22 June 2006

Talking to Samir from Al Jazeera

by Alex, onboard the Esperanza

Based in Egypt, Samir Omar has been a correspondent for Al Jazeera for the past 4 years and a journalist for 12 years. He joined the Esperanza as it left Cyprus, to observe the work we're doing with overfishing of bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean.

Samir's been a wonderful addition to our journey. Not only has he serenaded us with beautiful Arabic songs for the past few days, but he was kind enough to grant us an interview.

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Rust Warrior

by Alex, onboard the Esperanza

Why am I dressed like a Star Wars storm trooper? I've become a foot soldier in the never-ending battle between sea farers and rust. It's an age-old story. You have a metal ship. The sea is wet and salty. Salt accelerates the process of oxidation. The rest is history.

For me, it all started because the Internet was down. It's hard to be a webbie with no web access. Work starts pretty early on board. From 0800, everyone's buzzing around cleaning the ship's inside from top to bottom. Then at 0900 the real work begins. Seeing how much everyone else has to do to keep the ship running, it was the least I could do to offer myself as a deckie. Besides, Grant said I could wear the orange Greenpeace work overalls.

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20 June 2006

Flying and swimming

by Alex, onboard the Esperanza

All was calm in the campaign room, until one of the crew ran in and yelled 'We're flying.' It seems that they'd spotted a long liner (that's a kind of fishing vessel). If this ship is fishing tuna, then they're doing it illegally because long lining is prohibited in these waters at this time of year.

I thought 'flying' was one of those sea farer's terms for sailing very fast, but they were speaking literally. Tweety was going off on an investigative mission. If you haven't been keeping up, Tweety is our helicopter. I know it's a piece of high-tech equipment and a vital tool for surveying ships out in the ocean, but I can't help but think that Tweety reminds me of a fat, red dragonfly.

The long liner turned out to be a carrier vessel. The crew told us stories of falling catches and reported that the tuna caught are smaller. Later on we spoke to some purse seiner vessels heading from Northern Cyprus to Antalya. They told us that their catches are ok, although the tuna they catch are also smaller every year.

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Tweety's Revenge

by Alex, onboard the Esperanza

It's been an interesting day. One minute I'm mopping the floor of the mess and the next I'm hovering in the air above a group of Turkish fishing boats, watching as they haul in their tuna catch...

We're on the helideck. Everyone is running around, getting things ready. I'm handed a pair of headphones and a lifejacket. Seat-belt on. The engines start and we're lifting. All the doors are off, so it's very windy. My hat is in danger of blowing away, but at least I've escaped the sweltering heat of the ship. We have to change directions. Tweety dips. The world tilts on its side and my stomach is left behind. Poor little stomach. It's really letting me down this trip.

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19 June 2006

Technical difficulties: please stand by

by Andrew, from the Greenpeace International office in Amsterdam

Sorry, no update from the Esperanza today. They're having some technical problems. Hopefully these will be resolved soon.

In the meantime all the action is over on the political blog - which has updates from the International Whaling Commission meeting in St Kitts. This year's meeting is a bit of a hair raiser (as international meetings go) with many of the important votes being right on the edge. Read updates from our team on the ground.

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16 June 2006

so long and urm, sorry about the fish

by Elaine, onboard the Esperanza

We've left the high tech tuna boats behind in Egyptian waters, their empty nets a sign of what they have achieved from previous years of greedy over-fishing. In Cyprus I'll be saying goodbye and the crew will be saying hello to Alex who will take the webby hotseat for a few weeks. There's more checking out the tuna fishery situation, this time in the far eastern Mediterranean and we're hoping it's not as dire as the rest of this sea.

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13 June 2006

Updates from here, there and there

by Elaine, onboard the Esperanza

There really is no sign of Tuna out here, the fishermen desperate, their catch pathetic. We can't stop them fishing for tuna if there isn't any left to catch. It's sad but gives us an insight into the real state of bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean.

Meanwhile, things are certainly hotting up in St Kitts in the Caribbean, that world renowned centre of the whaling industry where this years International Whaling Commision (IWC) is meeting. The Arctic Sunrise has been denied access to St Kitts with no official reason given.

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11 June 2006

chasing up to the last tuna

by Sebastian onboard the Esperanza

During the whole day we've followed the tuna fleet in their search for fish. The vessels we've been following are trying to fish off the coast of Egypt, some 20 miles North of the Arabian gulf. Our radar, that gives us information 12 miles around the Esperanza, shows up to 5 tuna vessels at the same time searching for tuna schools. They move in all directions, sweping the whole area.

These days, from dawn to dusk, over 200 tuna purse seiners throughout the Mediterranean do the same. Many of them are equipped with state-of-the-art technology to find fish so it's not difficult to understand what is happening in the fishery, why the bluefin tuna may be disappearing from our sea.

