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Part two Life is getting more exiting every day on board of the MV Greenpeace. For a few days now the ship has been packed with people who all play their own role in this campaign about climate change. After monitoring wild life and oil exploration at the Atlantic Frontier, we now go to the next phase. We've put a few people on a piece of rock in the middle of nowhere, called Rockall, 200 miles west of the Scottish coast. They're going to live in a so called 'pod'; a cabin of 1,5 by 3 meters which will be lashed down to the rock. The UK wants Rockall since they can give licenses to big oil companies to search for oil 200 miles out beyond the rock. Ireland, Iceland and Denmark want to claim the rock too but so far they didn't wait until they found oil. It will be a complete mess since these countries didn't accept the claim of the UK. Greenpeace says this rock can't be owned since it belongs to the birds, fishes, seals and all the other living creatures in this beautiful area. Besides that, how can you own a piece of rock? It seems odd to put 3 people on a rock in the middle of nowhere but the view from it is fantastic. We just don't like it being used as a tool to get a legal opportunity to drill for oil. It's just a rock and it has been there for hundreds of years. Leave it alone! Preparation is a big thing in a campaign or action. Training people, getting journalists on board, all the equipment you might need, getting familiar with the equipment. For instance: when we put the capsule onto Rockall, I was in the safety boat with two drivers and two divers. What to do if the helicopter crashes? I don't even want to think about it but I have to. Do you have to keep a distance when it goes down? I guess so, but you want to go near it as quick as you can to get the people out. And how many times do you have to pull the rope which is attached to the diver to ask whether everything is alright? How do the seatbelts of the pilots work? All these little things are really important. On our journey to Rockall the wind blew a force 8. Most of the new people on board got seasick, so we had to take care of them. Suddenly our 'home' was loaded with people: where to sit while having lunch or dinner? The mess room is too small for everybody. But I liked every minute of it. It showed me how much I've learned the last few months. Suddenly people ask me where they can find things or for the best way to do something. That feels good! Dropping the people on Rockall all depended on the weather. Being at sea means the weather is much more important. Talking about the weather as we all do to start a conversation suddenly becomes important to survive at sea or to make an action successful. I still do watches from 12 till 4, day and night. On Wednesday afternoon, I just came off watch, the decision on the Rockall occupation was made: let's go for it! Within 45 minutes everybody was ready. It's amazing how everybody knows exactly what to do when the time is there and at the end everything fits in. I'm in the safety boat and I felt the tension building up as everything gets ready for the first flight. I've never seen a helicopter on a ship before and it's quite tricky to land and take off from a moving deck. But the pilots are great and everything goes alright. After 8 hours of hard work everything is on the rock: the pod and 3 people. The following days work need to be done on the communication. When the people on the rock are self-sufficient we can continue to build up the pressure in this campaign. This is the most difficult part, because we want to keep attention in the media. We have some very creative people on board so I have all the faith in the development of this campaign. The UK-government tries to make us look silly of course. I read in the newspaper one of them said: 'Everybody can camp on Rockall since it is British property.' We'll see what happens if we don't go away and force them to do something. In the mean time we have some other things going on. When the oil companies will start to complain, it will be difficult for them to ignore us. And then I don't know what will happen. At the end it's all money that counts for them. When writing this I'm on anchor watch. This means you have to notice when the ship is going to drift. You can see that on the radar, but you can hear it too. As soon as that happens I wake up the captain. He has got this sign on his cabin door saying you're only allowed to wake him up if we are sinking and if his feet will get wet. Since he sleeps at the highest place of the ship there will be no one left to wake him up I guess!
Mirjam
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