EPILOGUE Final Voyages: "Rainbow Warrior's" Sendoff & Other Greenpeace Adventures

Episode 1

Readying the "Rainbow Warrior" for Sea, Winter 1984

Just back to the Hudson Valley after their epic summer trip to Canada in the lifeboat "Manzanita", Dave and the newly pregnant Sarah are navigating the next challenge: where to live for the winter and how to support themselves and prepare for the baby's arrival. And how to lend a hand with various activist adventures in the never-ending struggle to save the world. Sarah's journal continues.

Last spring my main accomplishment was to get a Coast Guard license to take out charter passengers on 100-ton vessels. We sailed all summer in our rowboat, went up to Canada. Then this fall, just when I was looking for a few months living quietly on shore, a friend called up and asked us to work for Greenpeace in Florida, starting by sailing a boat from Connecticut to Jacksonville. David was eager to do it, and who wouldn't want to work for Greenpeace?

September 27

We have bought a used and rusted '72 Ford pickup truck, Old Rusty by name, which has so far behaved very well but needs extensive body work.

Drove to Beacon for the Clearwater Annual Meeting, a blowout of singing, square dancing and eating. Saw all our friends there. David told them all I was pregnant. Our pals Emma and Gregg are having a baby too! And Emma is due within a few days of when I am. They aren't getting married either, and don't have a place to live or a job for the winter either.

Spent a couple of days with Betty Boomer and Tinya Seeger, discussing midwives and homebirth options. We went up to the Seegers' to look at a carpentry job we've agreed to do, building removable winter entry sheds onto their two dwellings.

Dave was inspired at the annual meeting to organize Clearwater's opposition to basing a nuclear missile armed strike force on Staten Island, and has been rushing about for the past few days doing that.

Oct. 2

Back in limbo. Our travels are not over yet. Peter Willcox called last week with offers of Greenpeace boat delivery and maintenance jobs for the next two to three months. Looks like we'll be leaving sometime within the next week to sail a boat from Essex, Connecticut to Florida. In ways it's exciting, in ways terrifying and depressing to me, uprooting us when I needed to settle down and was looking forward to singing again. I enjoy singing more than sailing these days. We will not work for the Seegers, a disappointment to us and to them, unless the trip is postponed for some reason. It's the height of Hurricane season, and all my warm clothes are 200 miles away at Mom's house.

Oct. 8

Chaos and confusion reign. The Florida trip was put off, perhaps cancelled. We should find out today. We worked up at Seegers' for four days and completed one of the two entry sheds. David's grandmother, who had a gala 90th birthday party yesterday, has dropped the dramatic announcement that she had a dream in which her late husband told her to give me the wedding ring she's worn for sixty years, since she does not need it any more. Not sure what to make of this, but meanwhile we said we'd sail the "Woody Guthrie" to Albany at dawn, Willcox hasn't called yet, and we're due back at Seeger's at some point. Complete pandemonium, except we're too tired to pay any attention to it all.

Oct. 12

Anchored off of New Baltimore in the "Woody", morning of the fourth day of our trip to Albany. Mostly north wind, but not much rain yet. Five us on board including Pete Seeger, so they would be short handed without us.

We called Willcox night before last and got a message from him that he's "ready to leave when we are." Unwelcome news. I had just made a doctor's appointment for next week, and he's ready to leave tomorrow.

Depressed about the whole thing. We'll have to make sure we're getting paid by Greenpeace.

Thirteen miles from Albany. We might make it there today, and might not. My heart's not in this sailing.

Oct 15

On the road towards Ridgefield, to finally get ready for the trip to Florida. I tried to hold out for completing our work at Seegers', and keeping the doctor's appointment, but to no avail. David wouldn't stick by me, so now we're both going sailing at the height of hurricane season.

We sailed for a morning on "Clearwater" in Albany, visited with the crew. Gregg was the skipper; I compared pregnancies with Emma. She and Gregg might sail to Newfoundland or Norway next summer on the schooner "Te Vega", baby and all, and in a moment of enthusiasm, I even said we should go too.

Oct. 24

Jacksonville Florida. Very glad the trip is over. One week, a lot of motoring. I wasn't as seasick as I could have been, but I was unmotivated to do anything other than stand watch and try to feed myself.

It feels so good to be motionless.

The last night we slept in Garrison, I dreamed of a healthy little boy, blond like David. Not a newborn baby, but a toddler, clambering around. It told it to try to drink from my breast, that my milk might not have come in yet. But it had come in and the baby drank.

Oct. 27

We safely arrived in Florida last week, after an uneventful week long trip from Essex, Connecticut. Peter Willcox was the only other person along besides David and I, and the boat was a new and shiny fiberglass yacht, 48 feet long, donated as a tax write off. Although it was equipped with sails, we used the engine for most of the trip. Luckily the weather was calm and windless for the most part and no hurricanes crossed our path. We stopped very briefly at Norfolk, Virginia to refuel, and then, rather than going into the inland waterway, we went outside Cape Hatteras, a thrill I could have done without. But the weather was uneventful, so it was alright. I did not particularly enjoy the trip. I was seasick part of the time, but now that we're here I feel much better.

