06.00 Marieke's gentle wake-up call brings me back to reality. I step out of my bunk and lurch across the floor as the ship makes an ill-timed roll. The washbasin stops my momentum, and I use it for leverage for my final lunge toward my clothes.

06.15 I make a cup of tea, and walk up two decks to the bridge. I look at the radar, at the chart, and out the bridge windows. The weather still sucks. After our first few days with the fleet, fighting our way through ice in an effort to chase down the whaling vessels, being blasted with water cannons while trying to interfere with the whaling process, saving a whale one day and watching helplessly as another whale was hunted down the next, the past few days have been something of an anti-climax. The winds have been too high, the swells too heavy, and the visibility too poor for us to do much. It's OK, in a way: weather that's too poor for us to launch boats is weather that's generally too bad for the fleet to be whaling. But it's frustrating anyway, being able to do nothing except steam along with the whalers, as if we were part of the fleet, waiting for them to make a move or the weather to clear.

10.45 Emails come in. One from a friend who is writing from a beach in Kauai. Another from a friend in LA, about to board a plane for London for Christmas and the New Year. It's always strange, on a long voyage like this, to hear from friends in different parts of the world, going about their lives and doing what "normal" people do at this time of the year. I stare out at sea and find my mind wandering off, back to my friends, places I would rather be, things I would rather be doing...

11.40 Andy puts a note on the board, imploring us to use less water. Our water-maker - which converts saltwater into freshwater - isn't producing enough, and we're using too much. Andy and I sit down and debate whether the conditions have settled down enough for the fleet to start whaling, and if it is worth us launching the Hurricane after lunch to keep tabs on a catcher.

13.00 Visibility deteriorates some more, and wind picks up. Doesn't look like any whaling today. We agree to stand everyone down from the possibility of boat launches. Looks like we just need to settle in for another Southern Ocean day.

13.15 Big Dave, the chief engineer, tells Andrew and me that we can't use the washbasin in our cabin until further notice. The shower across the alleyway is blocked, and Dave is trying to clear it. "Too many people shedding hairs and skin," he says.

14.00 Decide to have a shave.

14.30 Dave starts pumping out the blockage in the shower. Warns us that "Last time we did this, the sink in your cabin exploded." We put the plug in, stuff the sink with towels and dirty socks, and retreat to a safe distance.

15.00 Amanda brings out some chocolate cake. Crew emerges from nowhere, eats cake, disappears.

15.30 Go for a walk round the ship. Mehdi is out on deck, working on the Mermaid, even as a snow shower starts. Waldemar and Nathalie are on watch in the bridge. Sarah, Yuko, Jesse, Olivier, and Clive are making banners in the hold.

16.15 Back to the bridge. David, mate, and Eva on watch now. Spend ninety minutes or so with them sorting through the ship's supply of nation flags. Who knew the Shetland Islands had their own flag?

17.45 A large piece of ice, too small to show on the radar but plenty large enough to stop us dead in our tracks, looms out of the mist, directly in our path. David turns the ship deftly around it and we continue on our way.

19.15 More emails, including details of some of the press coverage we have been getting. TV, radio and print in Argentina, Australia, Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Papua New Guinea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, and maybe elsewhere. Pretty impressive for a couple of days of actions, and many of the stories are making the connection between what we are doing and the reason we are doing it: Japan's vote-buying, and its attempts to overturn the commercial whaling moratorium.

20.00 The whalers stop for the day, and so do we. We pick a spot among the fleet to rest for the night, and Andy and I sit down to figure out the next day's action plans - weather permitting, of course.

20.10 Work out on the exercise bike. The bike is in the lower hold, which is the most stable place on the ship, but working out on it means staring at the slop (dirty oil) tank for thirty or more minutes every day.

23.15 Bed, and the prospect of six and a half hours sleep before Marieke comes calling again in the morning. The forecast predicts more bad weather for tomorrow...

-- Kieran