Life as a deck hand and garbologist
Posted by Ludvig on 27 April 2007.
Follow the crew of the Arctic Sunrise on their campaign for Marine Reserves in our North Sea Tour blog
From Portia: As deck hand, I am on watch with the captain from 4 to 8 morning and evening, which means I enjoy both the sunset and the sunrise. My day begins with a wake up call at 3.45am. I grab a cup of tea and banana and hope the caffeine and fruit will sustain me for an hour before I do a safety round, checking that no water is flooding onto the Arctic Sunrise, there are no signs of fire and that everything is generally in ship shape.
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Bringing cookies to pair trawlers
Posted by Ludvig on 27 April 2007.
Follow the crew of the Arctic Sunrise on their campaign for Marine Reserves in our North Sea Tour blog
Things can really turn around fast on the ship. Last night, just as I posted yesterday's blog entry, we came across a pair of interesting looking ships trawling together for cod and immediately launched a boat to investigate.
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Over-fishing and the prisoners' dilemma
Posted by Ludvig on 26 April 2007.
Follow the crew of the Arctic Sunrise on their campaign for Marine Reserves in our North Sea Tour blog
Cod can live over 25 years and grow over 2m long, but few in the North Sea ever live long enough to get bigger than this
The most exiting part of the day was probably when we had some more, and a bit more advanced, boat training. Other than that today has mostly been a long and pretty uneventful boat ride to a new search area, but it got me thinking of a conversation a few of us were having a couple of nights ago about over-fishing and when someone brought up the famous cod example from the Grand Banks.
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Catchphrase – Sustainable!
Posted by jossc on 25 April 2007.
While the Arctic Sunrise chases trawlers fishing destructively in the North Sea, a large campaign team is challenging exhibitors at the Brussels Seafood Fair with one message – "Is Your Seafood Sustainable?" And after two days we've saturated the venue with this message, creating the 'buzz' we were hoping for, it really is the word everyone is using right now! This, despite a somewhat over-reactive clampdown by the local police on activists displaying banners and leafleting outside the venue. So much for freedom of speech in the European capital…
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Can't you call or send a letter instead?
Posted by Ludvig on 25 April 2007.
Follow the crew of the Arctic Sunrise on their campaign for Marine Reserves in our North Sea Tour blog
Martin getting the message across to the skipper of a Danish trawler
After a productive stay in the small fishing town of Hanstholm we set sail and headed out to sea again only to find – fog! Yes today the North Sea is full of it and the fog horn has had to work on overtime, giving everyone working on deck a slight case of tinnitus. Although it did make our job a bit trickier the fog couldn't stop us from finding or engaging the fishing vessels out here.
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Land trawling
Posted by Ludvig on 24 April 2007.
Follow the crew of the Arctic Sunrise on their campaign for Marine Reserves in our North Sea Tour blog
Apparently you can't trust the truck drivers of the sea for reliable weather forecasts and we are once again forced to head in closer to land. This time we decided to skip the anchor and get alongside right in the lion's den, the Danish fishing town called Hanstholm, where a lot of the trawlers we are looking for also have chosen to seek refuge from the stormy seas. Being surrounded by all these beam trawlers here in Hanstholm got me thinking about how truly bizarre it is that the bottom trawling methods they are using are actually legal.
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North Sea Marine Reserves tour - meet the crew
Anne the deckhand
Hello, I'm Anne, I'm 23, and I'm from France. I'm here on the ship as an activist for the North Sea tour. I've been volunteering for Greenpeace for a few years now, although I have been supporting Greenpeace since I was a teenager. I've been lucky enough to get on the Esperanza two years and a half ago, then I sailed on the Warrior last summer. I'm also volunteering for the French office and in my local group, when I'm not working on some farms in south of France. I like Greenpeace because of its non violent direct actions, and because of all the nice people who are - still - making it. Save the cod!
Waiting for calmer seas
Posted by Ludvig on 20 April 2007.
Last night we had to turn the ship around because we were heading into some seriously bad weather (you know it's bad when even the captain says so). But I think everyone has gotten both of their sea legs working by now because even though the ship was rolling more today and we have had shelves, doors, and dishes broken, everyone seemed less affected than yesterday. We are now anchored closer to land and are, together with a small fleet of freighters and oil tankers all around us, waiting for calmer seas.
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Boat and safety training
Posted by Ludvig on 18 April 2007.
Follow the crew of the Arctic Sunrise on their campaign for Marine Reserves in our North Sea Tour blog
With the deck crane resurrected we left Århus early this morning on the first leg of our tour to demand Marine Reserves to protect the North Sea. We already managed to have our first safety training and our first boat training sessions.
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Tied up in Århus
Posted by Ludvig on 17 April 2007.
Being on a ship in port, or as I like to call it 'port sailing', is generally lovely and this is no exception. Århus is a very pleasant town and the weather is great, the sun is gently heating our deck and the wind is a light breeze.
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