Chapter 24

The final flourish/the Warrior sunk/off to New Zealand

I was now living alternately in my hovel of a bedsit in Blackheath, at Hilary’s place in Sutton, where she now lived, on the floor of the office in Islington or in a cheap hotel in Lewes when events dictated. I rarely, if ever, saw my old friends from Deptford. Events of momentous importance were looming on my horizon. I was being dragged inexorably into the position of expedition leader on the first ever attempt at establishing a permanent non-governmental base camp in Antarctica which would require my absence from the UK for six months and I was unsure of how I should feel about this de facto appointment.

1984 merged into 1985 in a seamless scroll of work, meetings, discussions, planning and controversy. The fur campaign which had been swept through the Greenpeace Council meeting on the nod was beginning to make a significant impact on the fur industry. The Bailey posters were being displayed all over London. Our local groups, which Bryn was promoting tirelessly, against my counsel, were raising money to display the anti-fur industry billboards all over the UK. The fur campaign video was feted, won awards and was being screened up and down the country. Groups in Scandinavia, South Africa and in Canada were clamouring for anti-fur trade material. The ‘national’ campaign we had launched in London was now assuming international dimensions and some in Greenpeace were not at all pleased about its success. A row of seismic proportions was brewing which would have cataclysmic impact a year later.

In the summer of 1985, McTaggart asked me to accompany himself and Monika Griefhan to the International Whaling Commission meeting in Bournemouth and use the opportunity to discuss Antarctica. As we opened folders on the table of his hotel room the telephone rang and I leaned over to lift the receiver. It was a long-distance collect call from New Zealand for McTaggart. Knowing that a major meeting was taking place on the Warrior in Auckland to plan the upcoming tour of the Pacific, I accepted the charge and handed the receiver to McTaggart. I took little notice of what he said, but as he replaced the receiver in the cradle and turned to look at Monika and I, his face was ashen and his words are seared into my memory.

‘The Warrior has been sunk. There were two explosions. One guy’s missing.’

I looked at him open-mouthed. ‘An engine room explosion?’

‘We don’t know at the moment, but it seems there were two separate explosions which could have been mines. Ok, now listen. The news will be out on the wires already. Peter, I want you back in Lewes to field the press enquiries there. Keep it low-key for the time being until we get more details. Send out a message to all offices to refer all enquiries to you in Lewes. I’ll call you later tonight.’

The bombing of the Warrior by French secret agents was the single most critical turning point in Greenpeace’s development. The consequences of that event are still being felt today, both for good and bad. Of course, the enduring tragedy was the death of Fernando Pereira, the Portuguese photographer who died while trying to retrieve his equipment and nothing will surpass the suffering his loss created among his loved ones and friends.

The news of the Warrior’s sinking was on the front page of every newspaper the following day. Greenpeace’s constituency grew from mainly western nations to become global overnight. The facts associated with this outrage are hard to accept to this day: a sovereign government sent a team of at least ten people, probably more, to deliberately carry out the sinking of a ship – a ship belonging to an organisation promoting environmentalism and international peace, no less – in the first ever act of international terrorism in New Zealand’s history.

Using two limpet mines, the Warrior was sunk in the shallow waters of Marsden Wharf within minutes. During the panic on board, the crew, many of whom were asleep, were ushered out onto the quay as the second and most devastating blast ripped a six foot diameter hole in her port side, exposing her engine room. As water gushed into the stricken ship she began to list and to settle on the mud a few metres beneath her keel. Fernando Pereira, a Portuguese photographer took the fateful decision to attempt to rescue his valuable camera gear from his cabin. He drowned.

As the crew stood around their vessel, water now lapping the portholes through which, only hours previously, people could be seen celebrating a birthday on board, the world was waking up to the news of a British registered vessel being sabotaged by a French government in a Commonwealth country. Yet British condemnation of the action was conspicuously absent. Mrs Thatcher, then Prime Minister, uttered not one word of rebuke, even at a time when she was crusading against terrorism. Had the Russians been responsible for the sinking, wild horses would not have kept the Iron Lady away from Auckland where she would have encouraged the world’s media to capture her nodding in that hollow manner of hers as she listened to eye-witness accounts before delivering a withering attack on the perpetrators. But the perpetrators were French and the French were allies and therefore beyond reproach.

For Greenpeace and its personnel, however, the consequences were catastrophic and life-changing in many ways. Schedules were torn up, holidays cancelled, personnel diverted and the lights in every Greenpeace office burned late into the night. The phones rang hot, the press were beating a path to our door and the sympathy of millions of people throughout the world manifested itself in notes and coins in the Greenpeace coffers. In Auckland the Warrior fund reached $250,000, a sum unheard of in the annals of Greenpeace history in that sparsely populated and relatively poor country. Ads run in the press profited enormously. The money literally poured in. And as the money came in, so the shutters went up. In every office security measures were quickly stepped up. Open doors were no longer the order of the day and the laissez-faire attitude which had characterised Greenpeace for so long disappeared. People who had joined Greenpeace out of a sense of well-intentioned duty towards environmental campaigning now suddenly felt exposed and vulnerable. Political reality intruded into the hitherto make-believe world of Greenpeace. We had touched a raw nerve and had been bitten back for our troubles – hard.

It was against this backdrop that I prepared to leave for New Zealand in the late summer of 1985. Although I had been rushing around along with everyone else, covering news interest in the sinking and its aftermath, the newly acquired ‘Antarctic’ ship which we unimaginatively called the Greenpeace (my suggestion of Antarctic Warrior was dismissed as too anglophobic) was being dragooned, along with her crew, to continue the Warrior’s rudely interrupted itinerary.

That the Warrior was sunk to prevent her continuing her voyage to Muroroa, the French nuclear weapons testing atoll in the Pacific, was not in doubt. The Greenpeace was despatched to this tiny speck of coral in the middle of the Pacific along with her sullen, angry and ultimately Antarctic-bound crew. The vessel was loaded in Hamburg and I went there to familiarise myself with the ship and its crew. I found a team of people labouring hard to fit oblong boxes into square spaces on the ship’s deck and in the small hold. The skipper, my long-time friend and veteran campaigner, John Castle, was not pleased with the task. The vessel had been bought with almost no consultation of the seamen in our ranks, and opinion was that we ‘landlubbers’ were seemingly oblivious to the fact that the crew were now reaping the bitter fruits of our ill-determined decision.

