Getting underway

Posted by Vanessa at 04:12 AM, October 12, 2004

Finally, we are underway. Yesterday we left Falmouth on the southern UK coast heading straight into a Force 9 storm and a huge swell. Rolling around on the bridge was quite a ride with some of our team knocked down with seasickness. It was a rude shock into life at sea.

But it is good to be going, and there’s a good feeling in the crew. We're all keen to get out there and start looking for bottom trawlers. Just one more stop and then we'll be heading for international waters where our real adventure will begin.

Today dawned calm and sunny; hopefully a good omen for the tour.

It’s an exciting time. The last tour for this campaign was near New Zealand where our intrepid crew on the Rainbow Warrior found 7 bottom trawlers in the Tasman Sea, most of which were kiwi vessels. New Zealand is one of only a small number of countries using the destructive technique of bottom trawling on the high seas. The industry has been a strong proponent of the technology, teaching others around the world to bottom trawl, thereby spreading the destruction.

But the European Union takes most of the global catch from bottom trawling on the high seas and it is these EU vessels that we're expecting to find in the northeast Atlantic.

Last tour I was the campaigner stuck in the office, waiting for that call from the Warrior that they had found their targets, reading the email updates and imagining their adventures at sea. This time I'm looking forward to experiencing it from the other side.