riding an ancient wind

The sails are out all the way and we are edging north towars Taiwan, albeit a bit slowly.
2000 years ago ancient mariners used the North East trade winds in the South China sea for transporting chinese porcelain. Eventually this wind favoured the creation of the silk route of the sea in the 9th century. Today we follow the wind from another age as we inch our way towards Taiwan. It is strange , to reconnect with history in such a way. Following timeless winds as we sail across these waters. How many battles and travels and stories and songs has this sea been privy to. It is such a human thought, to be constantly troubled with minor ailments, Of war and sickness and disease. While the universe carries on. Completely Unruffled by our great discoveries and everchanging laws.

The sea is raging a a little with 30 knots of wind, I guess she is not particularly happy. But the smashing of the waves is sometimes punctuated with the lovely splashes and clicks of dolphins and we count ourselves lucky to witness this exciting spectacle. Some of us.

The Raibow warrior is being pounded now and then by 4-6 meter waves. She will be in Taiwan by Sunday.
Thank you butterfly. For flapping your wings.

solitude

Its been 88 days since I left the confines of land. The comfort of my bed. The smell of warm earth.
On 12th September I boarded the Rainbow warrior , 6 days before I turned 24. Today is the 8th of December. 88 days.
Its interesting , to say the least, this life on the sea that fate has chosen for me . A great mix of environmental activism, extremely satisfying menial jobs, cleaning , and learning to live in a community full of brilliant and often crazy people.
Last week we had a onboard campaign training for Greenpeace campaigners from around the world. As we were anchored in Manila bay, these 12 people learnt how to use a greenpeace ship as an effective campaigning tool. Not to mention, how to clean toilets, wash up after themselves (and others) and How NOT to take showers between 7.30 and 9 AM.
The ship was busting with activity at all hours. and with smart beautiful women. sigh. And then as suddenly it had begun, It came to an end. One fine morning , all the bags were packed and put ashore, with people and beautiful memories. And off we went.
To the solitude of the sea. She really is beautiful. and I say this from 6 meter high waves. Beautiful she is.
Its strange though, after a week of having my cabin full of people . To wake up in the middle of the night, and hear nothing but the waves. No rustling of bedsheets . No rogue alarms. no tiptoeing into the room at 1.

Just the solitude of the waves.

A dream of Haruki

I was running through the maze , scared shit-less for my life.
It wasn't that I was being chased, but I just knew that death was closing in on me.
I was completely out of options, but I just knew,instinctively, that there was a loophole somewhere.However I also knew that this 'loophole' was almost as scary as death itself. Still, out of options, I decided to take that chance.

Death reached out to me, but I was suddenly out of its grasp, I had just gone insane.Not your usual completely loony kind of insane, but just a bit. Just enough to be out of the grasp of death, away from the invader of all realms, from that stealer of princes and peasants.
.Free.
And free I was , completely. But the cost was unbelievable, to trade in your sanity for life. It is a hard bargain and a small part of me knew that something really really wrong had just happened.
It was somewhere at this juncture that I awoke from a really weird dream , completely drenched in sweat and freezing at the same time. I was immobile , my limbs were completely stuck and I realized that I had never been this scared in my life.
Now I don't live a very normal life, I climb mountains and cliffs and bridges, I drive boats at high speed while being chased by unhappy fishermen or cops (or both) in rough seas and I do a fair amount of adrenaline pumping activities on most days . So when I say scared , I use that word in every possible extreme that you can imagine.
And then as I lay in my bed trying to make sense of what the hell was going on, I heard footsteps outside my room. Now I live on the roof of a 3 storey building, the only access to the roof is a small door which I lock every night before I go to sleep. So how who in the hell is walking outside my door at 2 in the morning?
I think about looking outside my window, but suddenly , out of the blue I remember Gabriel's story ( I sailed with Gabriel for a while on the Arctic Sunrise) about how he heard an unearthly cry outside his house in San Fransisco and how he instinctively felt that whatever it was , He did not want to attract 'its' attention, and so he lay in bed for the next few minutes freezing and sweating at the same time , till sleep overtook him.
Now, I had heard this story from Gabe at least 3 months ago , and I have not once thought about it.Not once that I can remember. Now at 2 o' clock in the night, 3 months later, It came back to me out of nowhere , at least 6 times zones away from where the story was told ( in Dakar,Senegal).
So I kept my head down , didn't make a sound, and waited for this strange encounter to pass. But it didn't.
Whatever 'it' was , was already in the room and I was too fucking scared to move a muscle. So I closed my eyes and thought of every single spiritual experience I had ever had. Using my thought as a shield between me and this ' presence'.
I guess I must have drifted away to sleep because I remember waking up in the morning, extremely tired and jittery. But still very much alive. And somehow stronger.
Amrit
13th July, 2010 Bangalore

