go beyond oil

Now that I'm out of the water, off the Esperanza and back on dry land, I've been thinking about what it takes to stop not just one oil rig but all of them.

There's no dodging the fact that the oil industry is immense. In the North sea, where we confronted Chevron, companies have spent more money on extracting oil in the region than NASA spent putting a man on the moon. In the Gulf of Mexico, where BP's Deepwater Horizon platform exploded this summer, there are over 3,500 other rigs ready to bore away at the seabed.

Scrubbing the toilets this morning a bizarre thought crossed my mind: I’m going to miss this. The squeaky whiteboard, with our names for the 8am cleaning rota, reads: Messroom/Leila, Lounge/Frank, Showers/Victor, Alleyways/Elena, Laundry/Ben and Toilets … James.

A strange thing to miss perhaps, cleaning the ‘heads’ – my ship lingo is rapidly expanding – but it’s another part of the daily routine that has defined the communal life on board our floating Esperanza.

This is a working ship and everyone is busy pretty much all the time. Whether it’s in the engine room, the galley, the fitter’s workshop, the Radio Operator’s room, up on the bridge or out on deck, there are always things to do, just to keep a ship going.

Everyone’s got their personal reasons for taking action. For me, deciding to jump in front of a moving drill ship was not only about protecting the environment and stopping climate change, it was also about peace. Our addiction to oil fuels conflict, corrupts governments and destroys lives.

Today BP’s got a new boss, Mr Bob Dudley.  Like anyone who starts a new job, he could do with a bit of advice.

Taking over from the gaffe-prone Tony Hayward - who headed the company during the Deepwater Horizon disaster - Bob’s hoping to draw a line under the world’s biggest oil spill and start again.

And we want to help him. We want to like BP. We believe it could be the kind of company that pioneers clean energy technology and doesn’t invest in dirty fossil fuels.  It could be a company that deserves a green sunflower as its logo.

After a mammoth 50 hours in the water in front of their drill ship, following 100 hours on Chevron's anchor chain, the oil giant's lawyers have again stopped our protest.

Last night we received news over the ship's radio that Chevron had gained another injunction against us, preventing us from interfering in any way with their operation - otherwise face massive daily fines.

We pulled our last swimmers out of the water yesterday afternoon at about four, all of us exhausted after round-the-clock shifts to block the 228-metre Stena Carron from reaching its drill spot.

Here's the latest video from Esperanza off the west of Shetland, as our swimmers continue their vigil to halt Chevron's giant drill ship, the Stena Carron. This phase of the action is now in its third day. We've been stopping the deepwater oil drillers for a week now.