4 in 1

For years, the flagship order of Flying Sharks was the incredibly intense shipment of 3.100 fish to Turkey in two Airbus 300s, with the loss of only 3 individuals. Not bad, right? This happened on December 13, 2010, the night we unloaded eight semi-trucks at Lisbon airport, filled with 44 tanks packed with gorgeous sea creatures collected in Peniche, Olhão, Horta and Funchal. In the 14 years that followed, we accomplished various other feats, but none seemed to surpass the madness of Turkey. That is, until two weeks ago…

After countless days of anxiety – because the bureaucratic hurdles preceding such operations are always nerve-wracking and threaten to topple everything like a flimsy house of cards – on October 3 we finally set off for Cartagena, southeast Spain. I flew there, while Zé and Simão drove 1.000 km from Peniche in a van specially equipped with a 190-centimeter-diameter tank and an inverter. This piece of equipment, costing nearly 1.000 euros, converts the van’s 12-volt DC power into 220 volts AC, allowing for powerful water filtration through a mechanical filter and protein skimmer. Additionally, we carried two extremely heavy compressed oxygen cylinders and a cooling system for the van. This system allowed us to keep the water temperature nice and low, a vital condition for reducing the animals’ metabolism and increasing the likelihood of success.

Once in Cartagena, we enjoyed a magnificent dinner with our Danish client and good friend Martin Riis, and also Aurelio, the first researcher on Earth to successfully breed Atlantic bluefin tuna, Thunnus thynnus. After a few hours of restless – and unusual cold (!) – sleep, sprinkled with the usual nervousness that comes with such operations, the alarm went off at 6:30 a.m. By 9:00 a.m. on Friday, October 4, we had our bellies stuffed with bocadillos de jamon, strong café solo and we found ourselves in Mazarrón, at the Spanish Institute of Oceanography, loading 13 small tunas, each weighing about 100 grams. Shortly after, Martin and I embarked on a journey to his aquarium, Nordsoen, in northern Denmark, 3.000 km away, while Simão and Zé flew home from Alicante.

The trip went relatively smoothly, although it didn’t take long for us to realize that the van’s alternator lacked the strength to charge the two 12-volt batteries attached to the inverter. Consequently, the inverter struggled to put out 220 volts, with the input voltage frequently dropping below 12 volts. When it reached 11,5 volts, the inverter beeped; at 11,3 volts, it shut down completely, which sucked big time and scared the crap out of us the first time it happened, since we still had 2.000+ km ahead of us!

This forced us to make some tough decisions, such as choosing between operating the mechanical filter or the protein skimmer, since the poor inverter couldn’t provide enough power for both. Given the nature of the fish, we opted for the skimmer, which removed organic matter from the water. This waste accumulated in a foul-smelling plastic drum that we emptied at service areas during refuelling stops every 400 km, unless nature called first.

About two-thirds of the way through the journey, we picked up Nuno, who had spent the night near the Sea Life Centre in Oberhausen, a mandatory stop on our European adventures, which you already know if you read about our ‘Polska Madness’ escapades (1 and 2). By this point, Martin and I had already been on the road for 30 hours, so Nuno took the wheel and drove the Iveco to its destination. I won’t hide that morale in the van was low when Nuno joined us, due to a few animal losses the previous night, the unexpected power limitations, and absurdly heavy traffic near Oberhausen. This traffic prevented our heavy vehicle from passing through certain areas and forced us into a lengthy and annoying detour.

When we next stopped to refuel, we sadly believed only 5 tunas were still alive, from the 13 loaded in Mazarrón the day before. However, Nuno was measuring the water parameters and suddenly shouted “Guys! There’s 6!” While this success rate is significantly below our normal 99% survival rate, it’s important to remember that tuna are incredibly fast-swimming creatures, and this was the first time in the history of the universe that these animals were transported over land for 40 hours!

Nuno’s revelation fiercely boosted our spirits, so Martin cleverly decided to celebrate by opening a bottle of excellent quality twist-top red wine he had bought at the gas station. I shared it with him while replying to emails, while Nuno drove us to Hirtshals and stuck to Red Bull. We arrived with the 6-surviving tuna around midnight, approximately 40 hours after departure, feeling tired but elated, because moving bluefin tuna from the southernmost tip of Spain to northern Denmark is not something you see every day. In fact, it had never been seen before. Ever.

While the result wasn’t perfect, the aquarist community was astonished by this feat, which no one thought possible. Overcoming the fatigue and sleeplessness, we also dealt with the van’s weak alternator, which drove us to make unusual decisions, such as driving at high RPMs to keep the engine’s revs up, despite the increased fuel consumption. Nonetheless, we reached our destination safely, often driving manually to protect the automatic transmission, which another of our multiple concerns on this most difficult trip.

