Watson's apparent first priority is always to attract media attention. However, he was perhaps less than pleased with the impression he made on Barbara Sumner Burstyn, whose "Anti-whaling Fanatic Fighting Yesterday's Battle" appeared in the New Zealand Herald on September 9, 2002. Ms Burstyn, a no-nonsense and courageous lady, cut through the typical media hype to thoroughly dispel all of Watson's own myths about his piratical life story. She doesn't buy his hero image, his claims about why his antics are sanctioned by the United Nations, or any of his other myths. This is probably less than pleasant for the New Zealand government authorities, whose policy has been to object to all of Japan's scientific whaling programs. Now one of their own has raised questions.

The New Zealand Government now finds itself in the position of hosting Watson in the harbor, since there are no legal reasons why he should be detained, while he claims to the press that he is staying there until he can go out and commit illegal acts at sea. The Government of New Zealand has been so loudly opposed to Japanese scientific whaling, that Watson may have correctly assumed that authorities will do nothing to deter him from his self-appointed, unjustified, illegal, dangerous, and downright ridiculous task - to harass and threaten, perhaps ram and damage, the Nissin Maru or accompanying catcher vessels in the Southern Ocean.

The 1915 edition of the Century Dictionary (the Century Company, New York) defines a swash buckler as "a swaggering blade; a bravo; a bully or braggadocio". Likewise, a swash is "a blustering noise" and a swasher is "one who makes a blustering show of valor or force of arms; a braggart; a bully".