Four gruelling months aboard an ageing protest vessel gave nurse Averil Thornton a fresh perspective on medicine, activism and her own potential.

Late last year, Averil Thornton knew she was in a job that was both too much and not enough.  But instead of downing tools and taking to the couch, she took her teals to the Southern Ocean, hoping to save the planet and her career.

“It’s been a crazy 10 months or so,” Averil said in between shifts at Manning Base Hospital in Taree. “A sea change was what I wanted when The Captain Paul Watson Foundation asked me to join them in Antarctica. I packed a bag for Port Anthony in Victoria the next day.”

That was serendipity calling. Averil had first volunteered for an anti-trawling campaign way back in 2022, just as the floor of the English Channel was first being scoured by the super trawlers that would become the subject of David Attenborough’s 2025 feature film, Oceans.

But with opportunities for both work and play opening up for Averil ahead of Christmas last year, the last one she expected to receive was the call to arms from Captain Paul Watson to join the frontline in protecting the incredible Antarctic krill from the growing industrial assault on one of nature’s true keystone species.

Justly named Euphausia Superba, these krill keep the entire Southern Ocean ecosystem humming and despite barely tipping one whole gram, a single flock can get so enormous you can reportedly see them from space. That’s around 30,000 individuals every cubic metre and altogether the clever wee pink prawns hoover up some 12 billion tonnes of carbon from our atmosphere every year, according to the British Antarctic Survey.

But they’re also a great, rich bio-mass just waiting for an industrial trawler to suck them up and churn them into dollars. That’s a fairly new trick for modern exploiters of the ocean – and it doesn’t sit right with a lot more people than one hardy nurse from country NSW.

“Krill are those tiny crustacean guys that literally everything in Antarctica eats,” said Averil. “And I mean everything… whales, leopard seals, penguins, sea birds – so it’s messed up that corporations are ripping out thousands of tonnes a year for nothing more than ridiculous and unnecessary supplements, pet food or even salmon farms.”

The Captain Paul Watson Foundation says that last season, factory trawlers sucked up more than 620,000 tonnes of Antarctic krill, with over 70 per cent taken directly from whale feeding grounds. “They literally take the food out of the whales’ mouths,” Averil said.

Led by Norway, China and Japan, fishing nations are now pushing to expand allowable catches to 1.2 million tonnes, nearly doubling the pressure on an ecosystem already stressed by climate change. Much of the catch is processed into pet feed and omega-3 supplements, with salmon farmers taking the rest.

“If you need a sign to stop eating farmed salmon,” said Averil, “this is it!”

In March, the World Wildlife Fund lodged an objection with the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), calling for an immediate review of the certification of the Antarctic krill fishery, but the cull continues with fresh technological audacity.

“The Southern Ocean is one of the last intact marine ecosystems left… and we’re just ripping it out for pet food.”

But saving whales and people from themselves wasn’t the only thing that led Averil to Port Anthony and the 64-metre MV Bandero on that unseasonably warm spring morning in November 2025. “I know I can do more,” she said. “And I have energy to burn. I’m always looking to learn new skills I can apply to my work. I want to be better and take more ownership.

“My parents and family know I am a bit of an adrenalin junkie, so they weren’t surprised and they were very supportive.”

Adrenalin junkie or just plain determined, Averil has never mucked around when it comes to testing her powers of relaxation: motorbiking, skydiving, ultra-marathons, iron man, rock climbing and mountain biking are her preferred methods of meditation. “But they also know by now that I’m sensible… and while everything we did out there was a heavily calculated risk, safety was priority number one … especially for me as the only ship’s medic!”

The opportunity to lead presented itself pretty quickly while still on dry land. The Bandero – at first sight a graceful if rapidly ageing Japanese ship – was far from seaworthy, let alone battle-ready, and its entirely missing sick bay presented Averil with her first test.

“Having been told it would be about four months total, it became pretty clear that the Bandero was nowhere near ready to sail,” she said. “Imagine you’re invited on a round-the-world road trip and the car you’re supposed to be taking is a rusted old paddock basher with no rego. And because it’s all donation-based, very limited in terms of money.

“I didn’t realise there were close to zero medical supplies. But somehow, in a few months, I got the ship’s complete hospital stocked. I sourced and scrounged masses of oxygen, heaps of drugs, reliable medical equipment, a safe, a defibrillator and lots and lots of sea sickness medication!”

At the same time, Averil threw herself into repairing the ship with a skeleton crew and other volunteer deckhands from around the world – including Mexico, Iran, Qatar, Germany, Chile, the UK, Scotland, Columbia, France and Canada. By the time the boat left port on February 22, Averil was taking this farflung handful of activists on morning runs around the (now) spotless deck.

Her admiration and the bond she’s made with this unlikely band of brothers is easy to appreciate.  “[They] certainly made me feel like I could be doing a lot more. So many were also proper sailors…  working with the flotilla in Gaza, trying to break the illegal blockade, or they were rescuing refugees from boats in the Mediterranean. We had a crew from everywhere… our Spanish captain only knew two words of English (hint: the second one is ‘off’).”

Suddenly, after months in dry dock, the patched-up Bandero was greenlit and hit the open ocean in a race to get to the Southern Ocean before the seasonal trawlers fled. In front of her, a vast and often treacherous three weeks of crash courses in cabin fever, injuries and ‘just heaps’ of seasickness – and then on to Antarctica, for Averil’s first view of the krill and the haunting sight of the factory trawlers…

“Straight away we were into some very dodgy direct action with the aim of causing the best ruckus possible,” Avril said. “Screaming his favourite two English words, the captain charged time and again between the trawlers and their prize. We put out our anchor and did our best to strafe the nets.

“If the countries who agreed to protect Antarctica are going to let corporations steal from the mouths of whales, someone’s gotta let them know it ain’t right!”

While Averil’s crew focused on whales, she believes it’s the krill in Antarctica that really matter.

“Krill are actually also responsible for absorbing the most CO2 from the environment,” she said. “More than all the trees in the world put together. We are literally taking out one of the best defenders of climate change for supplements?

“I wish it could have gone on longer, and I wish we could do more. And there are things I wish I’d done differently. When the campaigning was done, I jumped ship in Ilhabela, Brazil.”

That was the 17th of April. Averil has since returned to work, inspired to make the move into critical care (ICU). She has also applied for the Transition to Speciality program. It takes courage, selflessness and patience to get through an ordinary day in Averil’s world, but the Taree-born woman thinks like a nurse: self-deprecating, humble and utterly accountable.

“I am just a regular person from a small-town rural hospital. If I can do something like this, more people can take action,” she said. “The campaign has changed my life. I’m stronger. I’m more certain. And I know how and where to shape my life and continue doing direct action when I can, especially on ships.

“I’ve been so inspired by the people on board that I know I can do more. And for any of my colleagues reading this – you can too.”