After a few hours of sleep at the excellent Skaga hotel in Hirtshals, across the street from Nordsoen aquarium, we loaded two captive bred sharks, a Squalus acanthias and a Galeorhinus galeus, along with 11 lobsters (Homarus gammarus) also bred at the facility, which has successfully bred an impressive number of species.

By then, it was already Sunday, October 6, and we had 1.500 km to our next destination, the once capital of the mighty Austro-Hungarian Empire! We arrived in Vienna 19 hours later, after purchasing online toll permits that allowed us to drive on the highways of the Czech Republic and Austria. Despite this, we had to wrestle with Waze, which kept insisting on directing us to national roads, before we figured out the way to tell it that we owned the appropriate vignettes. Regardless, we forced the route to remain on the highway, which treated us to a devilish fog during the final hours in Austria.

At six in the morning on Monday, October 7, we arrived at the Haus des Meeres Aquarium and, as the day slowly broke, we acclimated the animals to the local water in a large rolling tank. Working in a former World War II bunker with six floors, a single elevator, and two-and-a-half-meter-thick reinforced concrete walls – impervious to electronic communication – was no easy feat but, when there’s a will…

Despite these challenges, we managed to administer two injections to the animals and boost their immune systems before introducing them to their new home. We then savoured two fabulous warm showers that felt like a dream, although we may have abused the aquarists’ shampoo bottles! Even better was the 30-minute Uber ride to the airport, after which we polished off two spicy pepperoni pizza slices and bought a Lego Lamborghini for Nikola. Nikola most likely has the world’s largest collection of Lego sets purchased from airports and service stations! By five in the afternoon, we landed in Lisbon and collapsed at our respective homes.

Meanwhile, Inês and Miguel landed also in Vienna, shortly after Nuno and I flew home, and retrieved the van parked at the aquarium, facing the same 1.500 km journey back to Hirtshals, where they arrived by 8 a.m. on Tuesday, October 8. After an eight-hour mandatory rest, they loaded 35 codfish, Gadus morhua, 20 gurnards, Trigla lucerna, and a dozen pollock, Merlangius merlangus. The codfish were destined for the aquarium at the Ílhavo Museum, while the gurnards and pollock were intended for multiple other Flying Sharks clients.

Inês and Miguel, also my former students, are incredibly young and were hired in March to help us during a particularly gruelling and unusually intense work period. They proved their professionalism and resilience during their first expedition with us, which took them from Copenhagen to Hirtshals (at Denmark’s northernmost tip) to Gedser (its southernmost tip). From there, they took a two-hour ferry to Rostock, Germany, followed by stops in Stralsund, Gdynia (Poland), and a return trip to Copenhagen. During this trip, a tire puncture in our van forced them to operate independently, including returning empty tanks to the Ozeaneum in Stralsund. You can read all about it in our ‘A Busy Weekend’ adventure.

In August, they also successfully transported barramundi (Scortum barcoo) from Belgium to Torres Vedras, in the middle of Portugal, on their own, on their way back from our third trip to Gdynia (Poland) in 2024! This impressive performance led us to entrust them with solo tasks typically reserved for seasoned team members. Remarkably, these young troopers took the van from Denmark’s northernmost point, drove the 3.000 km to Ílhavo, and, despite the van’s low power and the constant need for quick decisions, arrived as scheduled near Burgos, Spain, with over 2.200 km behind them and about 800 still ahead.

This rendezvous occurred around midnight on Wednesday, October 9, with Paulo, a navy man who responded to a last-minute Facebook appeal. A family emergency had prevented our original driver from participating and Paulo called me saying “Look no further, I’m your guy!” Shortly after accepting the challenge, he left Peniche in a second Iveco van equipped only with tanks and oxygen on the morning of that very same morning of the 9^th. Later that day, in a pitch-dark service area in the middle of Basque country, Paulo met with Inês and Miguel, and they transferred the animals from their fully equipped van – which had already transported tuna to Denmark and sharks to Vienna – into Paulo’s van for the final transport to Ílhavo.

At that point, Inês and Miguel headed to Ílhavo with animals in tanks filled with clean Peniche water acclimated to Danish water temperature on the road. Simultaneously, Paulo drove north with the filtration equipment to board a Brittany Ferries vessel departing Bilbao for Rosslare, Ireland, at 5 p.m. on Thursday, October 10.

That same day, October 10, at 6:30 a.m., Inês and Miguel parked the van at the Ílhavo aquarium, where Nuno and I arrived minutes later, me having left Lisbon at 4 a.m. and picking up Nuno at 5. Luckily, the city hall’s staff didn’t start until 8, giving the team time to enjoy a revitalizing breakfast in one of Ílhavo’s yummy bakeries. Despite 40 hours of travel preceded by 18 the previous day, Inês and Miguel still donned a smile for our traditional selfie!