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10 June 2006

The chase is on

by Dave onboard the Esperanza

We're heading south and the chase is on - we're following one of the tuna boats towards the fishing grounds. There are a number of frustrated crew who just missed the England vs Paraguay world cup football game - ah the things we give up to save the world!

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Fishy harbour tale

by Francois, onboard the Esperanza

After few circles in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea we finally found them at anchor off the small port of Ieràpetra, in Crete. They are the Jean-Marie Christian III,IV,V and VI which belong to the French company Avallone Armements, and one of the six vessels of the Spanish purse-seiners fleet, the Nuevo Panchilleta.

The Esperanza dropped anchor close by. We went to pay them a visit and to hand over our report about bluefin tuna overfishing and the overall tuna ranching industry in the Mediterranean. This first contact went well, and from our inflatable boat we could exchange our points of view with some of the five captains.

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9 June 2006

Rainbow myth

by Gavin, onboard the Esperanza

The Myth of the Rainbow Warrior...

Of course the Rainbow Warrior doesn't actually exist, she's just a mythical symbol of this great organisation. Well this is what I was beginning to think anyway. Having worked with Greenpeace for some 14 years now and never having even seen the Warrior, let alone sailed on her I was starting to think that a conspiracy was afoot and the organisation hiding something. With computer programmes these days, maybe, just maybe all those pictures I'm seen were invented. On several occasions in the past I've been going to sail on the Warrior or visit her but everytime plans have changed and we never quite met and so the myth was perpetuated until today.

Up at 5:30am to witness a stunning sunrise - was today finally going to be the day... I was assured that a blip on the radar was the Warrior approaching and eventually that familiar silhouette came into view. Lifting off in the helicopter into the early morning sunlight we spent an hour photographing these two ships whose paths so rarely cross. The Rainbow Warrior looking magnificent under sail and the Esperanza beyond bristling with her high tech communications equipment. Two very different faces of an organisation but with common goals.

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Meeting the Warrior

by Elaine, onboard the Esperanza

It's 5.40 am GST and if you are fast enough you might be able to catch a pretty special moment. We're meeting up with the Rainbow Warrior on its transit accross the Mediterranean. Check out the webcam...

All done - sorry if you missed it - we were never sure this was going to happen!

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8 June 2006

Fever pitch - onboard animation

by Elaine, onboard the Esperanza

Yay - it's the 8th of June - that's World Ocean Day. Yes and only one day to go before the football world cup kicks off (oh I'm so excited - take that in whatever tone of voice you prefer). To celebrate both events we've put together a little stop frame animation that combines the joy of football and the horror of deep-sea bottom trawling. Geez, sounds great doesn't it?

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7 June 2006

Videoblog - Why tuna farming stinks

by Elaine, onboard the Esperanza

Why tuna farming stinks

After crossing the Mediterranean we are now looking at tuna ranching in its south eastern regions. And why exactly is tuna farming such a bad idea? We go up up and away with Tweety and with World Oceans Day nearly upon us, we take a look at important events on the oceans agenda this month.

Watch Ocean Defenders TV

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5 June 2006

Why is tuna ranching so bad?

by Sebastian, onboard the Esperanza

Tuna ranching is a relatively new industry in the Mediterranean. In the late 90's the bluefin tuna population was already overexploited. Less fishing was needed in order to recover its population. Instead, the very high prices reached by farmed tuna in the Japanese market brought more money into the fishery: new vessels, new equipment to track down to the last tuna were aquired. And catches increased.

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Fluffy story

by Elaine, onboard the Esperanza

Every now and then there's a flicker of fluffyness that catches your eye. Now you'd think that "Greenpeace people" wouldn't partake in the fluffy critter thing but then you'd be wrong. But these aren't just any fluffy critters, these are action critters, travelling the world in search of adventure, excitement and photo opportunities.

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3 June 2006

Tugging tuna slideshow

by Gavin, onboard the Esperanza

The whole idea of towing huge cages of live fish across the ocean is a totally alien one to me. I'm used to seeing fish where they should be, swimming free in the open sea. I've dived in aquariums with fish in a captive environment before but the idea of trapping an entire shoal of one of the oceans largest fish, putting it into a submerged cage and towing it across hundreds of miles of open ocean to a farm seems almost surreal.

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2 June 2006

The plight of the tuna

by Elaine, onboard the Esperanza

Incredible creatures the bluefin tuna. They look like they are made of tin, precision engineered for speed and stealth. And they can get big too - really big -weighing up to 700 kilograms (1500 pounds) and can reach up to four and a half metres (14. 7 feet). They dive down to depths of 3000 metres (nearly 10000 feet). Bluefin tuna can travel vast distances, seasonally coming close to shore to spawn.

