The Queen left the ghostly Lootus 2 with her nets still down in the water. I'll never forget sitting alongside that trawler in the fog and looking up at the rusty hull and the large round dangling lights, which hung across the deck. We couldn't see anyone on board at all. It seemed as if the ship was running all by itself with nobody to haul the nets in. As soon as we pushed off towards Halifax on the Esperanza we noticed that the Lootus 2 finally stopped for hauling after 18 hours of having those nets down in the deep. It's upsetting to think about that ship still out there tearing up the sea floor along with so many others. We didn't stop deep sea destruction in international waters because we need the UN to do that but we went out there to tell a story and I think we told it very well. The bottom trawlers out there in the NAFO area might be hidden in fog but we've unveiled their actions to the world. It's up to governments now to make the right decision by putting in place a moratorium on high seas bottom trawling and granting deep sea biodiversity the reprieve it deserves. You can help by sending them an e.mail.
Once again, the Esperanza is docked in Halifax by the Maritime Museum. We have an open ship today 10am-3pm and all are welcome for a free tour of the Espy. The first person to arrive at the ship and mention the weblog will get a Greenpeace T-shirt.
Hope to see you soon despite the miserable weather.
Lisa is sitting opposite me now and has been for the last two weeks. She looks tired, but she is smiling. It seems that she is writing a nice weblog...
We are on the way back. Steaming with 14 kn - 750 miles to Halifax. The tour is at the end and this part of the seamounts campaign is over. It was a great time for me here on the Esperanza. From the campaign side as well as from the personal side.
The following is from Flo, an activist and boat driver from Germany...
If I had come up to the bridge, probably 5 minutes earlier everything would have been different. There was a meeting in the chartroom and almost everyone was there and I stepped right into their discussion about what we could do with the Lootus 2, which was only 1 nautical mile to our starboard side and hidden by the fog. By the trawler's behaviour over the last 24 hours we could tell that they had not hauled their nets for over 14 hours, which was more than strange. The team decided to do something about it. What? Well, the banners with magnets worked the other time, but now we wanted something different. They chose an action with swimmers for a change, so the moment I stepped into the chartroom, they were looking for volunteers. The first thing I heard, was Luke saying: "There's one!" while pointing at me. That's how I became a swimmer. Actually, there was a list of people who had volunteered earlier for possible activities and there I was on the swimming list because in so me silly moment I must have lifted my arm, to volunteer as a swimmer. I can't remember why. Normally I don't like swimming, but that's a different story. This didn't seem to be very normal at all.
We came to the Grand Banks to document high seas bottom trawling and after we'd seen enough, we couldn't resist taking action against it. The past couple of days have completely blurred into one another leaving me feeling unsure of where to start telling you about how things have happened. Let's go back to Monday afternoon. We hadn't found any fishing vessels for the entire day on the western side of the Flemish Cap and we were heading south. We were coming to the end of our time at sea and we wanted to find a trawler with a bad history, which would help get our message out to the world that NAFO is not capable of managing this area and a moratorium on high seas bottom trawling is needed NOW!
Just a quickie to let you all know that we found the Lootus 2(the Estonian trawler we were looking for) yesterday afternoon! What a stroke of luck! We followed it all through the night even though it was going faster than us and in the morning we set out to do an action, which we have only just finished (It's now nearly midnight). I've been up since 3:40am so you're going to have wait until tomorrow to hear all about it I'm afraid but I've had the best day and there will be lots of blogging by me tomorrow, and hopefully some other crew will write about it from their perspective too. Wow! My head feels like Vegemite! I'm off to bed.
Yesterday we pulled off an action against a Spanish trawler, attaching a banner saying "deep sea destroyer" to the hull of the offending vessel. No doubt that information is available through the official web pages but if you only read them what you miss is the stuff that goes on behind the scenes. So that's what I'm going to tell you about, about how it happens from the moment we have the chance to do an action. The following account is roughly how it has taken place during this campaign.
The following is an account from Mike (chief mate) of what happened in yesterday's action against high seas bottom trawling...