By 9 a.m., I was dazzling Nikola with photos and videos of him driving a forklift, which removed the tank holding the 35 codfish and placed it in the aquarium’s freight elevator. Properly outfitted with Covid-style suits and meticulously disinfected, we introduced the animals to this magnificent place, where no effort or resources were spared to ensure optimal conditions for the animals under their care.

Andreia, another former student of mine, welcomed the team – and the animals – with open arms and state-of-the-art equipment. After bidding everyone farewell around 10 a.m., everyone headed for Peniche, 200 km away. Along the way, I had to stop at a Figueira da Foz service area to address an administrative issue involving an octopus shipped to London the previous night. A veterinary inspection highlighted a discrepancy between the label type listed on the certificate and the actual label in the box. This caused an additional three hours of transit for the poor creature. Lovely.

By 1 p.m., the team had left Peniche with a fully clean van, dropping Inês and Miguel off at their homes. Meanwhile, Paulo was waiting in Bilbao, preparing for his 30-hour sea crossing, while I sipped a Red Bull on his way home to Lisbon, mentally bracing himself for the fourth and final leg of our adventure.

The final stage began on Friday evening, October 11. Nuno took a bus from Peniche to Sete Rios in Lisbon, then headed to the airport, where we met around 8 p.m. The plan was to fly to Dublin at 9 p.m., but the TAP flight experienced successive delays, and we didn’t take off until close to midnight, landing at around 2 a.m. Meanwhile, Paulo had arrived in Rosslare at the time our flight was initially scheduled to depart. The original plan had been for all of us to converge at Dublin airport, where Nuno and I would take over the van and drop Paulo off at his nearby hotel.

The TAP delay threw our carefully laid plans out the window disarray, so we told Paulo to head to the hotel we had booked for him, where Nuno and I arrived by taxi around 3 a.m. Paulo was waiting for us outside with the van running and ready to go. We connected the inverter so it could charge the two batteries during the three-hour drive to Galway, where we arrived at 6:30 a.m. Of course, our original plan, which included a few hours of sleep at a nearby hotel, was scrapped due to the flight delay. Having learned from previous experiences, we hadn’t even made a reservation, so there was nothing to cancel.

Upon arrival at a salmon aquaculture facility near Galway, we napped in the van for an hour before beginning the process of loading 600 salmon parr for transport to the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro in Vila Real, north of Portugal. That hour of rest would have been a life saver if not for a nagging gut issue – an annoying and recurrent symptom of nervousness – that forced me to seek solace behind an Irish bush. Fortunately, he also found some wide, smooth leaves, still moist with dew, which allow him to clean up the situation beautifully.

At 8 a.m. sharp, we enjoyed strong coffee with Pete, the facility manager, whom I knew from a similar operation in January 2021. Pete’s company had invested around 4 million euros renovating the site, so we stayed outside and underwent thorough disinfection, donning brand-new rubbery garments fresh out of sealed packets, to ensure no harmful pathogens were introduced into their facility, which focuses exclusively on salmon breeding and sales.

A forklift brought out two tanks of freshwater cooled to ten degrees Celsius, which we used to fill our transport tank. It then delivered a tank filled with 600 salmon – plus 50 extra ‘for good luck’ – which was elevated so that the outlet hose (some 20 cm in diameter) fed directly into our transport tank. All we had to do was open the valve, and the salmon joyfully slid into our van as if at a water park.

It was during this process that Nuno uttered the words that froze my blood: “I think we have a flat.”

“Damn!” I thought, processing the enormity of the situation. However, upon inspection, I saw the tire wasn’t completely deflated. The flattened look suggested a severe problem requiring immediate attention, but I recalled a similar incident with David in southern France, which we resolved using a compressed air scuba tank from our supplier. Unfortunately, lacking such a tank this time, we were forced to drive very slowly to the nearest service area, where we inflated the front tires to 51 psi and the rear ones to 58 psi, after checking these numbers during a quick internet search.

At this point we had four hours left to reach the ferry dock in Rosslare, southeastern Ireland, where we arrived precisely at 3 p.m. on Saturday, October 12, exactly as planned. The Stena Lines staff were remarkably efficient, as usual, and allowed us to board the ferry within minutes. Parked alongside horses and trucks carrying sheep and various livestock, we connected our filtration system to the ship’s 220-volt supply using a three-pin blue plug I had prepared during the 2021 trip, which miraculously survived until this occasion. By 5 p.m., we were enjoying refreshing showers in our cabin – unfortunately windowless – before indulging in a delicious dinner at the Trucker’s Lounge as the ship set sail to Cherbourg, in France.

