The Esperanza and the Rainbow Warrior (C) GREENPEACE / Sharomov

Ahh Lyttelton, town of seething port, rolling hills and the heady Wunderbar. And temporary home to two Greenpeace ships. It doesn’t happen often, and it’s quite a sight to behold in little old New Zealand. The Esperanza (which was down in the Southern Ocean over the summer chasing the Japanese whalers) and the Rainbow Warrior are now stern-to-bow at Jetty 3, Port Lyttleton. There are many other big ships in here too and i have to say the Rainbow Warrior looks a little like a bath toy in comparison. The Esperanza has been here for a few weeks in dry dock and is due to leave for oceans work in the Pacific on Thursday.

Read more »

Sir David Merritt the poet of Lyttelton (C) GREENPEACE / Sharomov

We had some interesting encounters at the Port of Lyttelton last night. Soon after we arrived we had Tim Barnett (Labour MP for Christchurch Central), Brendan Burns (Labour’s candidate for Christchurch Central this election), Nicky Wagner (National MP and candidate for Christchurch Central) on board for dinner with the rest of the crew. We tucked into many of the magnificent array of tasty delights that Babu whips up every night, and made a massive dent into the gigantic punch bowl of tiramisu that Tim’s partner kindly made for us (we’ll now be eating both pumpkin AND tiramisu at every meal).

Over dinner we chatted about the ship and her crew. We also waded into a discussion about climate change and the need for a 30% by 2020 emission reduction target and policies to tackle emissions from the agriculture sector. It was great to have them on board with open ears. And they seemed pretty stoked to be here, even taking photos with Dave, our wooden dolphin, at the bow. Read more »

Boat training from the Rainbow Warrior (C) Greenpeace / Sharomov

Greenpeace as an organization prides itself on safety. Safety underpins everything we do and we always make sure all our staff and activists are up with best practice, and HAVE practiced, so that no one comes to any harm.

A big part of any ship work is training. Anyone who goes on the ship must have a week’s worth of onboard training, and even en route, the training continues!

Here’s a post from Dan, second mate on the ship, and an experienced participant in MOB (man over board) exercise carried out yesterday en route to Lyttleton. Read more »

The drive to Gisborne from Auckland to join the Rainbow Warrior felt short. (In actual fact it was not short-largely due to an unfortunate truck and trailer incident involving wool bales all over the show, a handy orchard and a bus load of over- stimulated Hawkes Bay school kids. But that’s a whole other blog!)

Mainly the trip didn’t feel long because of my rapidly building excitement levels. I was getting back on board the Rainbow Warrior!! I work for Greenpeace Aotearoa and have done for the last 8 years. In that time I have had the honour of sailing on the Warrior three times. Read more »

Albatross (C) GREENPEACE / Sharomov

This is from Pablo, written in, as he puts it, “International Brokken English”

I remember when I start my primary school and I visit the house of my classmate I didn’t understand why they don’t have books of birds and some one them don’t have library at home. I was born looking to my father doing that reading names of birds in Latin, writing about birds and talking about birds wherever we went.

Well, I remember when I was child me and my brother sit in the table trying to understand why my father was always looking for a new books of birds and he was in front of us trying to teach us how read the handbooks by taxonomy, community, family, species. I remember my brother counting the page of the books (he is a really good biologist now) and I was looking all the pictures. Something that I can not remember is how many times my father, my brother and me we went to so many small lakes just to see birds, with binoculars, some books, paper and pens. Read more »

This is a note I got from Dima the photographer on board.

Sealion (C) GREENPEACE / Sharomov

I have a short story about this picture with the sea lion. I was on the bow of the ship taking the pictures of Albatrosses. When I was taking another picture I saw that something is stuck out of the water. I looked through my 200mm lens and saw the tale of the sea lion! Basically the sea lion was upside down with his head underwater. It reminded me swans with their bums up. We were passing the sea lion very quickly.

I took a few pictures of his tale.

