Even though we're far west of Europe, we're still operating on Greenwich Mean Time. This makes for what appear to be very dark mornings, and extraordinarily long evenings. It's dark now though. I'm sitting in the campaign office behind the bridge of the Esperanza (with another four decks down below), the ship is rolling from side to side, and the wind is howling around the masts. Some of the crew are sitting in the lounge, chatting, others have gone to bed, and some are in the mess, watching a movie. Up here, I have to do a little workout in my chair just to stay upright!
It was another big day on the ocean - now we're really in the middle of nowhere. Out here, you can see for miles - and watch the weather as it arrives. Even rainstorms show up on the radar, before they strike. Today brought us heavy enough seas and a 28-knot wind, but there was sunshine too. During the morning, we were treated to a double rainbow - the inner one was the most vibrant, completely whole, and so close we could see nearby waves through it!
There's seems to be a long tradition on Greenpeace expeditions, seemingly started by founder member Bob Hunter, of paying attention to synchronicities - meaningful coincidences, as proposed by the famous psychologist Carl Jung. It may seem silly, but rainbows have a habit of showing up at the most perfect of times. On my last trip, in the Tasman Sea, we found our first bottom trawler at the end of a rainbow. How cliched is that?
And so today - a couple of hours after our double rainbow, we spot our first fishing boat. It's bobbing around in the huge swell, several miles away, but every pair of binoculars is trained on it, trying to pick out some detail. As it grows closer, we can tell that it's not a bottom trawler - it's a gill-netter. Not what we're after, but we're aren't dismayed - we exchange greetings with the trawler crew and continue on. The hunt continues...
- Dave
Comments
Dear Dave and Esperanza crew,
I have heard many tales of the magic of rainbows and Greenpeace and have not always been a believer, however, I now have one of my own to add. Earlier this year I was working in Miami, helping defend Greenpeace from a completely unwarranted prosecution by the United States government. It's a long story which you can read in the archives of the website and while we felt we had right on our side, they of course had the full weight of the US Justice Department on theirs and they weren't messing around.
The morning of the first day in court we drove over the causeway in Miami to court and out of nowhere appeared a HUGE rainbow!
Needless to say we won the case!
You may find bottom trawlers, you may find whaling boats, you may find successful court cases at the end of those rainbows, but you can guarantee you will always find hope, optimism and an absolute determination beyond those gloroious archs.
I wish you well on your quest and am sailing with you in spirit.
Sara
x
PS. there was a great rainbow here today by the way - but then again it had been bucketing down with rain and all I found was a blocked drain - so I would keep checking the radar too!!
Posted by: Sara at October 16, 2004 08:50 PM
Hi Dave and friends on the Espy! You have many readers who are not acquainted with fishing vessels - like me. Can you please explain (with drawings of specific fishing-gear) the differences between gill-netters, bottom-trawlers, pelagic-trawlers, purse-seiners, liners, etc....Thanks!