The ship was simply not suited to being used as a cargo vessel and was certainly not built for Antarctic work, despite the fact that extra plating had been added to her bow and ice-fins now protected her rudder. A sweating, grumpy crew worked tirelessly to cram all the Antarctic paraphernalia on board then fretted over the stability of the ship carrying so much deck cargo. The omens for this first ever voyage into Antarctica by an environmental pressure group to establish an NGO base were not good, and as I boarded the plane back to London I prayed that the trip south would be a success. In fact it was probably the most angst-ridden voyage Greenpeace had ever undertaken. Back in Lewes McTaggart engineered a meeting at which my leadership of the upcoming expedition was confirmed and sanctioned. Despite my coy refusal, I was flattered that I was seen as the ideal candidate, although I was not impervious to the view that getting me out of the way for six months on the other side of the world suited some agendas. McTaggart amazed me by telling me, confidentially, that the objective, as far as he was concerned, was to demonstrate to the world that Antarctica belongs to no-one and everyone. The best way of showing millions of people that the USA had other ideas and that it considered the Antarctic legitimate American ‘territory’, was to provoke an incident which would force their Antarctic personnel to react in an aggressive and territorial manner. To my utter amazement, he told me,

‘The base, the wintering team, the science – that all means nothing. All that’s important is for you to get the head of the US base to take a swing at you and for you to get that on camera. And you do that by setting up camp right in the middle of the goddamn US base, right there on the roadway, on the airstrip or in the commander’s HQ for all I care. The issue is ownership. You have as much right to sit on any piece of land that takes your fancy as they do. They don’t own the Antarctic. Neither do the Brits or anyone else. It belongs to all of us and you can do as you goddamn please. Once he’s told you to leave, we’ll take it to the UN and have the place declared a World Park. That’s what you’re going to the Antarctic for.’

Simple as that. We buy a base for $100,000, we scour the planet for a base wintering team who are capable of carrying out a carefully prepared programme of monitoring and science, we buy a ship, crew it and spend a further $600,000 getting ourselves to the Antarctic when all we really need to do is to send me and a camera crew down there so that some jerk can take a swipe at me. I felt weak at McTaggart’s naivety, innocence and enthusiasm and at his ability to reduce a huge international effort to two words – ‘get punched’! While this may have been the secret agenda between McTaggart and I, it really didn’t bear any relationship to the reality I faced as the expedition leader. I was fully aware that the dispirited crew harboured feelings of antipathy towards the Greenpeace hierarchy (epitomised by me) for having asked them to do a difficult and dangerous job in an unsuitable vessel; a crew who were seething with anger at the French attack on the Warrior and who were ill-prepared for the Antarctic voyage, were being asked to stand in for the Warrior and carry out a major campaign at Muroroa before pressing on to the Antarctic.

Had they been given any hint of McTaggart’s instructions to me, there would have been a mutiny. Instead, the crew set sail from Hamburg for a tiny coral outcrop in the South Pacific which had been used since the 70s as a test bed for nuclear weapons, the French force de frappe, in a ship crammed with Antarctic paraphernalia. What they would do there would be the decision of a German colleague, Gerd Leipold, appointed campaign co-ordinator on board the ship. I did not envy his task.

The news we received from the ship as the crew arrived at Muroroa was sparse. They had arrived on the 12 mile limit and their presence had prompted the usual over-reaction from the French who sent a flotilla of warships and naval tugs to monitor Greenpeace’s activities. The only high point I can recall in this period is McTaggart’s outrage when Gerd was manoeuvred into accepting a bottle of champagne from the naval commander, but at least we had demonstrated that we were prepared to throw the necessary resources into honouring our commitments to campaigns, even in the face of bombs and secret agents. But all too soon, the Greenpeace was heading for New Zealand and it was time for me to fly from the UK to a country which Graham Searle had once told me would change my life if ever I had the opportunity to visit it.

I arrived at Heathrow and was immediately paged to go to information. Assuming it was McTaggart with last minute instructions, I opened the folded sheet of paper containing the message, only to read: ‘Phone Annette urgently.’ My heart leapt. I called her at home. She was distraught and through her tears told me that one of the cats was dying and that I was the only one in the world who knew the significance of this tragedy. I didn’t know what to say. I simply sobbed at the news and I cried for all the pain and heartache I had caused her over the years and for the mess in which I had left our shattered marriage.

As I said my goodbyes to her, she asked me to realise the implications of my going to New Zealand and the Antarctic. It meant that any thoughts of reconciliation were over. I said yes and replaced the receiver. I never saw or heard from Annette again. The divorce was organised by my lawyer while I was away. I signed everything over to Annette and faced the world with little more than the clothes I stood up in, a meagre income from Greenpeace and two hundred pounds in the bank. I was 39 years old.

In the final few months of my Greenpeace UK tenancy, the international board had turned up the heat considerably regarding the need for us to expand the national board. The fur campaign had begun to attract so much attention in countries like South Africa, Sweden and Canada that the international Greenpeace board was directly asking the UK office to tone the campaign down on the grounds that the organisation could not afford to upset the indigenous peoples with whom it had traditional links. All in all, the UK office was under enormous pressure and I had traditionally been the go-between who took the sting out of the increasing bitterness between the UK board and that of International. Now I was removed, the task of wielding the knife on the UK office would be that much easier. I put these thoughts out of my mind and stared at the purple and orange hues of the sky as our tiny tube of metal winged its way to the Antipodes, the aircraft chasing the sun as it sank beneath the western horizon. Stuff it, I thought, I had enough on my plate as it was.

I arrived in Auckland to be met by Carol Stewart and the late Elaine Shaw, two stalwarts of the New Zealand Greenpeace office whom I had met at previous trustee meetings in Europe. By the time we had driven into town, dusk was falling and the late spring weather was blustery and cold. I asked if we could call in at the harbour to see the Warrior and as we drove up to Western Viaduct where the Warrior, now re-floated, was moored, her familiar outline looming out of the gathering darkness.

I walked alone towards the ship. She was gently tugging at her mooring lines, mournfully groaning, like some eyeless, tethered hulk unwillingly ensnared. I clambered on board carrying a torch. Her decks were bare. Already, souvenir hunters had stripped anything moveable from her. I walked around the aft deck and entered the starboard side access door, the very door I had reached for when I first stood on the Warrior as it rode at anchor off Torness, a lifetime ago. Turning left, I found the top of the short stairway which led to the cabin I normally used and went below to stand in utter dejection, staring at the bleakness and emptiness of the bare cabin in which I had had so many excitements and adventures. Tears rolled down my face.

