Word: bahia
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...teams of divers from the U.S. and South America struggled last week to plug a hole in the Argentine ship Bahia Paraiso, which had sunk and was leaking 3,000 gal. of fuel a day, squadrons of scientists rushed in to assess the damage caused by Antarctica's first major oil spill. "This is the worst ecological disaster for Antarctica, period," says James Barnes, general counsel to the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition. It is sure to stoke the already heated debate over the future of development, tourism and mining in Antarctica...
...calamity began on Jan. 28, when the captain of the Bahia Paraiso, a naval resupply ship that doubles as a tourist boat, sailed through waters identified on charts as having "dangerous ledges and pinnacles." The ship was shaken by a "terrible jolt," says passenger Nadia Le Bon. "I thought we hit an iceberg." Instead, the ship had struck Full Astern Reef, which ripped a 30-ft. gash through its double hull and into the engine room. With the ship listing and the smell of gasoline thick in the air, the 314 passengers and crew members were rescued unharmed by scientists...
...Says Peter Wilkniss, head of the National Science Foundation's polar programs: "We are witnessing the dawn of the commercial age in Antarctica." Thousands of tourists are flocking to the once inaccessible continent. Throughout the 1984-85 season, only 400 people visited Antarctica, but in the week before the Bahia Paraiso hit the reef, more than 500 visitors passed through Palmer Station alone. And Antarctic tourists are doing more than sailing to research centers for short visits and lecture tours. In 1988, 35 adventurers paid $35,000 each to set foot on the South Pole, and this year another group...
...that would eventually open the area to mining and drilling. That treaty, which the U.S. Senate will consider for ratification in the next few months, is vigorously opposed by a broad coalition of environmental groups. Any hopes that the Senate will approve the agreement may have sunk with the Bahia Paraiso...
Director A.J. Antoon has placed the action in Bahia in northern Brazil at the turn of the century. The play's divisions between city and forest, between earthbound mortals and ethereal spirits thus become racial differences as well. White colonial masters stumble through the enchanted wood uncomprehendingly, while brown and black aborigines, attuned to the realm of magic, dance to throbbing Afro-Brazilian music and cast voodoo spells...