The sun rose and some of the crew were out to watch it for its brief appearance. The rest watched with us as it disappeared again, half an hour later into dark rain filled clouds that took over the sky whilst we were launching the boats. The wind rose in the suns wake to a Beaufort force six, occasionally gusting to seven. Esperanza swung one way and then the other, making a lee to each side in order to launch the boats in the twelve foot swell. The Hurricane, with me as coxswain and Florian as crew were the first in the water. Florian, is a university student of environmental science from Germany, who joined the Esperanza as an activist in Halifax. He wears his long blond hair in dreads, and volunteers for everything all of the time.
We set out to paint the side of the Petur Jonsson today, with the question "Legal?". Here's an update from Bunny, our campaign coordinator...
It was an early start to the day and into three boats: paint boat, media boat and safety boat. The swell was pretty big so getting in the boats was a challenge and painting the side of the boat was also a big ask. We got to the Petur Jonsson around 8.30am. They were trawling at a decent speed for painting and the valient paint crew went at it with gusto, and as soon as the crew on board the Jonsson saw what they were doing they got the water hoses out onto to them. However, it was simply too hard to get the little word 'legal?' onto the side of the ship, so they moved to plan B which was to attach the same word on a banner with magnets but this didnt work either. So plan C, yes there was a plan C! They held the banner up under the bow of the ship with the name of the boat in full view. It was as good as it was going to get out there with the big swell and the hoses. We all came back to the ship after about two hours, pretty wet and cold but with some good shots which are going out now with the press release.
How did you end up working for Greenpeace?
In the eighties, I got my bachelors degree in Human Resources. I started my work at a consultancy firm. I have seen dozens of organisations from the inside, especially from the HR point of view. Profit and Non-Profit.
The following is by Chris, our onboard naturalist...
So here we are... the North West Atlantic Ocean, over 200 NM from the closest point of land, there is over 1500m of water beneath us and a vast deep blue oasis in every direction around us. We are priveledged to be sailing on the Esperanza, in all accounts a vessel of "Hope". Hope by name, hope by creed. A hope for the future of this aquatic paradise, a hope that our descendants will have the same opportunity to experience this natural wonder for themselves. A hope that the whales, the birds and the creatures of the deep will survive man's continuous plunder. A hope that this nobel voyage WILL make the difference, that a balance between man and nature may be found so that both may thrive.
How did you end up working for Greenpeace?
I studied biology and have done my diploma thesis and my Ph.D on marine issues. I worked for seven years at a marine scientific institute on a small island in Germany. I came to Greenpeace three years ago, because I would like to shift my work from basic scientific studies to more environmental issues. I have been a supporter of Greenpeace since I was 18 and I was very lucky to get the job as a campaigner and especially an oceans campaigner because the oceans are one of my passions.
I'm blogging in the campaign office on the Esperanza
It's been rather quiet the past couple of days since we haven't found many ships to document. We're on the West side of the Flemish Cap and we're now going to pump up the volume a little with the campaign. If you thought we simply came here to take a passive record of deep sea destruction, you were wrong!
How did you come to be working on Greenpeace ships?
My life in Greenpeace started a few years in ago in 2002 straight after the conversion of the Esperanza. I had been working on a shipyard for about ten years as a welder/ shipbuilder. When the Esperanza was bought it wasn't ready to be a Greenpeace ship yet, so a major refit had to take place for six months at the shipyard where I was working.
His eyes are wide, like black liquid beauty staring at me, at us, while we handle him gently, taking him in turns to hold him in our arms. He does not look scared. His fine Somali features express only a sense of dignified tranquility, accepting the fact that he has become one of the most loved creatures by the sanitary personnel managing the little camp of tents close to the hospital. We all compete in trying to fill him with affection and attention. He is two, maybe three years old. He is a lovely gentle child, who is slowly succumbing to AIDS and his family are already wiped out. It is November 2000 and I find myself in Somaliland, (ex British Somalia), leading a development project in the area of Boroma, close to the Ethiopian border. It's an awful November when around 30 children will die at the hospital, ravaged by cholera, parasites or AIDS. That's a child a day, which is such a blow to our attempts to maintain them in life and there is a sense of desperate impotence filling our minds and nurturing the nightmares troubling our sleep.