After devouring scrumptious barbecue sauce glazed ribs, we returned to our cabin for a brief nap until 9 p.m., when Stena’s rules required live animal checks. The salmon were in excellent condition, and the water in the tank could easily be mistaken for a massive bottle of mineral water, given how clean it looked. Interestingly, the protein skimmer showed minimal foam residue since this equipment performs better in saltwater due to the polarizing effect of salts on organic matter. In freshwater, this effect is negligible, so there wasn’t the usual thick and gunky foam associated with saltwater transports, which is something we had noted in previous freshwater transports.

Despite the absence of skimming, the readings from our probes were excellent. Satisfied, we returned to our cabin and set the alarm for 8:30 a.m., granting us 11 glorious hours of sleep—a rare luxury after weeks of intense work. Best of all, our phones remained in flight mode to avoid the ludicrous maritime roaming charges, possibly the highest in the galaxy!

After a profound and uninterrupted sleep, lulled by the gentle waves and aided by two sublingual Vomidrines – the best seasickness pills on the planet – the 9 a.m. inspection revealed no issues and, by 11 a.m., we disembarked in Cherbourg, France, exactly as scheduled. The Waze app estimated we would reach Vila Real, 1.670 km away, by 2:30 a.m. However, accustomed to my usual highway speeds in the Audi A4, Waze didn’t account for the two tons of water and equipment we carried. Our arrival time adjusted continuously, and we finally passed UTAD’s gate at 6 a.m. – precisely as predicted days earlier, much to our client’s chagrin.

Interestingly, both the ferry journey and the drive from Cherbourg to Vila Real each took 18 hours, but they couldn’t have been more different, which says something about ‘relativity’. The 18 hours on the ferry felt far too short, and Nuno and I would have gladly endured 30 hours to disembark in Bilbao. This scenario was an actual option but would have required us to wait in Ireland four more days. On the other hand, the 18-hour drive after Cherbourg dragged on so painfully that I found myself turning off Waze just to avoid seeing the daunting number of kilometers still ahead.

Upon reaching Vila Real, the task before us included transferring the 650 fish into buckets. Nuno took charge of this while I, along with UTAD’s technician, carried the buckets through a wooded area to the aquaculture lab, in the dark. The path, illuminated only by our phone flashlights, was soaked with water from our hose, which dumped a ton and a half of Irish freshwater onto the northern Portugal landscape. The sun was just starting to rise as we finally sat down at a nearby bakery, enticed by the delicious aroma of freshly baked bread and pastries. We devoured toasted ham-and-cheese croissants with great delight, accompanied by steaming lattes, before finally heading down south to our respective homes.

Shortly after the van was refuelled with cheap diesel from an Intermarché station before tackling the final 300 km to Peniche, where Inês and Miguel helped us unload the equipment and clean the cargo compartment. Around midday, I headed to Criorent in Venda do Pinheiro, near Lisbon, with the now empty and agile van, which drove like a (fast) dream! From there, I took an Uber home to Lisbon’s Areeiro district, with the ride costing only 16 euros, a deal so extraordinary that I tipped the friendly driver twice, for a total of 4 euros. This concluded our adventure, 11 days after boarding the flight to Alicante that started it all.

In total, our van travelled 12.000 km across Europe. Adding the 1.800 km covered by the second van between Peniche and Bilbao (and back), the grand total was 13.800 km. At an average of 20 litters per 100 km, this required approximately 3.000 litters of diesel. Considering diesel prices ranged from 1,5 euros in Portugal to 2 euros in Germany, the fuel cost alone amounted to about 5.000 euros.

When we add tolls (notoriously expensive in France and Portugal), hotels, various flights, countless sandwiches, chips, bottles of water, cashews, peanuts, and, of course, dozens of coffees and Red Bulls, the total expenditure exceeded five digits – without even considering the daily rental cost of the vans. These figures highlight the effort required for our historical feat: becoming the first humans to transport captive-bred Atlantic bluefin tuna across such a vast distance.

In addition to the tuna, we moved two sharks, 11 lobsters, 35 codfish, 20 gurnards, a dozen pollock, and 650 salmon.

A team of seven people – four in particular – barely slept over ten days, but we take immense pride in the fact that, apart from the seven unfortunate tuna losses (an extremely challenging species), not a single additional animal was lost. Even the flies that entered the van were spared, as we made sure to open the windows and let them escape.

Was it exhausting? Incredibly.

But nothing compares to the sense of accomplishment when returning home after such an adventure, nor to the words of appreciation from clients upon seeing the animals arrive in excellent condition. All that’s left is to close this chapter and look forward to the next, which seems poised to take us to Chile and… the Arabian Peninsula?

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