy sacrifice.

Apparently despite being given $30 million dollars last year from the Tsunami Relief Fund, the whalers are begging for more. These glorified welfare bums are once again claiming entitlement and that their right to slaughter whales is some sort of act of Japanese patriotism that is deserving of taking the food out of the mouths of the homeless victims of the earthquake, the tsunami and the Fukushima nuclear negligence.

Will the Japanese whalers obsession with hating Sea Shepherd deprive the victims of the tsunami of another $30 million dollars?

With governments there never seems to be enough money for acts of kindness, mercy and goodwill but there never seems to be a lack of money for war, destruction and hate.

The question is for how long and for how high a cost will Japan continue to subsidize their illegal and unethical slaughter of whales and dolphins. How much will they continue to spend in their attempts to destroy the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society? How much humiliation are they prepared to endure as Sea Shepherd continues to make them lose face every year by stifling their ability to kill whales and dolphins?

They must realize that after some forty years of intervening against the killers of marine life that Sea Shepherd is an organization with a great deal of patience and we have no problem with prolonged campaigns. Because we are not motivated by profit we cannot be hurt financially and because our clients are whales, dolphins and other marine species, we are not deterred by public opinion, governments or media.

And finally a big thank-you to all of you who have contributed to the fueling and outfitting of our ships for Operation Zero Tolerance. Every dollar, euro, yen, rand, real, pound, peso, etc helps to further this cause and our efforts to end the killing of the magnificent minds and beautiful sentient beings in the sea.

You make it possible for us to intervene and to make a difference.

Mahalo, merci, danke, gracias, and thank you.

©Eric Cheng

Help Camille Marino Fight The Vivisection Complex

Please share far and wide. No amount is too small. Help a great animal advocate, victimized by both the Vivisection Complex and treacherous former colleagues, to mount an effective defense.

Courageous animal rights activist, Camille Marino, will be facing trial in Detroit, Michigan on November 14th. Camille has been Targeted by the Vivisection Complex as the number one threat to their continued 

ability to torture non-human animals in anonymity for profit.

They are attempting to make an example of her in their ongoing battle to erode our First Amendment rights and intimidate the Animal Rights movement into impotence. Her current prosecutor is under enormous pressure from vivisectors around the country to neutralize Camille and it appears that the state will be seeking an upward deviation in her sentencing guidelines should she be convicted. The FBI confiscated her cell phone in May and is most likely actively cooperating in this case.

In addition, as a result of her ongoing battle to expose the horrific abuses at the University of Florida, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement raided her home in June, confiscating her computer and other items. Camille spent her own money to sue UF and legally compel them to release their records, which document the experiments to which they subject monkeys. Because of these and other actions she has taken in defense of the sentient victims of vivisection, Camille is deserving of the support of everyone interested in ending the oppression of animals.

The costs of mounting a legal defense, repeated round trips to Detroit, replacing the items confiscated by government agencies and continuing to fearlessly represent the animals, are staggering. Camille is now in serious debt for the cost of her recent trip to Detroit for her pretrial hearing, and she must pay her attorney $6000, so he can properly prepare for her trial.

Whatever you think of Camille's style, she is a committed and incorruptible advocate for the animals. She needs and deserves the support of every animal activist. I urge you to give what you can to help this dedicated activist in her time of need. Donations may be sent via PayPal or check.

Paypal: negotiationisover1@gmail.com

Mail: Checks in U.S. funds only should be made out to Camille Marino and mailed to

Camille Marino
115 Sugar Maple Avenue
Wildwood, FL 34785

In Solidarity,
Ron Roberts
Karen Kline

Suzanne Hayes

UF Vivisector & Mrs. Bergeron: A direct challenge to the NIO Laws that went into effect on Oct 1

Reblogged from Negotiation Is Over!

UF Vivisector & Mrs. Bergeron: A direct challenge to the NIO Laws that went into effect on Oct 1

Posted by Negotiation Is Over on October 4, 2012

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On Monday, October 1, 2012, the “NIO Laws” went into effect in Florida which essentially criminalize this article and make it subject to third-degree felony prosecution as cyberstalking under vivisection-complex-driven amendments to current stalking laws in this state. While we do not encourage or condone threats or intimidation of any kind against the enemy, we refuse to recognize any contrived unconstitutional law that seeks to infringe upon our First Amendment right to navigate the public domain. Please share, retweet, and repost to your blogs as I am now awaiting my first injunction in the state of Florida that seeks to shut us down and silence us. -Camille Marino, Founder – Negotiation Is Over

UF Vivisector Raymond Joseph Bergeron who has made his fortune subjecting animals to drug experiments and torturing them to death also swore to false affadivits that two activists threatened to burn down his house with him in it… an exemplary human being!!!

According to information publicly available on the University of Florida website:

Office phone is answered by “Miranda”: 352-273-7725

Email is: rayb@ufl.edu

Bergeron is a Professor of Drug Development
Department of Medicinal Chemistry
OFFICE: Medical Science Building, P6-04

UF Vivisector Raymond Bergeron and his wife, Kathy, have built their lives on the extreme misery Ray inflicts on monkeys who are ripped from their own mothers. While her dear old hubby forcefeeds them poisons, injects them with drugs, drives them insane in tiny cages (some for decades), then murders them, Kathy enjoys frequent manicures and pedicures as well as trips to the local salon. Although they have stopped answering the phone if the incoming number is blocked, according to publicly-available information, Kathy may be reached at (352) 373-8776.

A person believed to be a relative of the gruesome twosome, another Kathy Bergeron, is employed at St. Gregory’s Catholic Church in Plantation, Florida. This Mrs. Bergeron works in the cafeteria at St. Gregory’s in the morning, her direct number and email have both been disconnected, but she works in the Development Office in the afternoons: 954-473-6261, ext. 127.

Picture of the Bergeron estate taken from a public sidewalk at a surprise home demo on the evening of July 7, 2012

According to publicly-available property records, UF Vivisector Raymond J. Bergeron and his wife Kathy live here at:

6220 NW 56TH Lane
Gainesville, FL 32653-3117

To submit an article for publication, send a note to camille@negotiationisover.net.