A Trip With Greenpeace’s Legendary Rainbow Warrior Boat in Papua

(Papua trip on Rainbow Warrior boat with Greenpeace, May 10th – May 17th, 2013)

I can’t believe I’m on the legendary Rainbow Warrior Boat together with Greenpeace crew! OMG.

The Rainbow Warrior boat finally came to Indonesia as part of the “Southeast Asia Ocean Defender Tour 2013” and a campaign titled “100% Indonesia: Together, Protecting Our Forest & Ocean”. The boat will travel around Indonesia in from May until June 2013 to witness the beauty of Indonesian waters and forests and tell the world about the beauty, including raising awareness that this beauty will not last forever if we don’t take any action in protecting them.

And I’m so lucky to be part of the ocean campaign. The first Greenpeace’s ocean campaign in Indonesia! More happy that I get the chance to sail with Rainbow Warrior boat for 6 days in Papua, from Jayapura, exploring the Bird’s Head of Papua, then Manokwari! Yipppeeee!!! *dance*

Before I share the full stories on my trip in Papua with them, let me share my first impression on the legendary Rainbow Warrior first.

Do you know that this boat is the most eco-friendly boat for its kind in the world? It does! This boat uses 90% of wind energy and it only needs 20 litter of gas per hour. Very energy-saving!

What impressed me the most is the smoothness of the engine. I could barely hear the sound of the boat machine, even when the boat is moving fast! Incredible. Also, I couldn’t smell the fume, which often makes me dizzy whenever I’m on a boat. This time, I don’t have to worry about all of that as Rainbow Warrior smells like a hotel room! I’m not kidding. It smells so good, I even forget that we’re actually on a boat.

The boat consists of several cabins, a dining room, an office room, lounge, big kitchen, helipad, toilets, shower in each cabin, laundry room, and some other storage rooms. It’s really huge!

What I like from the Rainbow Warrior boat is that everyone who is onboard is treated as crew. There’s no so called guest on this boat. So, in the morning, we wake up at 7.30am to have breakfast, then at 8am-9am, we all will work to clean the boat! One can choose to clean the toilet, stairways & hallways, deck, dining room or lounge area. It’s always a fun time seeing everyone working together cleaning the boat! I like it!

Also, on Sunday, the Rainbow Warrior “real crew”, who come from different part of the world (Russia, New Zealand, The Netherlands, Panama, and many more!) are off. So, we would be the ones who clean the boat, including cooking lunch and dinner for everyone! Isn’t it cool?

I shared a cabin with Riyanni Djangkaru, my dear friend who is the Editor in Chief for Divemag Indonesia and also a well-known environmentalist and traveler. It was really fun to share a cabin with her as we would giggle before we hit the bed every night and sometimes we often shared our make up collections, too! Hahaha.. *girls will be girls!*

Oh, I also love the food on this boat. I still don’t understand how Ruslan, the Russian chef can cook so many different dishes in such a short time for all of us on the boat? He must have used some magic spell! And the food is always super delicious, from appetizer, different types of main courses to dessert! Yum.. yum… our tummy’s always happy! Thank you, Ruslan! 🙂

The Rainbow Warrior boat has a long history in holding campaigns to protect our planet. Celebrities, religious leaders (yes, including Dalai Lama!), Royal families and rock stars have visited this boat, too! Rainbow Warrior has been acting in the frontline to fight the system to defend our planet, relocated people in the South Pacific Island who were contaminated by radiation, helped save the tsunami victims in Southeast Asia, fight against illegal whale hunting, war, climate change and other environmental crime in all over the world.

Hopefully, by doing this campaign, more people will be aware to protect our nature. Go Greenpeace! Go Rainbow Warrior! Together, we protect the beauty of Indonesia and our planet!

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