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MV Greenpeace / PC 8023
Position: 21 42 N 121 52 E South China Sea, South east of Taiwan
June 10th, 1996
Day 25

Well, it's not all beautiful sunsets and meetings with ships with auspicious names. We hit a nice force 7 yesterday, and a lot of the new arrivals on board were getting quite sick. It'll take a couple of days before everyone finds their sea legs -- hopefully by the time we arrive at the 12 mile limit off of Shanghai.

The ship is really cruising, the seas have calmed down a lot since yesterday when we caught a favourable current, so we were doing up to 14 knots for a while. Well, we are a bit late, so that's good.

The e-mail messages from Greenpeace offices are very inspiring. Around the world the people are pouring out their outrage about the Chinese test, and pouring out their support for this trip -- at least 13 governments have already said they are angered by the test - and on the weekend too! I thought they all played golf! Greenpeace activists in about 17 countries are protesting at the embassies. Faxes of support for our ship are coming in from people, from parliamentarians, from political parties, etc.

Meanwhile, we are getting ready for the birthday party (Shhhhhhh!) . Helen's is today, and Shaun's is tomorrow. Everyone is holding their breath: Will Lynda be able to make a cake in this heat? We made the cards last night, during Jeanette's and Tanya's watch (12-4 AM). They turned out to be quite nice -- enlarged copies of the Monopoly "Get out of jail free" cards, with Greenpeace on the bottom. Humour helps to remind us of the very positive role we are playing - especially when we know that the environment has just suffered yet another nuclear test.

And what could be more positive than a world free of nuclear weapons?

Dima