shetland

A short but sweet clip of Greenpeace climbers Anais (from Germany) and Victor (from Sweden) in their Portaledge on the anchor chain of the Chevron drilling ship, the Stena Carron, off the Shetland coast.

According to Victor the weather is fine, both he and Anais are "very happy", and they have enough food to stay for two weeks!

Whilst they remain in position, the giant ship cannot move. It was due to leave anchor to drill for oil in the deep waters of the Atlantic off Shetland's west coast.

Greenpeace activist Victor, hanging off Chevron's Stena Carron rig

A few moments ago, our activists started taking action against a massive oil platform, stopping it from drilling a deep water well off the Shetland Islands.

Using speedboats to reach the huge 228m long drill ship, they climbed up the giant rungs of the anchor chain, and are now preventing the ship from moving to its drill site.

It all started two days ago, when a handful of activists slipped off the Esperanza - which we knew would be monitored - and boarded a ferry in Aberdeen bound for Lerwick in the Shetland Islands.

Then this morning, at a sign that the drill ship was about to move, they started the action.

Victor, one of the climbers, describes what it's like on the Stena Carron's anchor chain

The ship is operated by oil giant Chevron, and was due to sail for a site 200km north of the Shetland Islands and drill a well in 500 metres of water.

More than 10,000 of us have sent an email to Chris Huhne - the Energy Secretary - calling for a moratorium on deepwater drilling in UK waters.  On top of that, last month we sent a letter to the government threatening legal action in an effort to stop the granting of new permits for deep water drilling.

But it's not enough. Deepwater drilling is continuing unabated.

We saw what happened in the Gulf of Mexico only a few months ago. The world's biggest oil spill - a direct consequence of reckless deepwater drilling. It's time we go beyond oil and stop gambling with our environment and the climate.

Follow the latest at GoBeyondOil.org and find out how you too can take action.

Follow the crew of the Arctic Sunrise on their campaign for Marine Reserves in our North Sea Tour blog

A weekend in Lerwick allowed us to bring the campaign to land, and bring people from land to the campaign. Leaving Shetland marks the end of the North Sea ship tour, but of course we'll be taking the campaign back to our various offices around the North Sea. Meanwhile, the Rainbow Warrior is in the Mediterranean continuing our European work on marine reserves.

Anemones on a sea mount - not known for their migratory habits

The weather forecast was ominous as we departed Aberdeen harbour, gales and high winds were ahead of us. But with the wind behind us, we've had a good night's sailing.

Follow the crew of the Arctic Sunrise on their campaign for Marine Reserves in our North Sea Tour blog

Two pair trawlers we encountered yesterday admitted they were fishing for cod and told us confusingly fishy stories. One boat said it was catching lots of big cod, while the other reckoned they'd trawled loads of young fish. Either way they shouldn't be taking any – cod stocks are now only a fraction of what they were a decade or two ago.

Follow the crew of the Arctic Sunrise on their campaign for Marine Reserves in our North Sea Tour blog

We have a hitch-hiker on board: a small bird, which - from my frantic bird handbook thumbing - appears to be a juvenile stonechat or whinchat. Anyway, everyone's happy to have the tiny stowaway with us for a while although it may leave us when we get closer to land. For now, however, it's proving to be camera-shy and getting fed on breadcrumbs.

We're still out here in the North Sea talking to trawlermen to convince them to stop fishing cod to extinction, and taking action against those who just won't listen.

For a few days now, we've had no luck locating cod fishing vessels, but that finally changed last night when we came across a Scottish trawler fishing for cod 40 miles east of Unst, the most northerly point of the Shetland Isles. They were reluctant to talk to us, so we decided to wait until morning and pay them a visit.