We spent Monday night on the heels of a Spanish trawler ("Punta Robaleira"). They hauled at around 3am and we expect the trawl to take about 10 hours, as we are so much deeper here, so we went for a look around 8am. We tried calling them on the radio but there was no response. The trawler was fishing for Greenland halibut at about 700 meters. We returned to the Espy and went back when the trawlers speed slowed. We also sent a smaller inflatable to collect the bycatch. This time everyone was kitted out and prepared to get wet. As soon as the trawler stopped hauling they increased their speed to 10 knots and started weaving all over the place like a drunk elephant trying to flick a couple of fleas off his backside. Our inflatable stuck with them but after seeing them shut their bycatch shoot while we were sitting there it was clear that they had decided not to discharge while we were around so we returned to the ship.
We are now northwest of the Flemish Cap and have found several Spanish vessels fishing for Greenland halibut. The sea floor lies 800 meters below us.
This morning I fell back to sleep again after Marta (Spanish volunteer) came to wake me up at quarter to 4. It's getting harder and harder for me to get out of bed this early but luckily I was only a couple of minutes late for my watch. I hurried to the bridge with a cup of coffee and Thjis (third mate) told me we had several trawlers on the radar so we stayed within a few miles of the closest one ("Ana Gandon", a Spanish flagged vessel) and monitored her speed. When trawlers slow down it indicates that they are hauling (bringing in their nets) and that is the time when we need to go and look at their catch. I had been given instructions to wake half the crew any time after 6am if any hauling started and at 10 to 6 Morton (one of the mates) told me that the vessel had slowed down so we decided it was probably a good idea to do a wake up call.
How did you come to be working on Greenpeace ships?
I had been longing to support Greenpeace since I was a child. Every time I watched activists on TV, I wished to be there one day, but saw it as almost impossible! I became a member of Greenpeace thanks to a sticker in a car with the Spanish office's address. Some years later I started volunteering for Greenpeace Spain as a deckhand on a local ship. Later, I spent two years working for Greenpeace Spain. Finally, I started sailing on the international ships last year, and this is my third trip. I feel like here is where I've always wanted to be!
Name: Tom ("Greentux") From: By accident (or dumb luck) I was born in Belgium Job: Assistant Radio Operator (volunteer)
How did you come to be working on Greenpeace ships?
Eight years ago a friend of mine who worked for Greenpeace Belgium came to me and asked if I could help him out painting a caravan, so I did, but one thing let to another... after the caravan came some banners and after that some actions... I even worked on the conversion of the Esperanza and eight years later, here I am sailing into the Atlantic.
The past couple of days, we've been documenting shrimp trawlers. Although this fishery does not produce a lot of bycatch we did find starfish, capelin, sponge and eelpout but not in any quantity. Many believe this is because there is not much else to get. The shrimp fishery developed on the heels of the collapse of the groundfish in this area, including cod. It's also been heavily trawled for 20 years so its not surprising. Maybe a better image for what has happened in NAFO is the empty bycatch net.
Yesterday was an action-packed day. In the morning the Sunna, (an Estonian trawler, catching shrimp - "northern prawns") requested information about our campaign over the radio. There were other shrimp trawlers around, which we wanted to document, but when a fisherman asks for information we don't waste any time getting it to him since usually this is the first step towards getting on board. Other trawlers seemed reluctant to haul their nets while a Greenpeace inflatable was close by and hanging around while nothing was happening soon started to feel like a waste of time for the crew on the African Queen so off they went to visit the Sunna, which was a few miles away.
Name: Waldemar (Wally) From: Argentina Job: Captain (God)
How did you come to be working on Greenpeace ships?
I used to sail in oil tankers where I witnessed a lot of bad practice such as tank cleaning, sludge discharge in the sea etc. Coming back to my hometown, Corrientes, I got shocked by how much the Parana River has changed since my childhood: almost no fish, polluted water.
The following update is from Bunny, our campaign coordinator...
We are now out in the heart of the Northwest Atlantic area and this is where some of the heaviest bottom trawling takes place. We are here because we want to demonstrate how destructive bottom trawling is to deep sea life and why a moratorium on high seas bottom trawling is needed now so that scientists can identify those areas that need protection from bottom trawling. Organisations like NAFO are ill equipped to do anything about it. NAFO has been solely concerned about fish since it started in 1979 and today is no different. Until it starts thinking about looking after the whole neighborhood of the deep sea rather than just one or two residents the problems will continue.
