The captivity of Sagunto…Port

The aftermath of a glorious Greenpeace action High-Octane drama in Sagunto Hopefully many of you have seen the drama unfolding this past October 26th, in Sagunto (Spain). The last Greenpeace direct action of the "good ship Esperanza" was largely drummed by Spanish media and was live on Instagram. In case you are one of our affectionate readers and haven't heard about it there are two...

Hungary, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia: five borders one sore ass.

Prologue I've already narrated snippets of my Transcontinental race adventure, in "the naked truth about sobriety", which apparently is one of the most read stories of our blog, so, after being begged for a story by Dave and Phil, here is another episode of the series.I hope it sells us a few (hundreds) fridge magnets, so I will be able to finance my next...

Nothing to see in Istanbul – A Long Story About a Short banner

or Hang 100 banners successfully and no-one notices. Get one wrong and THAT’S the one they remember In January 2002, the Rainbow Warrior II arrived in Istanbul at the invitation of the Greenpeace Turkey office. I love Istanbul. I love Turkey. As usual, I was sailing as boat mechanic. The GP Turkey office was hoping to draw attention to ship-breaking operations on the Bosphorus. These yards had...

Squats, Dances and Dates in FNQ

Laura Quinkan Dance Festival Last month I had a truly wonderful trip to the pointiest bit of Australia, to attend the Laura Quinkan Indigenous Dance Festival. It was so enjoyable that I’ve been racking my brain about how to turn it into an interesting story. Nobody really wants to hear about everything going smoothly and someone else having a great holiday. That’s why we don’t have slide...

Amazon, my heart of darkness

My obsession for the Amazon is all David's fault The Brazilian Amazon has been my favourite destination for more than a decade. A place to fear, respect and care for. If I look back down memory lane, it all began in February 2006. I was having a jolly good time in Australia, going to the local Sunday markets, as it was an awesome summer day. My old Nokia hammer-phone rang and a well-known voice...

Haida Gwaii, the Haida Brave and the Haida Gwaii not so brave.

Part 2 Before I was so rudely interrupted at the end of part 1 of this story, you may recall that we had set up camp in the forest not far from the log loading facility. We had also just witnessed our first moon bow. Full moon + distant rainstorm = moon bow. We were excited and stayed up late. Because we totally needed a reason. OK enough of that hippy la la shit In practical terms, what I had...

Reports of my death are generally exaggerated

Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated - To paraphrase Mark Twain  But it was close! I’ve just had an amazing travel adventure. A 30 km dash followed by 5 days in bed. Ummm, in hospital. Typed on Gionny’s sickening Olivetti Lettera 22 View from my bed Boring Context For a few weeks I’d been experiencing an increasing shortness of breath. At first I attributed it to lack of...

Marjorie

“David’s new amante.” When I was retired by Greenpeace a few years I had many plans for my future. One of them was to buy a large van, convert it, then live, travel and work from it. Typed on Gionny’s continuingly friggingly annoying Olivetti Lettera 22 Have van will travel. Now I have Mercedes, or rather “A Mercedes” otherwise know as Marjorie. Why did I wait so long? Many reasons:...

Haida Gwaii and the Haida Brave – take 1

Who, what or maybe where the F**K is that?  You don’t have to be crazy before you camp with us, we will train you! Before going to BC for the first time, I spent two weeks in the Costa Rican peninsula of Osa. I thought it was the most beautiful place I’d ever been, until I found myself in British Columbia.  We were working in an area officially named the “Mid-coast Timber Supply...