The main deck was a tumbled confusion of broken washstands, buckled bulkheads and piles of flotsam and jetsam on the floor. I poked my head into the saloon which had reverberated to the singing, music and laughter of young ideological activists over the years and now echoed emptily at my intrusion. At the top of the engine room stairs I shone the torch into the abyss. The sight was one of total confusion. Piping, ducting and metal lay strewn around the floor in haphazard heaps: the stench of mud which had lain there for six weeks was overpowering. The ship had become a tomb. I breathed deeply as I emerged into Auckland’s night air, glad to be off the ship.

The MV Greenpeace was due to arrive in three days and I spent the few days overcoming jet-lag and acquainting myself with the town, staying at Carol Stewart’s house. I quickly warmed to Auckland with its busy streets, its pretty women and its lively night-life.

The ship arrived on schedule to much media hullaballoo and rejoicing, but the faces of the crew were ingrained with the strain they had endured from three months at sea. Sullen faces glowered at us as we lined the quayside to welcome the ship and our friends on board. The Warrior had been warped down the quay a few metres to allow the Greenpeace to come alongside and was then brought to lie on its seaward side. Once Customs had been cleared, there was much hugging and tears on the quayside and the Greenpeace crew, many of whom had, like me, sailed on the Warrior, began a wake which was to last for weeks.

Inevitably, every press briefing we called to promote the Antarctic expedition turned into an inquest about the sinking of the Warrior. It was understandable but frustrating for all that. Crew members began drifting off to the Warrior rather than working at loading supplies for the trip. They would not bother to turn up at briefings, preferring instead to mooch around the Warrior with old friends, plotting and planning some sort of revenge. I was inevitably drawn into this nether world of remembrance and we hatched a plan, immediately dismissed by Greenpeace International, to fit a large outboard engine on the Warrior and power her back to Muroroa, confronting the French with the ghost of the ship they had so brutally butchered. Instead, the plan was to sink her in Matauri Bay, a few miles north of Auckland, where she would act as a reef for marine life. This did not go down well with many of the veterans on board and was greeted with contempt within the organisation at large. In the light of the organisation’s vociferous and ultimately successful opposition years later to the sinking of a Shell oil rig in the North Sea, the Brent Spar, the second sinking of the Warrior at our own hands came back to haunt us.

I had other problems on board. John Castle, the skipper, was in a perpetual foul mood and seemed to have allowed the world’s ills to fall on his shoulders. He was scathing of the new, Antarctic-experienced crew members who appeared and made life on board pretty miserable for me. It was becoming increasingly evident that John was simply not in the right frame of mind to skipper the ship on the Antarctic voyage and I broached the subject of finding a replacement for him with John himself and with McTaggart. Reluctantly, but with a grace and humility for which John was renowned, he slowly came to agree that he was not in good shape and agreed to stand aside.

We asked Pete Bouquet to stand in for John. I hadn’t sailed with Pete as skipper in all my years with Greenpeace and jumped at the chance of working with him since we had remained friends since the early days. There were problems associated with asking Pete to come to New Zealand, however. He insisted that his wife and four children be brought to New Zealand while the ship was in the Antarctic. This was granted but their eventual arrival caused major disruption to the preparatory stage for the voyage.

Pete duly arrived with his family and took up residence in the skipper’s quarters with his wife and four children. Thus began Pete’s valiant and onerous attempts to be a father, a skipper and a husband all at once. Pete was fearful of the voyage from the start. The ship was not ice-classed and thus was inadequate for the task as it would not allow us to push through anything but the lightest of brash ice. We would be required to stick strictly to clear water, and be forced to negotiate the outer pack ice we knew we would encounter with great caution and some trepidation.

Pete was obsessed – quite rightly – with the ship’s trim and stability. We were carrying so much deck cargo that the addition of the 250 barrels of fuel for the base which would have to be carried on deck, way above the water line, and which would be taken on in Auckland, raised concerns about the ability of the ship to stay upright in the heavy Southern swells we would encounter. The weeks of preparation became one round after another of nail-biting uncertainty. This mood of creeping anxiety was heightened by the arrival of the film crew, a German team comprising of Axel Engsfeld and his sound and cameramen who had put up a sizeable amount of money towards the expedition for the privilege of filming the voyage. Naturally, they were concerned about the increasing criticism levelled at us by the Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Divisions, not to mention that of the USA, for our ‘folly’ in attempting to venture into the unforgiving Antarctic environment.

At one press conference we held on board, the New Zealand Antarctic Research Programme (ANZARP) dug up from somewhere a Scottish ship builder who apparently knew more about the ship than we did.

‘And how thick is the hull, man?’ asked the Scotsman of a distinctly uncertain Pete Bouquet.

‘About 20mm thick,’ came Pete’s hesitant reply.

The Scotsman savoured his moment and leaned towards Pete for greater effect, ‘Nine millimetres only! Nine! Not twenty!’

We had to concede that we were planning a voyage to treacherous waters in a ship which was built of steel plating only 9mm in thickness.

Pete’s mood of uncertainty was gradually and unwittingly increased by his wife, Jane, who begged us to be cautious. Visits from various Antarctic cognoscenti added to our fears as one after the other, they warned us of impending doom. We did our best to ignore such pessimism, pointing out that even small yachts had circumvented the Antarctic and that we would not for one moment enter into seas which promised danger from ice. Then McTaggart put the tin hat on things when he arrived and took Pete out for a few beers and told him, it was later alleged, to ‘Go down, have a look and if it’s too bad, then turn right around and come back.’

So we now had a campaigner on board – me – who was told to get himself punched by the US officials at McMurdo and a skipper who had been told to take a swing by the continent and have a look. To make things worse, Andy Hill, the logistics officer for the trip and one of only a few Antarctic-experienced people on board, decided to quit. Officially, he told us that sickness had stricken members of his family, but I privately harboured the uncharitable opinion that he was about to see his failings in preparing the equipment for the expedition laid bare for all to see.

Whatever the truth of the matter, his departure put Jerry Johnson, our base leader, in a complete spin. He demanded a logistics replacement in whom he had confidence and we scoured the globe looking for a suitable person. Doug Allen, a Brit with whom Gerry had worked previously, finally agreed to drop his life and hotfoot it to Auckland to come on the voyage.

