Eye to eye with a dying whale - We're exposed to the inhumanity of the whale hunt. Mikey, from the Arctic Sunrise, climbs on a harpooned whale. I was also shocked by the brutality of the hunt and wrote about it. Throughout, the inhumanity of the hunt and the frequent suffering of the harpooned whales is hammered home again and again and again.

A chance long sought - Nathan fulfils a personal dream by saving whales as the driver of the Billy Greene. Also see The story of the Billy Greene for how Greenpeace came to own it.

News roundup - Whaling 'science' slammed - A New Zealand government report strongly criticises the whalers' "research" programme.

Heading north - whaling stopped for now - On December 23rd, the whalers started to run, first one way then the next. Eventually they head to refuel. It is not until after the New Year that they resume hunting in earnest.

New Year's Day - Lally describes some of the strange New Year's Eve fun on the Arctic Sunrise, and Esperanza crew talk about what they'd be doing if they were back home.

Everybody goes back to work - After going to meet a tanker and refuel ourselves, we find the whalers again by, literally, following the trail of whale guts in the water.

A sorry thing - Yuko, campaigner on board the Esperanza, talks about what it is like being Japanese and protesting the whaling.

Arctic Sunrise rammed by whaler's factory ship - The whalers vastly larger factory ship deliberately collides with an almost stationary Arctic Sunrise. First hand account from Shane on the Arctic Sunrise here, video here. We continue chasing the whalers and resume our peaceful actions when they start whaling again.

Cyberactivists bring victory in Argentina - An Argentinean company pledges not to buy from Nissui (a major stock holder in the company owning the whaling fleet).

Would you kill, to kill a whale - The whalers fire right over one of our boats, which becomes entangled in the harpoon rope. Instead of offering assistance, the whalers winch the rope in, knocking an activist (Texas) into the freezing Antarctic water. First hand accounts from Texas and Maite (in the boat with him, includes video links). The next day we continue our peaceful actions to defend the whales.

17 against whaling - Seventeen nations, including Brazil, the UK, France, Germany and Australia, deliver a strong diplomatic protest against Japan's whaling.

Short on fuel and supplies, and pressed by demands of future work, we break off from the whaling fleet. But before we head to port we go further south - to the ice edge. There we send a message to the world, "Help Us End Whaling".

And that is pretty much our story so far - though not the end of it, of course. The work to defend the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary continues, and you can take part. Plus, the Defending Our Oceans expedition has only just begun - it will continue throughout the year. Sign up as an Ocean Defender to join in.

Other links of note from the first leg:
Haiku contest - It's over now, but lots of excellent entries.

Open thread - Now that the leg is over, I've closed the comments for most of the updates. I'll leave the open thread though for anyone that's got something to say. I'll also keep the hate mail comments open.

Top five - Expedition leader Shane shares his top five reasons to end commercial whaling.