I'm writing this from the lounge of the Esperanza, and as I look to my right out of a porthole I can see the coast of Greenland. It's 15 miles away but the mountains are so huge it feels like you could reach out and touch them. They are wholly white with snow, and just beyond them is one single huge block of ice as big as America – the Greenland ice-sheet.
Between the mountains and our ship, floating in freezing water, is the oil rig we've been looking for since we left England two weeks ago. It looks sinister and very out of place. We've been searching the Atlantic ocean for that thing, but despite it being 53,000 tonnes and the size of an aircraft carrier we didn't find it until this week. Next to the rig is a Danish navy warship that, according to the media up here, is defending the oil platform from... us (we think it would be better used defending this fragile environment from the rig).
The icebergs floating past us are huge and jagged so we have to go carefully as we track the rig, because most of the iceberg is under the water and rock hard. Any vessel that hits one is in danger of going down – be it a Greenpeace ship or an oil rig. And it's minus one degree C in the water up here so not a good time for a swim.
Of course, drilling for oil in an area known as iceberg alley is nothing less than dangerous lunacy. The chaps at Cairn Energy, which is operating the rig I'm looking at, have said they will use tugs to tow away any icebergs floating towards their platform when they're drilling. And if need be they'll move the rig to avoid bigger icebergs (and we've seen some big ones up here). I was in these waters last year and saw that operation in action, and I just don't trust that they'll be able to deal with every iceberg every time.
The
latest from here: we've been shadowing the rig through treacherous
waters and its now stationary just off the Greenland capital of Nuuk,
where we think it's picking up crew. The company is yet to come clean
with its oil spill response plan – we don't even know if they have one.
And the Esperanza crew is watching events unfold with thirty pairs of
very keen eyes...