The voyage was beginning to look amateurish and when we eventually set sail for Australia, we were physically prepared but an indisputably ill-disciplined crew. I had not stamped any sort of authority on the crew simply because the circumstances were so peculiar. I had neither the time, nor, in many cases, the crew availability to work with. Added to which, many of the crew were new and had many different impressions about how Greenpeace operated. The film crew, for instance, firmly believed that Greenpeace worked on a democratic basis. Boy! Did I have news for them! The trip across the Tasman to Sydney was uneventful apart from the sudden departure of McTaggart who decided to jump ship as we rounded North Cape, for reasons known only to himself. We arrived in Sydney to collect the fuel barrels for the base and to top up the ship’s tanks with Antarctic blend fuel. This in itself was a source of endless acrimony on board. Pete decided that he would not take the fuel barrels on board in New Zealand as the ship was light on bunkers which would have made her top heavy and he was worried about the stability of the ship. We could only find the correct Antarctic blend fuel for the ship in Australia, a fact which I found hard to believe but which I was forced to swallow.

The delays caused by the diversion to Australia began to eat away at our Antarctic schedule. In order to see for myself what the problem with the fuel was, I went to a meeting with the Shell representative in town. It seemed that our reluctance to accept what was considered the incorrect blend of fuel in Sydney was misplaced and, in the opinion of Shell, was exactly the same blend as the fuel we were now planning, incredulously, to take from Mobil in Melbourne. The extra expense incurred, not to mention the additional delay we would face in having to call into Melbourne, convinced me that I had an obligation to confront Pete Bouquet with this news. I sat in his cabin and told him this further diversion was entirely unnecessary. His drawn face looked at me blankly. He called chief engineer Pieter to his cabin as I left, not wishing to incur Pieter’s wrath as being identified as the harbinger of such gloomy tidings to Pete. But Pete told him anyway that I had told him of this cock-up and Pieter never spoke another word to me – not a ‘good morning’, not a ‘hi’ – for the rest of the voyage. I could have done without making so powerful an enemy.

Regardless of the rights and wrongs of this confusion over the fuel, we were Melbourne-bound with light bunkers and no base camp fuel. It was time to get out of Sydney but the inevitable open day had to be organised first. The crew spent the day ushering hordes of people around the ship before the party started. Just as we were getting the beer opened, one of the engineers came up from the engine room to inform Pete and I that one of the generators had been tampered with. Oil had been drained from the sump and wires which would warn of an oil-shortage had been disconnected. Had we sailed without noticing the problem, the generator would have seized up completely without the engineers being warned and we would have had no choice but to turn back: going to the Antarctic in a non-ice-class vessel with two operating generators is bad enough: going with one generator and no back-up would have been reckless.

We did not need another controversy to fuel the fires of dissent and opposition to this trip. At a hastily convened meeting the crew agreed to ignore the incident, the better to keep the news from concerned loved ones at home, but inevitably, at 0200 I was woken by the watchman who told me the quay was lined with journalists who had heard the ship had been sabotaged. I spent the rest of the night being interviewed and doing my best to play down the story, but the headlines in the morning called for the ‘incident-prone’ voyage to be abandoned. Pete was in an inconsolable mood as we finally left for Melbourne and I felt in my bones this was a trip I should never have agreed to.

Last minute pleas by Australian ministers to abandon the voyage continued even after our departure. Yet, out of Sydney we sailed, the aft deck piled high with base camp sections covered by blue tarpaulins. Our tiny Hughes 300 helicopter – the flying lawnmower as pilot Dave Walley called it – was now safely encased, apart from the tail assembly which stuck out five feet, in a wooden box which our innovative carpenter Hugh had made in the space of a day and which in later years became a mobile home for itinerants in the back yard of Henk Haazen’s house in Auckland. In Melbourne, as the fuel was pumped into the ship’s bunkers and she began to settle more deeply in the water, the barrels of base camp fuel were loaded on board. They were loaded in the ‘tween deck until it was full to overflowing. Those that remained were lashed to the rails on both sides of the ship or stuffed into the deep pilot accesses around the waist of the ship.

Our vulnerabilities and frailties were starkly brought home to us by the rounds of criticism levelled at us routinely from officialdom, criticisms we did our best to shrug off and ignore. But we could not deny that we were an inexperienced crew in Antarctic travel and ice navigation and one which was still vengeful and moody at the sinking of the Warrior and the death of Fernando. Neither was the crew best pleased with the job it was being asked to do in a hopelessly inadequate vessel.

The hasty and unavoidably chaotic preparations nearly caused a fatality during barrel loading when I was driving the ship’s crane (after only minimal formal operating instructions from first mate Ken Ballard). I began to lower two 250kg barrels of base fuel into the port side pilot access in which Ken was standing, in order to guide them into a space only inches wider than the barrels themselves. As I dropped them slowly on the wire towards the access, the rim of one barrel caught the metal edge and released the tension on the barrel hooks and the barrel fell into the access. The thing that saved Ken – at least, saved him from a cracked skull if not saved his life – was that the barrel jammed diagonally across the narrow access and he was able to scramble out from beneath it. Without a word, he re-hooked the barrel and indicated that I should lift it and try again.

Finally, after a few more scares, we were leaving for the Antarctic at last. All the doubts and uncertainties were now so many shrugs of the shoulder. We slipped the moorings and I took the wheel. The pilot came on the bridge preceded by an overpowering smell of scotch and our fears were confirmed when he was seen sauntering out to the bridge wing with impolite frequency to take another swig from a hip-flask. The green flashing buoys were almost scraping the ship’s side before the pilot shouted from the bridge wing, ‘Hard a’starboard!’ I kept her on hard a’starboard as per the protocol until the starboard channel buoys were hard on our bow when the pilot reappeared and ordered, ‘Hard a’port!’ In this way we zig-zagged our way out of Melbourne, the final ignominy to set us on our way being that they sent us a pilot who appeared to be as high as a kite.

Dumping the pilot off for his ride home at the turning buoy, we were finally alone and the lights of Melbourne were already low on the horizon. Just the Southern ocean and the mighty Antarctic, about which I had read avidly since I was a kid, lay ahead. Scott, Shackleton, Amundsen, Ross, Mawson, even Cook – all had gone before us in ships made of wood and many in ships which had no mechanical power. And our destination was the very spot upon which Scott had stood before he left for his fateful race against time, against Amundsen and against the fearful Antarctic weather for the Pole. He lost. I was painfully aware that we might ‘lose’ insofar as we might not even make landfall and that the reputation of Greenpeace was, in part, dependent on this expedition and the achieving of the campaign objectives.

