Episode 1
At the farthest reach of the planet, Capt Peter Hammarstedt and Capt Sid Chakravarty of the environmental group Sea Shepherd risk their lives and the lives of their crew to patrol the Antarctic to stop illegal poachers. Aboard the ship, Bob Barker, Capt Peter finds the Thunder, a rogue fishing vessels so infamous that Interpol has an alert out for it. If they can successfully corner and shut down the Thunder, they could save masses of Antarctic toothfish from illegal slaughter. The poachers have a dangerous reputation and the Sea Shepherd captains know the mission will be risky.
In Tanzania, the destruction of coral reefs by blast fishing – which uses explosives for mass kills – now threatens the legal fishing industry, which both supports and feeds some 18 million people along the coast. J.D. Kotze, a fishing crimes investigator and former South African police captain, joins an undercover team out to arrest the top explosives dealer and cut off the reckless industry at its root. “If we don’t stop them,” he promises, “there’s going to be chaos.”
With a seafood industry worth $7 billion a year, Thailand is ripe for criminal fishing activity. The money induces trawling poachers to ravage the nation’s traditional fishing grounds. Investigative journalist Jim Wickens meets with an angry fisherman who takes him, under cover of darkness, to a national park. There, they find a cluster of trawlers casting nets illegally and are met with hostility.
Episode 2
In Antarctica, excitement and anxiety rise as Capt Peter Hammarstedt and the crew of Sea Shepherd’s Bob Barker go in dogged pursuit of the notorious poaching vessel, the Thunder, that leads them into a dangerous ice field that can trap and crush a ship in a matter of hours. As the chase heats up, a tense – and potentially dangerous – encounter looms.
Eight hundred miles away, a second Sea Shepherd vessel, the Sam Simon captained by Sid Chakravarty struggles to haul up illegal gill nets that are wreaking havoc on all the marine life in the area.
In Tanzania, JD, Mike and the team capture an explosives dealer and begin an undercover sting operation that gradually leads them up the chain of command to the so-called “superdealer,” for whom they set a trap.
Journalist Jim Wickens joins a patrol to crack down on illegal fishing in Palau’s national waters, which are a protected shark sanctuary. The enforcement team comes across a Vietnamese boat loaded with shark fins, and must now produce hard evidence to arrest the poachers.
Episode 3
Tension escalates in Antarctica as the Thunder takes desperate measures to shake off pursuit by the Sea Shepherds. On the Bob Barker, Capt Peter narrowly avoids getting rammed by the poacher ship. Sea Shepherd’s second boat the Sam Simon arrives in time to ramp up the pressure on Thunder.
Along the Palau/Philippines border, the patrol ship comes across a “mother boat,” with a dozen of smaller boats attached to it. Journalist Jim Wickens encounters a weary assortment of poor Filipino fishermen, including a small boy who has been dragged out of school by his own father to fish for $100 a month. Their fragile boats, which are taken into the Pacific Ocean on daily fishing runs, are hauled in and their illegal catches confiscated.
An intricate sting operation goes into play in Tanzania, where cameras track the dramatic arrest of J4, the “superdealer” whose explosives drive the bomb-fishing industry.
Episode 4
The Sea Shepherds approach the Thunder in a small boat, making an effort to communicate directly with crew of Thunder by throwing messages in a bottle onto the poacher’s ship. Suddenly a man in a black balaclava appears on deck and hurls bolts and flares at the activists and someone is hit. Unexpectedly, the Sea Shepherd’s effort is bolstered by the sudden arrival of a commercial fishing boat that joins them in the fight.
Greenpeace’s flagship vessel, the Rainbow Warrior patrols the Pacific Ocean on the lookout for illegal shark fishing, an industry that feeds the demand for shark fins as a delicacy of Chinese cuisine. When a captain allows them to inspect his boat, the environmentalists explore deep within the vessel to discover a prolific, and illegal, bounty.
In Tanzania, the criminal investigation leads J.D. Kotze and his team to a motherlode of explosives, as well as a cache of materials used for bomb-making. Now in custody, “superdealer” J4 gets the third degree as investigators seek more information.
Episode 5
After being chased for 110 days, the captain of the poaching ship the Thunder sends out a mayday alert. He appears to be sinking his own vessel. His crew escapes in life boats and he calls on the Sea Shepherds to rescue them. But after months of violent skirmishes, Capt Peter is reluctant to bring his enemies on board without any back up in sight. Capt Sid aboard the Sam Simon races to the bizarre scene to offer assistance.
Shifting his attention to Indonesia, journalist Jim Wickens investigates tragic stories of high seas slavery, of men tricked into leaving their families for unpaid labor, often beaten and abused for what can become years. The treachery of the illegal fishing industry is denounced by Indonesia’s Minister of Fisheries, who calls them a “terrorist organization.”
In Mexico’s Sea of Cortez, the Sea Shepherds strive to secure the future of the vaquita porpoise, a species so endangered there may only be 40 of them left. Illegal net fishing for the totoaba fish, which sells for $1,000 a kilo to the Chinese market, has been killing the vaquita as a by-catch.
Working with the Mexican Navy, captain Oona Layolle of the ship Farley Mowat faces off with angry fishermen to keep safe what Jacques Costeau called “the aquarium of the world.”
Episode 6
As the poaching ship the Thunder is about to sink at the hands of its own captain, a team of Sea Shepherds boards the vessel, racing to collect evidence of illegal fishing before the ship goes down. Capt Sid Chakravarty prepares to bring the Thunder’s confused and agitated crew and angry captain aboard the Sam Simon. The Sea Shepherds celebrate the end of their historic mission, chasing the Thunder across three oceans and 10,000 miles.
In the Sea of Cortez, the Sea Shepherd crew of aboard the Farley Mowat is confronted by local fishermen during a dangerous nighttime patrol and decide to call off the mission. Instead they try using drones to track the late night activities of the poachers. The infrared footage reveals illegal activities and Capt Oona and her team return during the day and attempt to rescue a several sharks and large whale. They return in the daytime to remove the nets and free several sharks and rescue a whale.
The scene is grimmer in Indonesia, where journalist Jim Wickens continues to investigate tragic and widespread human trafficking in the illegal fishing industry. As he interviews one such fisherman, he learns how many of those trafficked are lured from Myanmar as young men, expecting to earn money to help their families. A dramatic pursuit leads to the destruction of three boats, and the horrific discovery of fish treated with the cancer-causing preservative formaldehyde.