Around 13 protestors spent more than 40 hours, beginning on Wednesday, suspended from St. Johns bridge over the Willamette River in 100 degree F heat (30 C). Another 50 or so people sat in kayaks under the bridge.

The ship, called the Fennica, attempted to depart port on Thursday morning, but was forced back by the blockade of people waving red and yellow banners and shouting "Shell no." One of the kayakers told Reuters that the ship turning back "was history."

Threading the needle

Oregon Greenpeace activists under the St. Johns bridge (REUTERS/Steve Dipaola/Greenpeace/Handout)

On Thursday evening, police forced demonstrators off the bridge and out of the way, clearing a pathway for the ship with their own police boats. The Fennica weaved its way throw a narrow gap under the bridge in between people in kayaks in the water and 13 of the original protestors who were still hanging from the bridge.

As the ship departed port, police and protestors began a waterborne scuffle, with police boats creating waves to knock people out of their kayaks, and some police jumping in the river to physically remove people from their kayaks.

A county sheriff spokesman said two protestors received police citations.

An activist dangling from the St. Johns bridge in Portland, Or. (Tim Aubry / Greenpeace)

Portland police spokesman Sergeant Pete Simpson told reporters "a number of people" were detained, but did not say if any would face charges. Simpson said that safety was the priority for the authorities clearing the area.

Fined for protesting

A spokesman for Shell Oil told reporters that while individual people have the right to protest, "the staging of protestors in Portland was not safe nor was it lawful."

U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason in Anchorage, Alaska held protestors in contempt on Thursday afternoon and ordered Greenpeace to pay fines of $2,500 per hour that the protest continued, which would have jumped to $5,000 an hour Friday, $7,500 an hour Saturday, and $10,000 an hour Sunday had the protest continued. It was not immediately known how much Greenpeace would have to pay.

"While we respect the courts, we also respect the increasingly urgent science that tells us Arctic oil needs to stay underground," Greenpeace USA Executive Director Annie Leonard said in a statement.

In May, Gleason granted Shell's request that activists hoping to block Shell ships headed to the Arctic be kept away from the vessels by buffer zones.

Back to the Arctic

Shell icebreaker vessel the Fennica. (Craig Mitchelldyer / Greenpeace)

The Fennica is not a drilling ship, but the icebreaker protects the rest of the Shell fleet from ice and is carrying emergency equipment to cap a broken well. It was in Portland for repairs after gashing its hull off the Aleutian Islands in Alaska.

Shell plans to return to the Arctic for the first time since 2012.

Oil drilling season in the Arctic ends in October, when ice forms for the winter. Greenpeace had hoped to delay the ship long enough to prevent any drilling until next year and lobby the Obama administration in the US to change its policies on Arctic drilling.

Greenpeace says in the event of an oil spill, the environmental consequences for the animals that live in the Arctic could be disastrous.

mes/jil (AP, Reuters)