Tropical storm Franklin finally caught up with us yesterday. The storm had started to become exhausted on its route towards the north, and it was expected to die out today somewhere south from Greenland. We were hit by its tail, the waves were getting bigger and bigger, breaking to white horses and bringing back the dolphins to surf at our bow. The wind was most of the time behind us, and so Esperanza was surfing the ocean waves moving rather steadily. Just before dinner we changed courses, and the rolling got heavier. There was some heavy consumption of sea sickness pills around the medicine locker, the poop deck was getting wet and was therefore off limits, and all the watertight doors and portholes were secured.
This morning's 4-8am watch was blessed with a clear night sky to begin with and I saw a shooting star fall towards the glowing, red horizon just before the sun rose. It wasn't long before we were once again cloaked in thick white fog.
Today was quite slow since we didn't come across any fishing boats until late in the day. The most thrilling thing that happened on my watch was a Russian merchant ship appearing on our radar. We made contact with it and asked if it had seen any fishing vessels but the guy on the radio said no. We continued along the edge of the banks and navigated north of the tail.
How did you end up working for Greenpeace?
I began working for Greenpeace four years ago on a Clean Energy campaign in the States and I've been taking photographic commissions with with the organisation ever since.
Last night we found a ship on the high seas on our radar. It was near the tail of the Grand Banks we discovered over the radio that it was a Portuguese vessel which was bottom trawling for redfish. We asked if it would be possible to visit them in the morning and maybe come aboard but they left us waiting for an answer saying that they needed to check with their company.
How did you end up working for Greenpeace?
In 1999 I was working as a volunteer in an owl hospital when I saw on the noticeboard a Greenpeace job offer. I read it several times and finally I decided that I can try.
From Virginia the photographer (who has joined the ship from Los Angeles, USA)...
Aahhh, the allure of the sea, I am beginning to understand what this means.
Yesterday was my first day at sea; the first of 14 days and nights of continual motion rocking and rolling and not to The Rolling Stones either. When I was offered this commission to document the mission for the Deep Sea campaign, I took it as I would take any other assignment, with a demeanor of professionalism and with little true emotive comprehension of what lay before me apart from doing my job as well as possible. The sea's life and its magic was abstract to me in my urban lifestyle.
As a child Michael James Ian Fincken, played on the rolling green hills of Kwazulu Natal in South Africa. He was not aware of the politics of his country, until a time where the child had to leave and join the army in 1985. Instead, he slipped quietly away to sea, on a rusty old cargo ship bound for Hong Kong. There he discovered passion, on the long ocean passages that curved across the circumference of the Earth. The voyages took him to strange and wondrous lands. He met a young nurse back home in Cape Town, they fell in love, married and bought a house in a small fishing village, on the Cape Peninsula.
Here's a message from Bunny, our campaign coordinator...
The area that we are sailing towards (the international waters of the Grand Banks and Flemish Cap) has been fished for hundreds of years, in fact it was the fish that attracted fishermen from far and wide and spurred the settlement of the Canadian Atlantic coast. Bottom trawling or dragging as its known in this part of the world, has been happening since the 1950s but really took off in the 1980s as the inshore fisheries in many countries were depleted. The fleets moved offshore and started to fish deeper and deeper. Very little is known about the deep ocean where bottom trawling is taking place or in many cases about the biology of the fish they are fishing for.
Name: Luke From: British [editor's note: Luke does not like to be pigeonholed by nationality] Job: Engineer
How did you come to be working on Greenpeace ships?
Several years ago I was living in Amsterdam, and volunteering for a small environmental organization. I had a friend who was working for Greenpeace, and they called me to come and do a couple of weeks work on a new ship, which they had acquired and needed to convert.
Two weeks turned to three, and three to four. Six months later, having worked through the entire conversion, I was lucky enough to sail with the ship on its maiden voyage, and am still here sailing today. I have worked in both the deck departments and now the engine room, so I am in a privileged position of knowing all areas and systems of the ship.
Hotel Esperanza is now full. We have a person in almost every bunk and it's difficult to find a place to sit in the mess now during meal times. This morning I searched for a place to work but Satu was asleep in our cabin since she's on the 12-4 watch again. Eddie, our bosun, was cleaning the lounge and the campaign office was full of campaigners. Failing to find a quiet, comfortable spot inside I came to the heli hanger where there is plenty of space, lots of fresh air and nobody around. Ah, peace!
How did you come to be working on Greenpeace ships?
