Indian Ocean Ship Tour 2012

Today I saw a tonne of tuna. Literally. I witnessed every tuna landed on a pole and line fishing trip in the Maldives. It was a relatively slow day, 1.3 tonnes of tuna to be precise. A good day starts around 5 tonnes, but conditions were rough out there. And competition was stiff from the other pole and line boats, known as dhonis, fishing near us.

Some days just have it all.

A long day ends at 5am after my piracy watch onboard the Rainbow Warrior. We cross the Indian Ocean, moving through a piracy zone. Our security toolbox includes the eyes and ears of crew and campaigners onboard this beautiful vessel. My two hour stint was beneath a mind-bending lattice of stars and shooting stars striping the sky, with Orion’s belt crowning the massive A-frame that bestrides the Warrior.

The Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior has spent the past few days hosting all the key players in one of the Indian Ocean’s prime tuna hubs – Port Louis in Mauritius.

Today our cooperation with Mozambique’s Ministry of Fisheries comes to an end after two weeks. As part of a ship tour of the Indian Ocean with the Rainbow Warrior that started in Mozambique, we have been patrolling a large portion of Mozambique’s waters and facilitating inspections of foreign fishing vessels that are targeting mainly tuna and endangered sharks.