Johanna Volunteer Sweden

A year ago I got a ticket in my email, quit school, went to the airport, took a flight to Thailand and signed on to a ship. Since that day in early September my life changed dramaticly.

The ship I joined was one of Greenpeace's three ships, a vessel called the Arctic Sunrise. I sailed on her for 3 months in Asia and then came back to winter in Sweden. I picked up my studies in marine biology and social ecology, and started building up a normal life again. I got involved with the local activist group in the town I was living in, in order to keep myself satisfied. I have a hard time living a normal life - not caring about all the shit in the world when I know how much is going on out there.

After a couple of months I got a phone call with a question, "Do you want to go sailing on a Greenpeace ship? You have to leave in 10 hours." What was I to say? Of course this was an offer I couldn't resist! So off I went to join the newest ship in the Greenpeace fleet, a 72 meter long ship called the Esperanza. I stayed there for two months working with the Greepeace campaign against over fishing, and polluting oil transports along the coast of Norway.

When I got home, I started school for the third time and studied biology for a bit and relaxed a lot. It was by that time summer, and my work with Greenpeace in Sweden started again. Just a couple of days after I left the ship there was an accident outside Sweden with lots of oil spilled in the ocean. I helped clean the mess up. It felt good that I had been working on that specific issue before, and at the same time sad that the changes weren't big enough to prevent this kind of thing from happening.

I didn't stay put for very long. Now I'm out on the sea again. Not for that long this time though. This time I visit the third Greenpeace ship, the Rainbow Warrior II. I'm on this ship for tree weeks, for the Iceland tour. The whaling issue is of great importants for me. I was always facinated by the creatures, and as a 17 year old I went to New Zeeland to learn more about them. I had the opportunity to help a scientist there working with dolphins. History tells us how bad it can be, and I really hope that we can change things before it gets as bad as it could be.

-- More crew bios

-- Web log of our journey

-- Help Iceland choose whale watching over whale killing