At home on the Warrior

Well here i am on Greenpeace's flagship, the Rainbow Warrior, in Dubai. At the moment we are at anchor in Dubai port with cargo ships, cruise liners and even an oil platform just a short distance away. Despite all that it is quite beautiful, seeing the sun rise over the water. At the moment we are a full ship, with all the people to be involved in this project on board the ship for training. Yesterday we spent the afternoon learning about the countries of the region that we will be visiting. Although a few of us have been to all the countries in preperation for the tour, a number of the campaigners and the crew haven't and so we have been doing some cultural training. This morning we get to do some inflatable driving ;-)

Life on board is very orderly, not only for the crew but for everyone on board: breakfast by 8.00 so the cleaning can start - and we all help; lunch at 12 and dinner at 6. And i'm going to have to make a BIG effort not to come off this ship twice the size as i joined! I did bring my yoga mat with me, but i've not yet plucked up the courage to start doing exercises on deck! Mind you, we've been so busy since we arrived, that i haven't had any time to think about yoga. All of the campaign team will also participate in as much of the tasks on board as possible. As i said, the morning clean up is important, and whilst we are in port we participate in the watches - in shifts of course.

The Rainbow Warrior will be my home for the next 5 weeks, which seems quite incredible at the moment, but also it's amazing how quickly you become used to life on a ship! Of course, we've not been out of the port yet, so i'm not sure whether sea sickness is going to be a problem....

Nicky