We met none of our objectives. The voyage was a disaster in that we did not achieve our goal. It was a disaster in terms of the fact that relationships between many crew members were strained to the point of physical violence. It was a disaster in terms of the fact that we spent close to $1 million simply stooging around the Ross Sea getting more and more frustrated. The ice was the most severe it had been in twenty years. We couldn’t get within 30 miles of our goal and many on board, after one or two attempts, were not willing to try further. Many wanted simply to go home, to get out of that ‘awful place’, to accept defeat and to return to the comforts of Auckland. Conversely, others, including myself, found the place so enchanting, so mind-bogglingly beautiful that we could have stayed there indefinitely. I hand over the narrative, interspersed with a few asides, recollections and anecdotes, to my diary of that trip: I hope it tells the story more dramatically yet in a more matter-of-fact way than any narrative I could write.

I have tried, above, to set the scene in terms of the background to the voyage and to the atmosphere and circumstances which prevailed before we set sail. It is also necessary to say a few general words about the crew, the people they were and how they came to be on the ship.

People who gravitated to Greenpeace – myself included – were generally, and for obvious reasons, attracted to a different kind of life than was considered normal. The crew selection process required that we appointed qualified people to the roles of running the ship and performing professional tasks associated with the expedition. In order to fulfil the prophesy of the ‘Warriors of the Rainbow’, we tried to recruit from as wide a range of nationalities as possible, but more importantly, given the need for generating media interest, we had to ensure that we could throw a wide net in terms of the nations in which we generated that interest. In the same way as we needed to recruit four winterers from different national backgrounds, but with the required skills to keep the base operating effectively for a year, so we needed a diversity of nationals possessing the required skills – radio operators, able seamen and seawomen, mates, engineers, small boat operators, outboard mechanics, cooks and helicopter pilots. The task of accumulating such a crew was no mean feat and inevitably some square pegs were required to do their best to sit in round holes. Over all though, the crews and, more particularly, the over-winter teams we appointed over six years, were exceptional and dedicated people with whom it was a privilege and an honour to sail, without exception.

The winter-over team was required to occupy the base for a year before being relieved by the re-supply team and a new group of winter-over people the following year. We made great demands of the potential team: not only would they be left to their own resources for an entire year in the most inhospitable environments on earth, but they would also be required to undertake work – experiments and research in the case of the scientists, medicine and health in the case of the doctor/nurse, maintenance in the case of the engineers, radio communications in the case of the sparks and field trips lead by the base ‘commander’ in the case of the appointed ‘leader’. Thus we needed a scientist, a field expert, someone skilled in radio/electronics and a qualified medic/doctor. The optimum gender balance of such a group was a constant and sometimes insoluble problem.

First Antarctic trip diary

December 1985 to February 1986

26 December 1985

See our first iceberg spotted at 0400. John Welsh (my cabin mate) wins sweepstake.

28 December 1985

Reach pack ice at 1000 and spend three days following edge, looking for a lead south. Find one which takes us 60 miles south then forced east and eventually north until a further promising lead appears on the 31st. We follow and promisingly still find open water ahead after 2 hours steaming, but Pete orders a northerly course due to deteriorating visibility and northerly wind and fog, fearing that ice will close in behind us.

Much consternation and dismay among the crew at Pete’s refusal to take the vessel into anything but large expanses of open water. Gerry (Johnson, base leader) states that we’ll never get there unless we commit ourselves to ice. Mood on board is worsening. I call a meeting for New Year’s Eve where Pete states he wants an ‘autobahn’ of clear water before heading south to McMurdo (660 miles away!) We continue travelling north to clear the ice pack where we heave to. Laurie Greenfield (scientist colleague at Christchurch University) telexes depressing news: eight to ten tenths pack ice reported in Ross Sea between 73 and 77 south (normally ice-free at this time of year).

2 January 1986

Decide to visit Scott Island (a phallic-looking rock outcrop) to relieve boredom. This will at least take us a further 35 miles further south. Alternatives to landfall at McMurdo now openly being discussed on board. John Sprange (mate) proposes – in writing – that we set up the base on King George Island, some 2000 miles away in the Peninsula. Axel (film producer) anxious to commit us to this course of action as he feels reports on conditions in Ross Sea and Pete’s reluctance to push south obviate McMurdo as a possible site.

I insist at a crew meeting that we must wait, be patient, as even if we don’t get to McMurdo until the beginning of February, we still have a chance of establishing the base camp. I state this position clearly and forcefully but there are already small committees meeting around the ship and proposals supported by various factions keep popping up. It’s my job to keep it together while we wait, but I only have the support of a few committed people and while they may be influential, I am faced with antipathy from many quarters, particularly those with a financial interest in the expedition.

4 January 1986

We move away from Scott Island for a rendezvous with Southern Quest (the vessel used by the Footsteps of Scott expedition supporting their land-based team, which was at that very moment walking in the ‘Footsteps of Scott’ to the South Pole). Dumont D’Urville (the French base 200 miles north of McMurdo) reported ice-free conditions in the sound which complicates the situation on board as Pete is now faced with more factors. Ice reports indicate an improvement and the wind is backing to the south which looks hopeful as Pete fears a northerly blocking our escape route.

5 January 1986

Forced east and north by the pack. Southern Quest (SQ) tells us, on the regular radio schedule we have now established, that she has just pushed through ice and is now 12 hours south of us, en route to Cape Hallet and that ice conditions are good. Pete agrees to go to the point where the SQ went through to check it out and hopes on board rise.

6 January 1986

At 1600 we are stopped due to zero visibility. Press calls ask for confirmation of reports (origin unknown) that we are beset and asking SQ for assistance. We quell these rumours in a press release but Pete moves around the ship in an aggressive and tetchy mood. Now Gerry and Axel are entering into a telex war against each other, both sending unauthorised tomes to McTaggart, one demanding the trip be cancelled (Axel), the other (Gerry) demanding we be allowed to continue.

11 January 1986

The most frustrating five days of the trip so far: fog-bound, stationary, tempers flaring and Pete continually curt and grumpy. We finally begin to make a southing on the 10th, but only after having retraced our steps to the north yet again. After lumping through ice-strewn waters to the north and east for 15 hours we come upon clear, open, ice-free water to the south. Whales (three minkes) surface close to the vessel and we follow them for 30 wonderful minutes with crew lining the rails. Stupendous!