sailing on the arctic sunrise

Copenhagen was an unmitigated disaster.
The leaders of the world came, met and achieved nothing. However, we cant really say it was not expected. Its not for the first time that we have met over the fate of the planet and have decided to do "nothing", or maybe it is.
The positive side of course is that the civil societies , including Greenpeace, have taken up this colossal failure as a call to arms and increased their pressure tactics.
So, here I am, fresh on the ship filled with frustrated and disgruntled environmental activists. It is not an easy thing to realize that one has failed. And that recognition always takes its toll , especially on the ego of an environmental activist , as the optimism of saving the world is smashed to bits by diplomatic politicians. Sigh.
But we cant have one without the other, and the reason we must continue our existence on the fronts of environmental activism to to ensure a balance in the ranks.
If they do nothing , we do double the work. And maybe , just maybe we'll have a planet left by the end of it.
So we sail from our home port of Amsterdam towards Las Palmas on the lovely Arctic Sunrise. An Ice breaker who rocks like a cradle in the calmest of seas.
Its a long maintenance haul, preparing the boat for the climate wars not so far ahead.

On top is a file picture of the arctic sunrise, my home for the next 3 months.

Dolphins on the bow

,"Dolphins!," went the cry. thrice was it heard , through the day.
It is one of the most pleasant things you will hear shouted onboard the rainbow warrior . for sure.
So we left all work and ran to the bow ( the front of the ship ) where dolphins love to play . For them its a little bit like surfing because they use the water displaced by the ship to move forward , or so they say.
But it is one of the most wonderful and uplifting things that one can see onboard this boat. In a certain way, it gives us a better sense of purpose than any action or campaign can.
The entire crew dissolves into little children , people shouting ,singing and calling on to the porpoises. They love attention , these dolphins. But then again so do we.
Today has been an interesting day. We saw a pod of curious little bottlenose whales
and three sets of dolphins. This is the first time since I boarded the Rainbow warrior in March that we have seen any marine life . I guess its a sign. The mystics within our organisation would certainly believe so, while the mechanics would quietly snigger in the corner. I'm not sue which one is right.
However it is indeed lovely to be greeted by the planet ,and to be able to acknowledge it.
Its a rare thing. And all I see are smiles.

david vs goliath

It was a hot summer day in Bombay when we found Mr Ratan Tata's house and decided to send him a message from 100 thousand Indians. a hundred thousand concerned and aware activists.
I remember the frantic decisions and the running around required to light some 8000 candles outside his house. We didn't even know whether he was going to see the spectacular image unveiling under his balcony as volunteers started lighting the candles on the sea shore.
But it just seemed the right thing to do.
We were not doing it for him, we were doing it for the 100 thousand people who had decided to click on the send button, to send the Mr.Tata a mail. Telling him how unfair he was being , building a port site next to the mass nesting site of olive ridley turtles. A port site that threatens to wipe Olive ridley turtles off the face of the planet. Gone. Poof. Deleted.

None of us could imagine the size of the fight we were picking on. It was pure conscience which egged us on, that and the complete absence of logic. Those were the principle that Greenpeace was once founded on . But we soon realized the size of the confrontation when our emails started getting hacked into, people were threatened with physical violence in Dhamra (the port site).and this was just the beginning.

The port builders had decided to put their massive PR machinery into action , flooding the internet with conflicting information and throwing dirt on Greenpeace . It wasnt about the turtles anymore . It became an information war. David Vs Goliath. live on the internet. pay per view.
I have nothing against the tatas, but I do have something for the turtles.

A corporation is going to invade into a turtle sanctuary and get away with it. Not only that,they will singlehandedly wipe them off this planet... and they are actually pretending to be environmentally conscious while doing it. That just makes me angry. actually no, its more than just anger ,its outrage.

The war for another species continues. And while the whales have a lot of champions , the turtles don't have many. I hope we will be enough. Else its high time to take a picture of an olive ridley , might be quite valuable in the future. Unlike a tata nano.

Here is something you can do, spread this video . as far as possible. as wide a possible. Put their PR machinery to shame, Shame them into doing something about the port. Who knows? it might just work .

a new beginning

Its been about a month and a half since I joined the rainbow warrior again.
A month and a half filled with quiet reflections on the how and the whys of the universe.
We have spent much of the past month doing underwater researches in Sweden and Norway. Trying to find ways to convince the public that overfishing is not the best way to get cheap fish to their tables; using pretty corals and bubble reefs to put our point across.
I used to think that climate change is the biggest danger to our present generation, but this month has made me realize that its just the shadow that clouds our future. In this shadow lurk many monsters that we still have to deal with. Toxics , overfishing, unsustainable development.... these are the words that will shape the destiny of our children. These will be the profanities that our generation will face tomorrow, as we leave them behind in our legacy.
the fishes are disappearing from the seas faster than we know. Will they recover? will the dead come back to life? Mother earth still has some surprises up her sleeve. I hope a living ocean is one of them, the alternative is too scary to be true.
I have been delving into the history of Greenpeace, looking for answers , stories and a direction in the ether. I am still looking....
In the meantime the environment is under attack as always , and corporations have found ways to paint themselves green to sell their products . We have a more difficult job of trying to wipe the cheap toxic green off the dirty ones , so that the planet lives on. I hope , pray and beg that we succeed.