I have been crazy about the environment since I was a kid, but at the beginning of 2004 I read an article in the Ecologist magazine about Emily Craddock, who had recently died while on the MV Arctic Sunrise in the Amazon. She was an amazing person and I was really inspired to follow in her footsteps, so I joined Greenpeace as a supporting member and became a cyberactivist always hoping that one day I would make it onto a ship somehow. I won a cyberactivist competition in 2004 and was given the chance to go to China and write the weblog for a campaign against GE rice. I can't explain how I felt when Greenpeace asked me to come back and work on the ships!
The press conference we had on Monday morning was well received by the local and national media. The deep sea campaign was mentioned on almost every TV station and mainstream newspaper across the country so we're all really happy about that. It is estimated that we got 95% media coverage. I'll try and post some extracts from news articles soon.
Name: Satu From: Finland Job: Deckhand (volunteer)
How did you come to be working on Greenpeace ships?
I volunteer for Greenpeace Finland. A couple of years ago I was involved in actions on board the Rainbow Warrior and I quite liked the atmosphere and the intensity of a Greenpeace ship. When I got to join Esperanza this summer on the Baltic Tour I immediately felt like I had come home. I've refused to leave the ship so far - I'm as curious as anybody about when I'll be asked to go home.
What does the high seas bottom trawling industry think of protecting deep sea life like ancient coral forests, undiscovered life and endangered species? Not much!
Like clearfelling rainforests, bottom trawling is wiping out ancient coral forests in the deep sea.
Please support a moratorium on high seas bottom trawling by telling your Environment, Fisheries and Foreign ministers that bottom trawling must stop!
We arrived in Halifax yesterday morning. The ship is parallel parked at the docks alongside a navy ship by the Maritime museum although we're moving out to an anchorage soon before we leave again for the Grand Banks tomorrow morning. I've been spending as much time as possible off the ship since we've been at sea for 2 weeks and I am so grateful to be on land now.
How did you come to be working on Greenpeace ships?
Sometimes fate is funny: it was in 1986 (or 87?) that I saw the Greenpeace vessel Sirius in the haven of Portoferraio, on the beautiful Tuscany island of Elba, and say to myself while going back to the hotel where I was working as director: 'I'd love to join that ship'. Ten years later, while in Holland (I have been studying quite a while in this country) I said to myself: 'Why not?' and went to Amsterdam to offer myself as a cook to Marine Services (I am smart, am I not?). 2 weeks later I had joined the... SIRIUS!!
Grand Banks of Newfoundland get the following definition in the Admirality Sailing Directions for Newfoundland and Labrador: "The Grand Banks of Newfoundland and its adjacent waters has the destinction of being one of the largest and most persistent areas for sea fog in the world. The fog is often dense and frequently extends over large areas in summer. Most of the fogs in the area are sea fogs and are caused by warm moist air from the Gulf Stream moving North and condensing as it passes over the cold Labrador Current. The combination of dense fog and icebergs within this area is especially dangerous for shipping. May and June are the peak months for icebergs when the retreating pack ice releases many of those carried South by the Labrador Current, but icebergs can be present in any month of the year."
How did you come to be working on Greenpeace ships?
I was looking for a way to get across the Atlantic because I'm tired of Europe. I want to see new places an meet new pigeons. When I spotted the Esperanza in the English Channel I could see that she was heading in the right direction and I have a thing about the colour blue.
As the Esperanza crossed the Grand Banks we were greeted by cetacean life such as pods of Atlantic white sided dolphins, pilot whales and baleen whales of all shapes and sizes. The colour of the water changed from dark stormy blue to bright turquoise and indigo as the depth of the ocean floor rose from 2000 to 70 meters. From up here it's easy to forget that there is a lot more on the bottom than we see on the top. We may have seen several different species breaking the surface but down there it's a totally different story. There are millions of animals in the deep! We are always delighted when dolphins or whales reveal themselves but it's a shame we can't see how beautiful it is down there. For many people it's out of sight and out of mind.
We have sailed right over the Grand Banks and have come over the other side, south of Newfoundland. We've been fortunate the past couple of days with the weather but it's been incredibly foggy at times and we've had to rely heavily on the radars. Quite ironic that an organisation which is anti-war benefits greatly from something, which was invented during a war. I've been up on the bridge a lot doing watches with either Mike, the chief mate or Waldemar, the captain. I really love being up there not because the view is nice, or because we regularly spot dolphins or whales, but because I absolutely love spending time with these two guys.