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1 June 2006

Some of my best friends are octopi

by Gavin, onboard the Esperanza

The great thing about underwater photography and filming is you never know what you're going to come across on a dive.

I've spent many years diving around the island of Menorca in the Balearic Islands off southern Spain so when the campaign asked me to get some images of underwater banners carrying the campaign message I knew just the place to dive. Coral Galleries is a spectacular cavern system on the Isle del Aire just offshore of the Menorcan dive centre at S'Algar.

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31 May 2006

New communications technology

by Elaine, onboard theEsperanza

We have a new visitor onboard - he/she seems perfectly comfortable in the bridge and demanded water on arrival. Check the out the "pigeon cam" now...

PIGEON UPDATE: Alas - the pigeon has flown the coop - fed, watered and rested. He/she was apparently Maltese (there are people on this ship who know about pigeons...) and well, we hope Chief/Polly makes it back home ok. We hope you enjoyed the "pigeon cam" while it lasted!

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Video blog - tunatastic...

by Elaine, onboard the Esperanza

Where have all the Tuna gone?
Why aren't the blue fin where they're supposed to be - in the Balaeric Islands? Find out where all the tuna in the Mediterranean have gone with the crew of the Esperanza.

Watch Ocean Defenders TV

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30 May 2006

Keeping an eye on the ship

by Elaine, well and truly onboard the Esperanza

We have a new addition to our webby family onboard the Esperanza, it's the mobile webcam. Down girl (she's a little bit excited about going "live" today). She's wireless and wonderful - and we're going to take her out for walks and maybe even rides... Your eye on the Esperanza will be touring about everyday after lunch and whenever anyone feels like taking her out.

So check the webcam at 1pm GMT (after the humans have had their feed) and you can see a little more of life on the Esperanza through the eye of the so far nameless mobile webcam (we need a name for her so please get creative).

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29 May 2006

Row, row, row your green boat

by Ido, onboard the Esperanza

"What is so wrong with pirates fishing, and why do they need you there for two weeks?!!" cries of despair with an unmistakable undertone of a threat came from the bedroom. It took a fair amount of convincing and several confidence building measures to please my girlfriend into unlocking the door and letting me leave. And so I was off to Barcelona, to board the Greenpeace ship, the Esperanza.

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27 May 2006

Hello and goodbye

by Elaine, finally onboard the Esperanza

Heaving our overweight bags in the bright Barcelona sunshine we come round the corner of the dock to see the Esperanza (Espy) - "GREENPEACE" emblazoned on the helihanger - and it feels like coming home.

Strolling around the ship, the smells are more familiar than the sights - oil, cooking, exhaust fumes and the toilets combine with strange scents of things unidentified (and probably best left that way). There are many familiar faces in the new crew, some I've worked with and some I gotten to know reading the weblogs.

The Espy has been refuelled, watered and fed (literally tonnes of food brought onboard for the months ahead).

So, saying hello goes hand in hand with saying good-bye. The lovely radio operator Thom - the last of our hard working West Africa Pirates/Azores crew - waves us off as we head out to sea. We pause briefly to let Tweety the helicopter land with it's precious cargo of Dorothee our garbologist and Hughie the pilot, just in time for lunch.

In the weeks ahead we'll be focusing on the (once) wonderful world of the Northern bluefin tuna. One of the most profitable fishing industries in the Mediterranean is facing a bleak future with the introduction of tuna ranching, a shady form of fish farming.

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22 May 2006

Open day in sunny Barcelona

by Slade, currently visiting the Esperanza

1000 plus people, beautiful sunshine, 25 degrees celsius. Yep, it's open boat for the Esperanza as she is docked in Barcelona Harbour (right next door to McDonalds actually). All day today the volunteers of Greenpeace Spain (with crew on hand) conducted group tours of the ship and ran a small stall with merchandise for sale. Open from 11am until 7pm, the queue to board didn't drop below 60 all day.

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19 May 2006

Friday makeover

by Elaine, soon to be onboard the Esperanza

For many of us landlubbers, Friday is the end of the working week. Back onboard the Esperanza everyday is a work day (except for Sundays which is a work not quite so hard day) and the crew are keeping themselves busy, drawing ever nearer to Barcelona. While they chip paint, organise maps and throw the yellow thing back into the sea, we thought this might be a good opportunity to freshen up your desktop with a fabulous new wallpaper of marine life from the Azores with photo's taken by Gavin Newman.

Everyone loves a jellyfish - click here to see the whole range of Defending Our Oceans wallpapers. They'll spruce up your desktop and remind you of the marvellous world above and below the waves you are helping to protect (by being an Ocean Defender) every time you look at your screen.

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