The Cove Page #4

It's astounding to think

that this horror happens

in one of the most beautiful places.

We snuck up to this park.

It was called Tsunami Park.

It was blockaded,

but we went up there.

The only safe time

to go in Tsunami Park

is when there are no

dolphins in the lagoon.

Then there are no guards around.

Ric pointed down

to the secret lagoon,

and he said, "That's

where all the dirty business happens."

The cops were on our tail,

and I thought, let's get out of here.

We'll try to regroup.

So we went off to do

some sightseeing outside Taiji.

All these beautiful

temples are there,

some of the most beautiful

temples in all of Japan.

In one of these temples,

they have a dry rock garden

where the monks rake these rocks,

and in the center

they have these rocks

that people come from all

over the world to contemplate.

It was gorgeous,

but I thought, in America,

people would never go

on a Sunday to watch rocks.

Suddenly I got this idea.

What if the rocks looked back?

This was a big waterfall set

that we constructed

for the movie Evan Almighty.

A dam breaks and floods

and takes the...

washes the road out and...

One of my best friends

and my first assistant

was a guy that became

the head mold maker

at Industrial Light and Magic,

so I called up and said,

"I've got this idea for a project.

"I want to hide

Hi-Def cameras in a rock.

Can you help us?"

Is that what you had in mind?

It's a work of art, man.

We can do all of them

brown if you want,

or we can do a combination

of brown and gray.

I think brown and gray

would be better.

I think this is going

to be a primary for us

that these are all gray.

I would try to keep them

as lower of a profile

as possible because...

We needed a special group of people

to implement this mission.

We needed people with

a special set of skills.

I started to set up this team,

this... sort of this

Ocean's Eleven team.

Simon Hutchins,

the only guy that had

military experience.

Simon created all these weird ways

to hide Hi-Def cameras

and hydrophones.

You know, he's a mad genius.

If we could dream it,

Simon could build it.

Joe Chisolm organized rock concerts,

and we were kind of like

a rock concert...

you know, incognito.

You know, we had hundreds

of cases of material

that we had to import into Japan,

and he did the logistics.

Louis came back, and he said, "Look,

we got to get in,"

and Louis and I started discussing

all of the ways that we can film it.

We had a military grade

thermal camera,

which you're not allowed

to bring out of the country.

If it has a pulse,

the thermal camera picks it up.

One thing that we had decided to do

is get some aerial footage,

so we decided to take

our own helicopter with us.

We looked into, you know,

commandeering a satellite

to do satellite pictures.

We decided to make

our own unmanned drone

with a gyro-stabilized

Hi-Def camera below it.

We actually named it Cathy,

and that was purely

out of respect for Ric O'Barry.

The idea there was

that even if the blimp didn't succeed

and we got caught

that everybody loves a balloon...

you know, kids, police, everyone.

One of these devices

that was very important to Louis and I

is the hydrophone...

high tech sound devices

put in underwater housing.

I wanted to hear

the dolphins from the lagoon,

but we didn't know

how deep it was.

We had rebreathers,

but it would be clanky,

it would be noisy.

Mandy-Rae Cruickshank and Kirk Krack

are world class freedivers.

Freediving in its simplest terms,

it's like deep snorkeling.

On one breath we see

how deep we can go in the ocean,

how long we can hold our breath.

Mandy-Rae's owned

eight world championships

in her lifetime.

She can go down to 300 feet

on one breath of air

and come back on her own power.

They got on board pretty quickly

when they found out

what we wanted to do.

We have some of the same

physiological traits

that whales, seals,

and dolphins have.

We're all air-breathing mammals.

They live in the water.

We live on land.

When you're out

swimming in the ocean

and you have whales

and dolphins come by you,

it is one of the most

incredible experiences ever.

It's so humbling that this wild creature

would come up and be

so interested in you.

It's...

It's unbelievable, really.

Even though there's

obviously no words spoken,

you really feel like you're on some

level communicating with them,

like there's an understanding

between the two of you.

I don't normally touch

anything in the water,

but I just thought, you know,

it had been swimming

with me for so long,

I put my hand out in front of me,

and it rolled right into my hand,

and it just stayed there

in front of me,

letting me rub its belly.

Here you have this dolphin,

wild and on its own terms,

come up and really

seek out affection and touch.

It really wanted to be with us.

When they asked us

if we wanted to partake

in a secret ops mission

to uncover the dolphin slaughter,

we without hesitation said,

"Absolutely. Sign us up.

What can we do?"

- This is what...

It's so cool.

Yeah.

I'm just a cute little innocent rock.

Getting these into Customs

is going to be the trick, I think, next.

I hope we'll be able

to find them again

once we plant them.

Actually, come back to the hotel

and we have real rocks.

There's 47 suitcases.

I don't think they're going

to let us carry this on.

We definitely were trying

to be as discreet as possible,

but there's nothing discreet

about Westerners

in a place where there are

no Westerners with big black cases,

and it was noted.

Well, now, there's a car here.

Just... I just got here yesterday.

You think... Do you think

they know we're here?

You do?

First morning we arrived in Taiji,

Ric O'Barry met us at our hotel.

He decided that it would

be a good idea

if he'd take us on a tour

so we got the lay of the land.

So we all get in the vehicles,

and one of the first

things we noticed

was that we got an escort.

This is the butcher shop right here,

the slaughterhouse.

This is the union right here,

and there's Private Space.

When we first got in the country,

we had no idea

who was following us.

There was about seven or eight cars

that we had license plates,

so we knew that we were being

followed by these people.

We didn't know

if it was the whalers.

We didn't know if it was Yakuza,

the Japanese Mafia.

We had no idea.

I'd met this guy that spoke English.

He was from

the Whaling Museum,

and I asked him, "Do you know

who's in that car over there?"

He looks over there, and he goes,

"Chief of Police."

If you're around Ric,

they... they know you're trouble.

Our first encounter

with the fishermen

was they went down there

at first break of light,

and as soon as we arrived,

a number of fishermen showed up.

We were down by the beach

looking at...

You could see the blood

coming out of the killing lagoon.

You could see a bunch of the babies

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