We are now just east of the Grand Banks, and South West of the Flemish Cap. It is a beautiful day and the sea is pretty calm here, a little overcast but mostly sunny. My i-pod solar panel charger is tied to one of the railings outside on the Boat Deck and I have just come inside from walking round the ship 5 times and doing yoga on the heli deck. It's the first chance I've had to get some exercise, which does not involve cleaning anything or walking up stairs.
Hello to everyone. My name is Mannes and I am the chief engineer on board the Esperanza. I have been on board for over 125 days now and my clock has started ticking. Four months ago when I left my house, Spring was just making its way up and now, by the time I get back, I have to start collecting fire wood to get me trough the winter. Its a funny thing, sailing. You leave your house to go to work and by the time you put the key back in to your front door, it's one or two seasons later.
Yesterday morning I woke up at 8am even though it was Sunday and we can stay in bed as long as we like on Sundays. I wandered up to the bridge to see who was on watch and offer them breakfast and I found Mike who was happy to put his order in for a full English breakfast, which Rien was offering down in the galley. Usually we make our own breakfast but today we could order whatever we wanted from a selection of pancakes or omelets etc. When I delivered Mike's plate he told me we had a guest and to go look out on the port side wing of the bridge. To my surprise there was a seabird sitting quietly on the deck. Apparently he's arrived in the very early hours and had been in the same place the entire time. It didn't move as I approached to get a closer look and I felt almost certain that it was sick or injured. I pulled out one of the bird identification books we had and sat down next to it while Mike and I pondered over what kind of seabird it was. We figured out it was a northern fulmar.
The following is written by Satu, one of our deck crew volunteers...
Welcome to the bridge of the Esperanza, just passing over the Faraday Fracture Zone on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Our bearing is 256, our course over ground 257 and our speed 9.7 knots. Wind comes from West South-West and its force is about 2. Visibility is good, even though half an hour ago we passed through some mist. The radar shows no ships within a 48 mile radius. The sea reaches a depth of over 2000 meters underneath us, and the Faraday Seamount is about 70 nautical miles north. We are close to having reached half way to our destination Halifax, Nova Scotia.
I arrived on the Esperanza in June when she was in Finland, to volunteer as an assistant cook for three weeks. Now one month later I'm still on the ship cooking and I am going to stay 6 more weeks! That's how it always goes when you're with Greenpeace, you never know what's coming next. Before I joined the ship I had just finished my Art studies when the opportunity to sail came. I love the ocean and to sail and I had been cooking before so of course I said yes to the job. The day in the galley starts at 8 a.m. in the morning and ends at 8 pm at night, but within that time I also have a break at 3 p.m. There has never been a boring day yet. Surely I have some days where I have been really tired and exhausted, but still not bored. It's like on the ship in general, there is always something happening.
Bet the title has got your attention but that's actually the highlight from yesterday. We saw a female sperm whale off the bow. I've never seen a sperm whale before so I was simply ecstatic when we identified it. Someone announced on the ships phone system "whale on the bow, whale on the bow!" so many of the crew raced out with the hope of catching a glimpse of it. Whales are much harder to spot that dolphins since they often disappear beneath the surface for any period of time up to 30 minutes. Everyone else but me gave up when we did not see anything within a few minutes. I stayed a little longer at the bow and just as I turned around to go inside, Leo (second mate) yelled at me from the bridge "Lisa, stay there!", so I did and sure enough he shouted out "there it is again!" but I couldn't see anything so he said "you must up to the bridge, it's easier to see it from here", so I hurried up the stairs and was greeted by a bushy puff of ocean spray in front of the ship when I
got up there. At first, nobody knew what kind of whale it was. Chris, (radio operator) and Mike (first mate) were also standing on the bridge with us.
Here is a post from Tom, our assistant Radio Operator.
Let's assume that the average staircase has 12 stairs. Let's also assume that the average ladder has 12 steps.
