Greenpeace Blog

Chinese farmers are discovering that resurrecting the old tradition of keeping ducks in their rice fields allows them to cut down on the amount of pesticides and artificial fertilisers they need to use to grow their crops.

Nick, in a survival suit. © Will Rose / Greenpeace

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I'm not sure where to start. In the past 24 hours, I've watched senior advisers to the shadow cabinet take a ride in one of our inflatable boats (wearing Greenpeace-branded dry suits); mopped, swept and wiped all manner of surfaces; talked to artists, designers and film producers about our work and the coal campaign; learned how to coil rope properly; donned a survival suit during safety training (see the picture of Nick, resplendent in similar garb, above); helped to take down a giant banner; eavesdropped on energy policy discussions with advisers at the heart of Labour's government; and cleaned a lot of toilets.

I think I'd better start with the Tories, who visited the Warrior this afternoon. They were here not to have the mickey taken out of them as they got into the inflatable boat ("when we get to parliament, you three unfurl that banner and the rest of you storm past the guards" etc) but to talk about energy policy with our chief scientist, energy campaigners and policy wonks - just as Labour advisers did this morning.

"Kick start clean energy" written on the side of the Rainbow Warrior in LEDs, with London buildings behind. © Will Rose / Greenpeace

See all Rainbow Warrior tour updates or get them by email.

The Rainbow Warrior is a ship full of stories; everywhere on the ship there are photographs of the non-violent direct actions Greenpeace has taken over the years, artefacts from our campaigns, painted totems donated by Native Canadian people, pictures drawn by visitors to the boat, and portraits of crew members past and present. And every time you talk to someone who knows the ship and her history intimately, like the captain, you get the chance to hear more.

There's no way I'd have time to pass on all the stories I'm hearing but I am going to try and record a few of them for you, starting with Mike, the Captain (pictured), telling last night's guests the story of the Rainbow Warrior sailing into the Moruroa test zone. It's quite a story - have a listen to this mp3:

But our visitors last night didn't just hear stories from the past. They also got to hear - and see - a good deal about our present campaign: to give coal the boot and kickstart a clean energy revolution.

As the Rainbow Warrior sweeps into town, here on the other side of the planet the Esperanza is sailing through the warm waters of the old Spice Islands. We left Manokwari on Monday and are currently en route to Jakarta, slipping past bewitchingly exotic names such as the Ceram Sea, Buru Island, the Halmahera Sea, Selat Sagewin, the Banda Sea... I could go on.

If you're trying to place these exotic names, you could do worse than download the Google Earth layer which is tracking the progress of the Esperanza through Indonesia (you'll need to install Google Earth first, of course, but there's a plain map version below). I'll be posting highlights from the tour there, and it will update automatically so check it often for the latest stories, videos and other titbits from our expedition.

Oh, and we saw whales yesterday.