Then the complaints begin again. Pieter complains that the fuel is waxing, people complain about the food and petty squabbles break out over the use of the television for watching videos. Gerry is ready to throw in the towel on ‘shambolic Greenpeace’. But when the course is between 150 and 190, the mood on board immediately improves. Spirits rise, tempers cool. At 2200 we’re still heading south and position is 71.15 South.

Then a disaster occurs. The SQ doesn’t come up for her schedule tonight. We call McMurdo control to learn that she sank earlier in the day, crushed between two large floes between which she was attempting to squeeze . All the crew are safe, having evacuated the ship to one of the floes. This news drains Pete of any remaining confidence, yet he doggedly continues to push south in the open water.

14 January 1986

Joy of joys! We’re at 77 South! 60 miles east of Beaufort Island. We can see Mounts Erebus and Terror shimmering magnificently on the horizon. Visibility is incredible – 120 miles! The ice reports cool our ardour: eight to ten tenths fast ice surrounding the northern edge of Ross Island, exposing only the far northerly tip of the island. Pete immediately wants to turn around and steam two days to the north to clear the outer pack ice at 69 South – 480 miles away from our destination. He fears that the pack behind us will shift and block our route out of the Ross Sea. His decision causes uproar on board and precipitates the worst period of time on board thus far. Most of the crew are deflated and angry. We are so near yet so far.

The SQ sinking has clearly been the deciding factor in Pete’s decision which forced his flagging confidence to collapse. Then the Australian science minister piles on the agony by faxing the ship with an appeal for us to abandon the expedition. Pete is short-tempered and grumpy, but the burden he bears is almost intolerable. The only bright spot today as we turned the ship around was seeing 30 fin and minke whales gambol around the ship for the best part of an hour. I steel myself to speak to Pete about his decision to steam north and he finally agrees to reduce speed although he refuses to change his decision and flatly refuses to stay close to Beaufort Island when the northern pack ice is still heavy and threatening.

15 January 1986

Killer whales all around the ship today. Launched inflatables for filming. Tried to get the ship into Cape Hallet but turned around as soon as a belt of ice appeared off the coast. The Admiralty Range of mountains is simply magnificent and seems to mock our pathetic attempts to get close.

16 January 1986

Steamed a further 100 miles north and stopped. We tested the drift and discover it is north east at one knot. Pete, Gerry, Ken and mates have first open and frank discussion with Pete today and he decides that we can risk going back to the coast as he finally seems to be convinced by the argument that the northern pack ice will not present a threat until at least the middle of February.

17 January 1986

Following the pack south, at last. Spirits soar with the southerly compass heading. Pete seems to have reversed all his earlier decisions. I secretly harbour the belief that he has spoken to McTaggart who has repeated his ‘take a look and then get out’ instructions to Pete, but whatever the reason Pete now wants to follow the pack ice edge, use the helicopter to fly the winterers to the Footsteps of Scott hut at Cape Evans to check it out as a potential over-wintering base for our team since it is now almost impossible to envisage us being able to erect our base in the limited time available to us, even if we somehow got into Cape Evans today.

Pete’s unpredictability is worrying. He announces without any reference to anyone that there will be changes on the watches and he removes me from the 8-12, replacing me with Klaus (the engineer!) I’m most worried by the fact that Pete’s change of heart is prompted by the belief that we need to spend only a few days off Ross Island before we call it a day and head back to Auckland. He wants to dash in, dash out and go home. That’s not on as far as I’m concerned and I determine to call Roger (Wilson, my campaign superior) and get him to instruct us to stay as long as possible.

Crew meeting was the most aggressive yet. Doug (Allen) and Edwin (Mickleburgh) are vociferous and negative about the use of the helicopter and Edwin shouts at me, telling me to abandon this effort before storming out of the meeting. Thanks Edwin. This outburst and the general negativity on board depresses the over-wintering team who have prepared for a year to winter in Antarctica. Just to add to the misery, Pieter (chief engineer) turns off the water, an act which had John Welsh reduced to melting ice cubes in the micro-wave to produce sufficient water to swallow asprins for a hangover! Then the final straw: Edwin writes a draft telex telling McTaggart that he and the over-wintering team (whom I’m sure he has not consulted) feel the campaign should be terminated.

A blazing row between Edwin and I ensues and I tell Edwin that just at the point when we’re doing what the majority on board want to do – head south, check out the ice, visit the Cape Evans site and salvage something from the expedition – he wants to send this garbage to torpedo the effort and to scuttle any vestiges of unity we have belatedly found. I’m beside myself with indignation. I tell him that he’s now barred from entering into any discussions with anyone about tactics, that he should henceforth accept his passenger role and keep his nose out of anything but his responsibility to document the trip for his book, which I tell him to shove where the sun doesn’t shine. That’s it! I’m finished with Edwin and his book and I’m finished with this trip!

18 January 1986

Like me, Pete is in a black mood. He calls me at 0400 and shows me a telex from Roger which instructs us (at my prompting) to stay at least until the 20 February. He is furious and clearly had his heart set on going home within days. The prospect of staying in this place, which he clearly hates, for another month, is simply too much for him to bear. He finally calms down and contributes to the press release and update I send out later. We are still south-bound. The water is back on. Shower. Luxury.

19 January 1986

The Footsteps of Scott expedition people can’t allow us to use their hut as a winter-over point as their own team plan to winter there this year. Even the Foreign Office back home has advised Footsteps to have nothing to do with us. Access to Ross Island is clearly impossible – heavy pack ice is still surrounding McMurdo Sound as far out as Beaufort Island. We steam along the Ross Ice Shelf by way of a distraction. The shelf is about 70 feet high and quite breathtaking. A 40 knot wind and a minus five temperature create real Antarctic atmosphere. It is a spectacular place and the mood is enhanced by the presence of hundreds of penguins ‘porpoising’ through the sea. But depression grips my heart as the realisation of the impossibility of our task dawns on me. All we can do is get the helicopter airborne, fly into Cape Evans and carry out an inspection, then back to New Zealand.

The situation is made worse by the fact that we are only 30 miles from Cape Evans by air. Steamed 25 miles NE and waited in force eight gale for better weather. Agreed to put the helicopter up to survey the coast. Dave Walley really is an excellent pilot. We have no helideck on board and are forced to launch the chopper by lifting it from its box on the starboard side aft with the crane and setting it down on a plywood surface we have constructed on top of the cargo on the aft deck. Dave takes off from here and lands back on this tiny wooden platform, hovering in the chopper with the tips of the blades almost clipping the superstructure. I take my hat off to his flying skills. Yet even the distractions of the chopper flying, and the sense of getting at least something done, does not quell arguments and I’m assailed with criticism from people about the value of the surveys we’re carrying out.

