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A woman who has been hanging off the anchor chain of an Arctic oil-drilling support ship since Friday night has ended her protest.

The Coast Guard says student activist Chiara D'Angelo requested assistance getting down from her perch on the Arctic Challenger in the Bellingham harbor around 9:30 a.m. Monday. From Saturday morning until Sunday afternoon, a second protester, Matt Fuller, joined Ms. D'Angelo.

Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Katelyn Shearer says D'Angelo was checked for hypothermia and then released.

D'Angelo and Mr. Fuller suspended themselves from the ship with climbing harnesses, in an environmental protest against Shell's plans to drill for oil in the Arctic Ocean off northwestern Alaska. 

Rob Lewis, a spokesman for the activists, said D'Angelo and Fuller were protesting Shell's plan for arctic drilling. He described the Arctic Challenger as a savior vessel that is used in the case of an oil leak, but said activists doubt its effectiveness at preventing environmental disasters like the Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.

He confirmed that the Coast Guard did not interfere with D'Angelo, but said they had impounded the activists' support vessels.

Protesters in Seattle have been demonstrating against another part of the Shell drilling fleet. Dutch Shell is using Seattle's seaport terminal to house a massive floating drill rig, the Polar Pioneer. During the previous weekend, hundreds of activists in kayaks swarmed Elliott Bay to protest Shell's plans to drill for oil in the Arctic. The protest was dubbed the "Paddle in Seattle."

As º£½Ç´óÉñ's Brad Knickerbocker wrote last week:

The activists remain concerned about the risk of an oil spill in the delicate Arctic ecosystem and the effect of Shell's operations on global warming.

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Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.