What to do on Rainbow Warrior during “Transit”?

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

Apparently, it took more than two days to reach Tridachna dive sites from Jayapura, on Rainbow Warrior boat. As a scuba-diver, I just wanted to get to the dive sites soon! I couldn’t wait to dive!

So, what to do on Rainbow Warrior when we’re on “transit” (this is actually a term they use for ‘sailing’ from one place to another non stop)? Well, there were actually plenty of things to do on this boat. Not to mention, the “PIKET” in the morning, where we all have to choose our part in cleaning the boat and each room. One can help the chef preparing lunch/dinner (even though Ruslan – the Chef would prefer to work alone), or washing the dishes after lunch time/dinner time (even though everyone has to wash their own dishes right after eating, rinse it with soap water, then put it on the side together with the other plates & utensils, then the crew would put everything together in the sterilizer — yes, they have it on the boat!).

Reading, would be a fun thing to do at the Lounge area. I loved this spot because it’s so cozy, I felt at home :D. Not only that, there’s a bookshelf full of books about our planet – fish, plants, environmental books — awesome! If you’re good at playing guitar, there were some of them at the lounge, too. Just pick and choose!

Every day, at around 4pm, there would be “Gym Session”. Rainbow Warrior was equipped with some sports equipments, so you could just join the crew for the Gym Session and stay healthy when you’re sailing!

One night, we watched a horror movie that was pretty cheesy, but still, we couldn’t stop watching it!
The night before, we were all gathered together at the Lounge, playing some music instruments and singing! So niceeeee..!
I really loved the togetherness and the warmth of the people on this boat. It felt like being in a big happy family with multicultural background :).

Also, one of the fun things to do at night was looking at the sea water sparkling from the bow of the boat. It felt like watching thousands of stars in the sea. Magical….

Ok, what’s my favorite time of the day on the Rainbow Warrior?

It would be… during the sunset! It was really fun to sit at the deck, watching the big sky changing its colors with sea breeze caressing my cheek. Loving it!

On a sunny afternoon, some Rainbow Warrior crew joined me at the deck, when I was day-dreaming waiting for the sunset. All of them bringing beer in their hands. Beer with different brands – from different part of the world! How cool is that? Some of the brands I found in the fridge were “Fat Yak”, “Peroni”, “Coopers” and “Castaway”.
Apparently, Rainbow Warrior stocked up some beers whenever they stopped in a country. That explained those different brands!

However, there’s a rule on this boat. One shouldn’t get drunk. And, one shouldn’t drink hard liquor. The max was wine :). And we were asked to drink responsibly.. also.. don’t forget to write down what you drink on a piece of paper on the fridge! 😀 Drinks were pretty cheap on this boat. For a non-alcoholic drink, the price was 50 cents Euro. And for alcoholic drink, it’s 1 Euro.

And oh.. I forgot about this fun activity!
On our first day, the Rainbow Warrior crew gave us a briefing, explaining about the boat and showing us the rooms, including all the regulations. Two days in a row, we had to do “Fire Drill” and “Abort the Ship Drill”. So professional! They said, it’s important that everyone KNOWS where to get life jacket (in every cabin there would be 2 life jackets, also on the decks in each level), the different types of alarms, and where to get together when the alarm bell rang.

It was also important to know the different rooms of the boat and all the doors, so that if something bad happened, we could just run to the “Meeting Point” deck.

“Drop everything, get your life jacket, and run to the meeting point”, said Adrian, one of the Rainbow Warrior crews from Panama.

Loud and clear, Sir! 🙂

I enjoyed chatting with the Greenpeace folks and Rainbow Warrior crew. They were all very passionate in protecting our planet and have all the experience in each field! Awesome. And they’ve been dealing with different types of issues, you name it… illegal logging, climate change, deforestation, etc. They’ve visited many countries doing environmental campaigns wholeheartedly. Respect!

Mark Dia, the Regional Ocean Campaign Manager for Greenpeace, shared with me about the Tuna Campaign that was a big success in the UK. “Most people don’t know where tuna comes from and UK is the second larger consumer in the world for tuna”. With this campaign, Greenpeace worked in the whole supply chain, down to where tuna came from (yes, including Indonesia). They have successfully influenced the big retailers to source “sustainable tuna” and the big companies have agreed and committed to it. In Indonesia, Greenpeace now is trying to promote sustainable fishing using pollen line. Some fishermen have used this method and Greenpeace wanted to introduce this to the rest of the fishermen in our country.

So, when the Ocean Campaigners were not going diving, this was the type of conversation that we’re talking about during the “transit”! ;D

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