People seem to forget about them but all the time we walk the stairs. It starts when we wake up and walk up to the lounge to have a quiet cup of coffee (1 staircase ), when the cup is empty you have to bring it down again to the messroom (1 staircase) and up to the radio room (2 staircases). The first thing we do is clean the radio room and the deck, which it is on and that also means cleaning a toilet (so that's 1 staircase). When the cleaning is done, you have to fetch a new towel and bring the old one down to the laundry and back to the radio room (6 staircases). The morning job of today was putting up a new cable on the mast, we packed nicely so we didn't loose to much time going up and down and then we started our attempt to reach the highest point of the ship (another 2 staircases and 2 ladders) It wasn't so sunny as the last couple of days so the crowsnest was a welcome shelter.
Yesterday I worked in the galley with Rein because Tara, our assistant cook wanted to spend some time working on deck for a change. I started at 8am and my first tasks included slicing giant blocks of Dutch cheese using a scary slicing machine and peeling about 30 cloves of garlic (manually). Then we saw the dolphins I told you about. I must add though, that this time they were common dolphins (in the photo). When I returned from the dolphin extravaganza I made 2 large tubs of hummus. Rien put some classical music on the stereo and I thought...yeah this is great! Hah! Little did I know what awaited me......
Well it's been another great day to be at sea. Finally, we have escaped into the open ocean. After two months in the Baltic I had almost forgotten what it feels like for the ship to move around in the water. Today the Atlantic is dead calm, but here, unlike in the Baltic, you get the great ocean swell. Thus we have pitched and rolled gently onward in our tr ans Atlantic crossing, and as I write we are leaving behind us Ireland, the last land mass before Canada. At last, what the whole crew has been waiting for, we are venturing out into the wonderful offshore world of the deep sea.
I walked out onto the bow last night to watch the sunset once again. I didn't take my camera with me this time because I know it's better to watch these things through your own eyes rather than through a camera so I left it in my cabin. Rossano, one of the deck hands came to join me just before the sun hit the horizon. I asked him how likely it was to see dolphins right now and he said it was possible so I kept saying "come on dolphins, come on!".
Today we have been heading along the south west coast of England. It's still pretty flat out here though the boat has been starting to move up and down a little more now throughout the day. Last night the sunset was beautiful and the sea was like glass. We were 16 miles south of the Isle of White at 8PM (GMT +1) and I am told that these kind of conditions are very rare here. It was just gorgeous.
I am slowly getting to know my way around the ship since I have been doing lots of small tasks in order to help the crew. So now I feel confident that I can take you on a tour.
The Esperanza left Amsterdam at 7pm yesterday. We made it through the lock at about 9pm and are now at at sea heading across the Atlantic. We are going to be investigating bottom trawlers on the Grand Banks but first we are heading to Halifax to pick up the campaign crew. The crossing will take 15 days!
The Esperanza set sail with the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) to explore one of the oldest and least understood habitats on Earth.
The expedition to the Mingulay reef, located in around 150m of water off the west coast of Scotland, will provide vital scientific data on one of the biggest cold-water coral reef complexes so far discovered in UK waters.
As the Esperanza crossed the Grand Banks we were greeted by cetacean life such as pods of Atlantic white sided dolphins, pilot whales and baleen whales of all shapes and sizes. The colour of the water changed from dark stormy blue to bright turquoise and indigo as the depth of the ocean floor rose from 2000 to 70 meters. From up here it's easy to forget that there is a lot more on the bottom than we see on the top. We may have seen several different species breaking the surface but down there it's a totally different story. There are millions of animals in the deep! We are always delighted when dolphins or whales reveal themselves but it's a shame we can't see how beautiful it is down there. For many people it's out of sight and out of mind.
Well it's been another great day to be at sea. Finally, we have escaped into the open ocean. After two months in the Baltic I had almost forgotten what it feels like for the ship to move around in the water. Today the Atlantic is dead calm, but here, unlike in the Baltic, you get the great ocean swell. Thus we have pitched and rolled gently onward in our tr ans Atlantic crossing, and as I write we are leaving behind us Ireland, the last land mass before Canada. At last, what the whole crew has been waiting for, we are venturing out into the wonderful offshore world of the deep sea.
I walked out onto the bow last night to watch the sunset once again. I didn't take my camera with me this time because I know it's better to watch these things through your own eyes rather than through a camera so I left it in my cabin. Rossano, one of the deck hands came to join me just before the sun hit the horizon. I asked him how likely it was to see dolphins right now and he said it was possible so I kept saying "come on dolphins, come on!". 