20 January 1986

A telex arrives from GP HQ in Lewes: ‘Please stay in the Ross Sea for as long as you can and carry out as much useful work as possible. The date you leave is a decision for you to make on board, based on safety and on the work you identify as being supportive of our Antarctic programme. The offloading of the fuel in readiness for next year at a suitable site would be a valuable contribution.’ Well, that threw the ball back to us quite quickly! Pete and I agree to mull over the telex for a day or two. We steam back past Beaufort Island to Ross Island, 35 miles east of Cape Bird with pack ice receding, but still very heavy where it concentrates along the coast and across the mouth of McMurdo Sound. The US Coast Guard ship, Polar Star, moves steadily along in the middle of the ice, cutting her way to McMurdo. The temptation to ask Pete to steam down the channel she cuts is overwhelming, but I resist.

21 January 1986

Sleep most of the day. Hilary phones and I suddenly realise how much I miss her and how homesick I am. At the crew meeting Pete relays the information that the US authorities at McMurdo informed him today that they would be removing their aircraft from the area by the 5th February and their shipping by the 12th February, in advance of the winter and the colder temperatures. I incur his scorn when I voice my opinion that this information is bullshit and designed to pressure us into leaving earlier. Criticism comes about the impending attempt to offload the fuel as it will commit us to a site which may not be found suitable next year.

Some other bright spark argues that the base could be damaged and that offloading would not allow an inspection back in Auckland. I point out that it’s a bit late for those fears to be raised now and I dismiss the criticism as a ruse to negate the necessity for staying. I note that they all come from the ‘get out of here now’ contingent. Axel loses it and walks out of the crew meeting shouting ‘No more waiting!’ Asshole. Then Bernt threatens to ‘tell the world he’s being held hostage.’

I can’t believe what I’m hearing and I can’t stop myself from laughing which infuriates him. Later in the day Pete hears that the second US ice-breaker, Polar Buck, reports 14 miles of ice pack to the north. Pete flips and tells me we’re pulling out as soon as the helo flight is over. I notify South Pole (can’t raise McMurdo) of our intentions to operate the helicopter – times, positions, type, safety frequencies etc – which is acknowledged with a promise to pass to McMurdo flight control.

Helo ready to lift at midnight with Doug on board for pictures and Gerry to go to Cape Evans. At least Gerry will get to see the place where he was to winter. Agree with Pete that we’ll stay until the 5th February unless he feels we should leave earlier due to safety reasons. Bed at 0330.

22 January 1986

Up at 0730 for press calls. Dave Walley reports from last night’s helo flight that clear water is to be found to the north of Ross Island, down to Cape Royds, with large slabs of pack ice off the coast. We could get in but should the pack move while we’re in the Sound, we’d be trapped. Indeed, the pack moved to the north of us in the night forcing Pete to steam 20 miles north to keep our escape route open. We watch the video Gerry shot on the helo flight and the clear water in the Sound is so, so tempting. We could definitely get into Cape Bird, but the danger from the shifting pack precludes my even mentioning this to Pete. I reluctantly prepare a ‘time running out’ press release.

23 January 1986

Four hours sleep again last night, but it is a day for decision-making. Dave Woolan misses the radio schedule with Gerry who was airlifted back to Cape Evans in the night. Great start to the day. The mates, Pete, me, Doug and Edwin (the last two uninvited) agree to leave after we have 

1. Completed the assessment of Cape Evans.

2. Detailed the access to the beach there, for next year’s effort.

3. Carried out filming for ITN who have contracted Axel to shoot a few cans of film for them, and

4. Allowed Axel to film as much of the area as he needs to.

February 1st has been designated by Greenpeace International as ‘World Park Antarctica Day’ and we further agree that on that day, we will ensure all the crew have a chance to set foot on Antarctica, probably at the Bay of Whales from where Amundsen made his successful bid for the Pole in 1911. Pete began the meeting in a perfectly foul mood until he realised that an end to his agony was in sight, at which point he visibly changed his whole demeanour and attitude, becoming almost jovial. Edwin and Doug, however, are aggressive and negative again and I wish they’d keep their noses out of campaign business.

Sleep from 1500-1800 and awake to learn that Pete is still not prepared to go into the Sound. Ralph John, the wintering scientist, is flown to Cape Evans, but later Gerry’s trip is cancelled due to bad communications. Dave performs his amazing helicopter landing feat again while I steer the ship into the wind to give him maximum lift. Dave’s a really nice guy, always ready to smile and have a joke amid this sea of bitterness and bad humour. A few beers with Ken in the evening, talking over life’s problems and ironies. Bed at 0300.

24 January 1986

Up at 10.15 and luxuriate in an absence of phone calls. Lazy day doing nothing and avoiding the cliques and little knots of people who have lately taken to muttering to each other in corridors. Axel away filming at Cape Bird and we get his ITN film out via the Kiwis at Scott Base. Steak for dinner, courtesy of Gerry. Much to-ing and fro-ing and flying around until 0300 which I blithely ignore.

25 January 1986

We steam away from the ice every day after having completed our business at the ice edge. I have given up all hope of doing anything remotely useful in terms of setting up the base, offloading fuel etc. It’s simply a political non-starter and I’m now staring at the reality of leaving this incredible, enigmatic place within a matter of days.

26 January 1986

Last helicopter flights today. We simply need to collect Gerry from Cape Evans and we can then carry out our World Park Day activities and go home. Another acrimonious crew meeting at which Doug in particular is so aggressive. Then we turn east for the Bay of Whales. It’s seems like the beginning of the end for this trip and a great weight lifts from my shoulders after having accepted the inevitable.

27 January 1986

Press calls stream in, relating to a statement the New Zealand government put out claiming that the short visit to Scott Base by Gerry was ‘very disruptive’ to their scientific programme. I reply that dumping waste and old vehicles into the sensitive McMurdo Sound is quite disruptive to the fragile Antarctic ecosystem.

28 January 1986

Arrive at the Bay of Whales around 1700. It’s blowing hard with a grey, steely, overcast sky. The wind blowing off the shelf is bitter, but the scene before us is archetypal Antarctic. Seals and penguins lie or stand, coated in wind-driven snow, oblivious to our presence. Leopard seals, crab-eater seals, Adelie and Emperor penguins dot the low ice sheet which occupies the Bay itself, perhaps ten miles long. The ice slope rises gradually to a series of ice-falls and hummocks, a mile inland, before the Antarctic land mass abuts it in the shape of a well-defined step. It is argued that the presence of Roosevelt Island some miles inland causes the ice to part when it flows past the island, weakening the ice front and giving rise to the conditions which form the Bay of Whales.

