The Science
Patagonian toothfish are not the only species being decimated by pirate fishing vessels. The science team on board the Arctic Sunrise documents the impact pirate fishing has on a wide array of bird species in the Southern Ocean.Don't forget to feast your eyes on our Bird of the Week!

Longline Fishing
What is longline fishing and why is it so detrimental to a variety of wildlife?

Campaign Report
Track the progress of our campaign by checking out these periodic reports from Greenpeace's onboard campaign team.

Ship Log & Webcast
What's daily life like on a Greenpeace ship? How does the crew prepare for these dramactic actions? And just what is a bosun anyway? Get first hand accounts from our crew.

Last Year
In 1999 Greenpeace embarked on an expedition to expose pirate fishing in the Southern Ocean and caught the notorious, Spanish-owned pirate vessel Salvora illegally fishing in the French waters around Kerguelen Island. Here's an overview of that campaign...

Ship Log: Underway

Preparations:
We spent a fortnight in Freemantle, Australia preparing the ship for another trip to the Southern Ocean. Welders were brought on board to fix the damage on the port side where the Sunrise was rammed by the Japanese ship Nisshin maru.

Paint was applied where it was needed. The Poop-Deck, a heavy work area, was very pitted and rusted after 3 months at sea, so I ground it down and applied 3 coats of paint (a brown anti-rust primer, a light primer, and finally the top coat). I managed to get incredibly dirty in the process! Provisions for the voyage were loaded via the ship crane and a vast collection of waste in its various categories was off-loaded.

12 February, Saturday:
The Arctic Sunrise set sail from Fremantle at 15:00 hours (that's 3:00 PM ). As we left port, the crew took a few minutes to pay respects to Felix van Chinh - a bosun who had sailed on many Greenpeace campaigns. Felix was struck down in December 1992 by a fatal heart attack during an anti-nuclear action in Freemantle.

Neil, the Radio Operator who was in the inflatable with Felix when he died, remembered his friend and colleague, and we all joined him in throwing a flower into the ocean in rememberance. The weather was beautiful - hot and sunny.

Phil took "Tweetie" the helicopter for a brief test flight and then we stowed her below decks. The helicopter crew, (aside from Phil and Barry, recruited from the deck hands), remove the blades and store them in a custom-built box. The hold's hatches are opened, the hydraulic lift is raised and the helicopter is wheeled from the flight deck to the lift. The lift is then lowered into the hold, the hold hatch covers are closed.

It is very nice to be at sea again.

As we steamed alongside Rottnest island we saw an Antarctic Skua harrieing a Crested Tern for its catch. Pied Cormorants & Gulls were also observed.

13 February, Sunday:
Today we woke to another bright sunny day. We are all aware that this will not last, so many are out on deck, enjoying a low-work day and soaking up the sun. For my part, I went around the deck and dabbed green paint over various spots of brown primer that had been missed. I had mess cleaning duty today and went ballistic - laundered the seat covers & polished all the cutlery!

After lunch we had our safety drills, followed by a bit of interest when we came across some longline fishing gear - pelagic, for tuna/billfish. We launched an inflatable to retrieve the buoys and also "investigated" a fishing vessel. It turned out to be a relatively small Australian longliner. We exchanged greetings and we continued on our way. We also started our marine debris survey today, continuing the work of many other Greenpeace voyages.

The two seabird scientists are already hard at it with the binoculars - apart from shearwaters, boobies and the odd petrel, they saw what looked like a humpback whale, and at mid-morning spotted a green turtle.

Not too many green faces, the seas are pretty gentle right now.

14 February, Monday
We had planned on boat training as well as "alleyway" cleaning today but the weather's turned rough so the boat training has been postponed. The rough seas have also taken my cleaning partner out of service,so I heroically swept and washed three levels of alleyways, the laundry, and the engineering workshop floors.

It had been far too hot when we left Australia but now, as its a little cooler, we were able to relocate all the fruit and vegies from the air-conditioned cabins to the lower hold. It is not easy lugging heavy boxes around in 30 degree rolls, but the boxes of pineapples and bananas in my cabin were beginning make it smell like the great ape house at the zoo!

Great-winged petrels, crested terns, and flesh-footed shearwaters observed today.

15 February, Tuesday
It's calmer, greyer and cooler, though I'm still happy in shorts and Tee- Shirt. Smoother seas gave us the opportunity for boat training. I also cleaned up the lower hold's auxillary rooms.

16 February, Wednesday
Moderately rough seas with grey skies...more cleaning...painted some tools and other equipment. Some are suffering from sea sickness.

Wandering Albatross,Yellow-Nosed Albatross, Soft- Plummaged Petrel and Schlegal's Petrel sighted - the latter is unusual as it is normally an Atlantic species. We spotted a sunfish during the debris survey.

17 February, Thursday:
Lounge cleaning duties today...more painting as well. We also had fire training, part of which was a bit like Blind Man's Buff as the two trained firefighting people had to make their way below decks without vision to simulate smoke blindness...much to do with hoses and emergency fire-pumps.

Later I helped Roscoe pack up the inflatable known as "Wally" and also packed up waste cardboard boxes...learned how to use Ratchets in the process.

Wandering & Shy Albatrosses & Whiite-Chinned Petrels observed.

18 February, Friday:
Scraped some spilt paint from the bridge windows, lubricated the ratchets & stowed the wood-shavings (used to preserve winter vegtables) in the wood locker. We saw what I believe to be a Sei Whale. It had a large dorsal fin and throat pleats...overall colour dark with a low cylindrical blow.

Yellow-Nosed & Black-Browed Albatrosses & Antarctic Skua sighted too.

Contact Us

International Office Address:
Keizersgracht 176
1016 DW Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Tel: ++31 20 5236222 | Fax: ++31 20 5236200

© Greenpeace International