Hello from the Northern Pacific

Dear friends,



It is almost two weeks since I last wrote, so given that it is a Sunday evening, I am sitting on the bridge during my watch from 4-8pm, precious little is happening apart from 6-metre waves hitting our bow as we plough on, I figured it's time to get the laptop out and write. It is kindof therapeutical as so far, I've had no time to reflect, write diary or do any of the other things I planned to do on board. Time is passing quickly with two shifts on the bridge, from 4-8 am, and the same from 4-8 in the afternoon. I've learned to operate the radar screens, read NavText messages, use the radio and even steer the ship! However, it's not very exciting, just difficult in heavy seas and best left to the autopilot - that's what it's there for.

Thank you for all your messages and questions - I realise that it is pretty impossible to give you a complete picture of what this trip is like; rather, I'll pick a few anecdotes and moments, and leave the rest to your imagination and future emails...

We are generally in a phase of 'media blackout', so I cannot divulge any details about where we are, or where we are heading at the moment. The official version is that we're heading to Jakarta, but I guess you can read between the lines. We even have a webcam on board which takes a picture every minute from the bridge, and you can see it here. Please bear in mind that we're some 10 hours ahead of GMT, and you see pretty little during nighttimes. During the day, it's showing the bow of the ship and a lot of water - not very exciting, except maybe in a voyeuristic kindof way.

Since my last post, things have changed quite a bit - we were out at sea for almost a week, and then pulled into port in Keelung, Taiwan to pick up spare parts for the heli. Spent a further two nights trawling through dodgy harbour bars, this time with 'buy-me-a-beer' girls and crazy Americans wanting to fight in the 'Lucky Star' establishment in Keelung. If any of you ever make it there, just don't bother. Suffice to say, it all ended well but caused a bit of a stir on board. Upon leaving Taiwan, we got into some pretty heavy weather which made me seasick for the first (and so far only) time. It took us almost three days of rolling and pitching to escape the tropical storm which got upgraded to Typhoon - so good job by the captain and first officer who plotted a course out of the danger zone.

We have now been at sea for a further week, including almost two days of drifting as the engines were switched off. Thanks to Jeremy in Tokyo (he did this tour twice as a photographer) who recommended me taking the 4-8 watches, I have seen some pretty nice sunrises and sunsets. What is absolutely incredible is the blue of the water, a deep, almost shiny Azure, as if somebody manipulated reality with the saturation tool in Photoshop. During the drifting, we took the chance and jumped off the ship into the warm water, with over 5000 metres of nothing underneath us, and for several hundred miles in any direction just the Esperanza to swim back to. Swimming in the open ocean is a sensation I've never experienced before, and I am glad that I didn't do it alone - I have a better idea of what survivors of shipwrecks must feel when left out there.

One thing I did manage, however - I am getting a suntan, as the last few days have been pretty baking hot and sunny. It was so hot inside the ship due to lacking ventilation that sleeping in my bunk equals trying to sleep in a sauna, with sweat and all. So when the weather was good, I camped out on top of the doghouse, a small structure on the bow of the ship which you may be able to see from the webcam. Watching the sunrise from there while a gentle breeze blows overhead is just too romantic to describe, but you have to be inclined that way. I'll attach a picture or two to give you the general idea.

In the meantime, I've become good friends with Vlad, our Russian first officer on board who was captain in the merchant navy. I don't know if it is because we're both Slavs and thus understand each other without many words, or if we just have the same kind of black humour, but it's a blast. During this morning's watch we were bored and started playing with the gas masks and webcam - the result has been duly recorded. I just hope that nobody has seen this on the Greenpeace website thinking that we've been taken over by some clandestine naval commando. More flattering pictures of him are available, but those will appear on the campaign weblog which is to be launched soon.

A few days ago, a bird joined the ship - a Juvenile Peregrine, apparently. Vlad and I have named him Arturo, only to be told later that the bird is female - clearly a transvestite, we're sure. In any case, that bird cannot be very smart, as it repeatedly displayed a balancing act on the forward antenna, waving its wings madly in a futile effort to gain balance on that swinging wire. Poor thing, why not just sit on the mast and chill out? However, it gave me the opportunity to try the 500mm super-telephoto lens I was handed just before leaving, and some pretty funny pictures are the result. I'll post one, as our bandwidth is limited and I want to make sure that this message gets out without problems.

So life slowly ticks away, my watch on bridge is almost over and it's night now. There is nothing really sensational to report, so I'll close here and gather some more stories for the next circular. It may be a few weeks, as the weather is getting worse with force 8 gales and waves rising. Wish me luck and a healthy dose of humour, as boredom is the worst enemy on board.