It was named by Sir James Clark Ross in 1840. When he arrived here the sea was literally full of whales, but today we have seen only the occasional orca – maybe one or two minkes. We secure the ship bow-on to the ice, initially using ‘deadmen’ sunk into the ice. Then Pete brings the ship alongside the ice and we secure her again port side to. We take great care to ensure she is well fastened to the ice: if the ship was to drift off into the Ross Sea here, when we are all ashore, we would be well and truly kyboshed.

My personal feeling that we are intruding in this ‘cathedral’ grows: it is stunningly beautiful, but I’ll be glad when we leave. We simply don’t deserve to see such a staggering place. We are too crass, noisy and intrusive. I eventually find space to go ashore on my own – most of the crew have wandered off into the further reaches of the ice shelf and I spend my time taking photos of the wildlife and sketching an Emperor penguin. Pete has cause to sound the recall signal – two blasts on the klaxon – since many people are cavorting under the ice falls, something we were specifically warned against doing since it is a highly dangerous pastime. Bed at 0130 when the party on the ice begins. I’m not best pleased at the antics of some crew members which I find irreverent. Thank God we don’t have a news journalist on board. Can’t sleep tonight at the prospect of organising the World Park Day celebrations tomorrow.

29 January 1986

Crew arranged in a choreographed manifestation of united celebration, down the gang-plank and spilling onto the ice for the photo of our Antarctic day celebrations. It’s a hollow gesture and one which is thankfully soon over. News of Scott Base personnel being fired for talking to the media reaches us. I’m asked to do a bridge watch from 1000-1200, at which point we let go the ropes and head off to the east to explore what lies beyond the Bay of Whales and then no doubt we’ll head for Auckland.

30 January 1986

Hilary phones to tell me she’s going to India with some guy who is gay. She tells me she misses me very much, words which at this distance, and under these circumstances, mean a lot to me. Then we get a call from a friend at Scott Base who tells us that McMurdo Sound is finally and totally ice-free. I slump on my bunk in a state of utter dejection.

31 January 1986

We arrive at Ross Island to see our westerly approach to McMurdo still blocked by an ice barrier although it is quite possible that clear water exists on the western side. Maddeningly, the weather is too bad to operate the helicopter so we head north to round the ice barrier. I call a crew meeting to explain the situation and am criticised for keeping people in the dark about activities and plans, and for ‘politicking’. Then Warren (helicopter mechanic) tells the meeting that he’s had it playing batman to Dave Walley who ‘thinks he’s still flying biplanes in the Great War’ and promptly ‘resigns’. After the cathartic crew meeting, things seem to have calmed down and we agree to heave to for the night.

I can’t quite believe that, after all this time and all the arguments and frustrations, we’re here in the desired place and that we can now access McMurdo if only we can negotiate this band of ice which blocks our path. I pace around the ship for most of the night, consulting people on their feelings about having one last go at getting to Cape Evans, but for all my persuading the overwhelming attitude is a desire to get the hell out of here to stop any further carping. If I’m honest with myself, I know I’m fighting a lost cause but I can’t believe we’re just going to sail out of here when there’s still a full month of the summer left.

I wander into the saloon around midnight to find Davey Edward in an unusually foul mood. He lays into Dermot the electrician, accusing him of being lazy and work-shy. He throws two punches before he’s restrained. He then turns his attention to Klaus (third engineer) and berates him for taking hard-earned Greenpeace money to ‘sit on board for a tour of the Antarctic’ and squares up to him too. The aftermath is a nightmare. Davey is inconsolable and begins smashing things up. I grab him and he sobs on my shoulder. Ken is called and before long we steer Davey back to his cabin. Warren approaches me and tells me that he apologises for his earlier outburst and that he’s now back ‘working’. I can’t stand much more of this.

1 February 1986

I call a crew meeting at 1300 to clear the air and Pete announces that in future, the crew will run the ship and others are to act as passengers and stop offering him advice. Then he announces in sombre, fateful words, ‘I’ve altered course to the north. We’re going back to New Zealand’, at which the ‘get out of here’ contingent – Axel and his film crew, Doug, Edwin and a few of the crew – raise a cheer. It’s all over then. The bubble has finally burst. Just a few miles to the east lies Pete’s ‘autobahn’ to McMurdo which we have finally found a month too late. Ironically, Hilary phones to congratulate us on ‘finally landing at Cape Evans’, another distorted press story. And so we head for New Zealand.

2 February 1986

Heading north. Southerly wind. Following sea. Heavy roll. Bored, worried, fed up and sick of it all.

3 February 1986

Table tennis championship lightens mood, prompted by Bernt finding a long-lost ping pong ball in his pocket, and accommodated by the engineers who make a net and rubber-faced bats in record time. You can’t help but laugh when the ball you’re just about to smash across the table is suddenly stuck to the bulkhead above you due to the ship dropping through a trough and you’re swiping at thin air. I’m the beaten finalist. Then Bernt steps on the ping-pong ball. Very symbolic.

4 February 1986

65, 42 south at 22.00. Invited to Campbell Island. Press report indicates that NZ Premier Lange has promised a review of Antarctic policy. Long. slow swell, pitching easily.

I finished my diary for the trip at this point, although there was still a surprise in store for us. Pete and the base leader on Campbell Island had a minor set-to and we left the island under a cloud of acrimony. Pete decided not to speak to me for the rest of the trip after I told him I thought he acted inappropriately on Campbell in his capacity as skipper. The island itself, however, was a wonderland of wildlife: penguins, sea-lions and elephant seals abounded on this rocky upthrust in the middle of the Southern Ocean and we spent an enchanted time wandering over the island for the best part of the day, before the party that evening.

And so, we eventually approached the southern tip of New Zealand’s south island and took a spin around the Snares, an outcrop of rock which acts as a sanctuary for birds. The weather was wild and my abiding memory of that visit is standing on deck in brilliant sunshine, hanging on for grim death as the ship bucketed and plummeted in wild seas around the island. For the first time in months we could walk around on deck in summer clothes. The effect was liberating and the mood of the crew began to mellow. People began talking to each other and to patch up old wounds. As the prospect of reaching port loomed larger and larger, it was as though the crew once more became a cohesive and self-protective unit.