I had to do some thing to see his head. I whistled as loud as I could.

It was loud enough to get the captain out the wheel house. He started to look around and saw him as well.

Finally the sea lion took his had out of the water and looked at us.

A few minutes later the captain came to me and said that he heard the voice of sea lion and saw him.

I did not argue with the captain that it was me, not the sea lion.

Ha ha

Dima

Kathy, on board communications officer (C) GREENPEACE / Sharomov

My name’s Kathy, and I’m the on board communications officer for the Rainbow Warrior tour. Normally I fulfil said officer’s role in the Auckland office. (I keep meaning to get to the bottom of who gave us the curious “officer” title. I sometimes wonder if I should be bullet-proof and in blue).

I am also submitting most of the blog postings from the ship, when I’m not face down in the toilet.

I came to Greenpeace in April last year, so I’m quite new. Also, my background is not a typical one for a Greenpeace convert (which I am).

Before Greenpeace, I did university degrees in law and theatre, completed a post graduate diploma in journalism in Wellington, worked as a reporter at the Westport News, was a press secretary for a government minister, and produced Morning Report on Radio New Zealand. All the while I was composting and recycling and wearing flowers in my hair, but I certainly wouldn’t call myself a greenie, hippie or activist. But when I heard of the job going at Greenpeace, I didn’t think twice about quitting daily current affairs and joining the good fight. Read more »

Meet Susannah (C) GREENPEACE / Sharomov

Hi, I’m Susannah, a climate campaigner at the Greenpeace NZ office and a campaigner on board the Rainbow Warrior for the 6-week tour.

Kathy has asked me to write my own profile. I protested that I wouldn’t be able to write things to make myself look good without sounding like an idiot. She says it’s not my job to look good, but rather to take any opportunity I can to bang on about the campaign. So here we go….

I started working at Greenpeace mid 2007, soon after completing a post-grad in Development Studies. My studies got me thinking more and more about the true meaning of “development” and questioning the assumptions behind “sustainable development” models. I came to climate change from a social justice perspective, concerned by the injustices of climate change: while the developed world has been the biggest contributor to greenhouse gas pollution, its impacts are felt more severely in developing countries. Read more »

Pep - Chief Mate (C) GREENPEACE / Sharomov

Pep (real name Jose) is from Spain. He has been alive for 42 years. He is Chief Mate onboard the Rainbow Warrior but has captained many other ships.

Pep would only talk to me about the last six years of his life, so I cannot vouch for pre-2002. For all we know he could have been a magician. But what I can say is that he’s a favourite among the campaign team, such is his dry wit and biting humour.

He joined Greenpeace in 2002 when Greenpeace Spain owned and ran a 20-metre sleuth ship (the Zorba) as an educational charter project. Supporters of the organisation could pay to take 15-day trips on the ship around the Spanish coast and learn about the ecology and environmental of the area. The crew consisted of captain, a teacher, two deckhands and a chef, and there were two crews who swapped over every 15 days. It was an excellent project, according to Pep, and he was sad to see it discontinued in 2003. The other captain who’d been working on the Zorba project said “why not go and work on the bigger Greenpeace ships?” which is how he ended up doing ongoing work with the organisation. Read more »

Carmen - Campaign manager (C) GREENPEACE / Sharomov

Carmen (otherwise known as Nautical Goddess) is a very experienced campaigner, having spent 12 years volunteering and working with Greenpeace , in various roles. I asked her to start from the beginning.

“When I was in high school I set up an environmental group and we were sent a message about a youth conference being run by Greenpeace in Wellington. It was during the time of French nuclear testing and about 60 secondary school kids from around the country met to learn about campaigning. She was transfixed (and not just by the campaigning spiel, but more on this later).

The following year, Carmen began university in Auckland, studying environmental science. And she began volunteering in the Greenpeace office; “doing anything I could do really.” But before long, she was doing most of her volunteer work in the actions division. After a couple of years she became Greenpeace New Zealand’s Action Coordinator. Read more »