I'm still expecting to wake up from this dream. A week ago I was standing in the rain and the cold at a bus stop in Hackney. Today, I'm looking over the bow of the Arctic Sunrise, the Greenpeace ship currently sailing along the Amazon River, stunned by the beauty of the rainforest that surrounds us.
And yet with a slight turn of my head, reality shifts. To starboard looms the industrial port of Santarém. At its heart, Cargill's illegally-built grain terminal, an iconic symbol of rainforest destruction where soya from illegally deforested areas is laundered and sold to global markets. Here in the Amazon, beauty and destruction stand side by side.
I boarded the ship in Belem, a port at the mouth of the Amazon. My trip started with an "open boat" event where hundreds of people, including many children, came to visit our Amazon photo exhibition and tour the ship. It was a really positive day and a great opportunity to show the work the Greenpeace team are doing here to help protect the rainforest from deforestation - particularly from soya, currently the number one cause of forest destruction.
During our time there, we also got a chance to visit the city, meander through the market stalls, and explore the riverside on a local barge. We even went swimming in the river itself - a real highlight.
Since then, we have been in transit up river. Life on board is far removed from the London circuit. It's a regime of 7am starts, fixed meal times, hard but satisfying physical work and early nights. Any down time is spent on deck watching the spectacular vista of the jungle sliding past, but from time to time we come across rows of sawmills and log yards, where rusty barges are being loaded with rainforest timber destined for the market place. It's a stark reminder of the destruction that is taking place beyond our sightline.
We've since arrived in Santarém where on Wednesday the number two base jumper in the world leapt from a plane with a Greenpeace parachute reading "100% Crime". In a symbolic gesture, he landed in a soya field and we held a press conference announcing the imminent arrival of the ship.
Here the vibe is more hostile. Whilst we have support from many local people, there is tension in the air and rumours that the soya farmers, who are a force to be reckoned with, are planning to march against us on the streets. Their PR machine is whirring with anti Greenpeace car stickers, ads in newspapers and interviews on radio and TV. The port authorities tried to stop us entering the main docking area (although fortunately that was resolved) and we have been refused permission to show our photo exhibition in the market place. Such is the way power and influence work here.
So with the battle lines drawn, we wait. Only time will tell what impact we can have to reverse the march of the mighty soya bean and stop it eating up the Amazon.