One bizarre little incident occurred early one morning, just after sunrise, when I was alone on watch, steering while the other two slept. A submarine partially emerged and traveled along with me for half an hour or so, with its conning tower and part of the hull visible. I have to say that after glancing at it I paid very little attention to it in my sleep deprived state, and did not wake up my shipmates to see the sight. Not sure the nationality of the sub but it was a big one. Not being a fan of naval warfare, I didn't even wave at them, so I did very little to boost morale for the sailors, whoever they were, other than perhaps just being a welcome sight in their periscope.

We stopped at some scenic locales along the way, not on purpose but because of engine trouble, at St. Augustine and Marineland Park.

The first place we stayed at in Florida was a up a little mangrove creek in the boonies off of the St. John's river at Jacksonville, a small marina where Greenpeace has amassed a flotilla of donated boats. We worked for several days varnishing and scrubbing decks to get one of these, a 96' luxury motor yacht, all dolled up to be taken to Fort Lauderdale to a boat show. They hope to foist it off on someone for a million dollars. It is very fancy indeed, with marble floors in the dining room, draperies that "cost $22,000.", and is quite a paradox in the hands of the radical Greenpeace organization.

The weather was warm and pleasant, and we have a good group of people to work with and no shortage of interesting stories about Greenpeace from all its employees. We are not getting paid much here. I'm making pretty good money by my standards, but David has really taken a pay cut. According to Peter it's a miracle that we're getting anything. Usually people volunteer for years before getting paid by this outfit. We are seeing a strange angle of it, the fundraising end, which in this case is like a busy little yacht brokerage. Quite a contrast between this and the image of throwing one's self between the hunter and the baby seal.

We were assigned to crew on the floating palace, the MV "Hartline", to Ft. Lauderdale. The plan was to go straight down the Florida coast, a 36 hour run. But we soon discovered that none of the navigation lights work for running at night, so we pulled into St. Augustine after four hours to find an electrician, a welcome stop as far as I'm concerned since the diesel fumes were getting to me. Everyone ran around trying to fix the lights, scheming to run the lights off of the battery of the Honda Civic which was perched on the cabin top. We got a full night's sleep in the meantime, plus a stroll around the city in the evening.

Fort Lauderdale when we arrived was the epitome of Florida hotspots, especially at the ritzy marina where we stayed. The annual boat show was in progress: a celebration of yachts, consumerism, and the wealthy boat owner image. Luckily we were able to escape overnight to stay with some old friends of David's, refugees from Ridgefield, in their condo by the sea, to eat key lime pie and drink fresh squeezed orange juice.

I finally went to a doctor last week and was pronounced physically fit to bear a child, had all the blood tests done. Heard the baby's heartbeat through an amplified stethoscope. For the last month now I've been feeling the baby jumping and stretching inside me, like Roo in Kanga's pouch.

Nov. 7

The baby is due on April Fools' day. It moves around inside me like a little kitten. Right now I'm more concerned with eating enormous quantities of food and vitamins that getting seasick and breathing welding fumes for Greenpeace. It would be different if we were actually involved in saving baby turtles or something, but we're doing boat maintenance on the "Rainbow Warrior", which is going to Hawaii and New Zealand and Antarctica , but not taking us along.

Today I was driven from the boat by clouds of lead paint and welding fumes, and the sound of a power grinder working on steel plates.

Last night, listening to the election night news, Peter said, "Shit. Four more years of Reagan? I'm getting out of here just in time. Next stop New Zealand. " In ways I wish I was going there too. If any of the chosen crew can't make the trip for some reason, David and I would try to sign up to go in their place.

Nov. 19

Raining in Jacksonville. On board the "Rainbow Warrior", all is its usual chaos: generator roaring, disgruntled trio of welders sitting out the rain, naval architect exiting hurriedly to avoid rush hour, boat's captain Peter Willcox and manager conferring in a cabin as the crew from the yard lower an immense steel tank onto the deck in an attempt to make the stern rise a little higher out of the water.

Been working for "Greenpeace" for over a month now. First the week of delivering the sailboat down from Connecticut. Then a week of working in the old river queen "Hartline", taking her down to Ft Lauderdale for display at the boat show. Now three weeks of living and working on the "Warrior", first at the backwater of Green Cove Springs and now at a desolate wharf beside the Gator Bowl. We're supposed to try again this evening to go up on the slip across the river. Our attempt three days ago had us aground several times despite the efforts of two tugboats; hence the steel tank and various other attempts to decrease the overall draft by pumping water and fuel from tank to tank .

My belly is big, my baby squirms and plays inside of me. As of two days ago, there are two other women on board, which makes a big difference, makes it better to be here. One is Danish and one's from New Zealand: Ulle and Bunny.

Nov. 20

At loose ends in the mess, listening to The Band on the tape deck and drinking Celestial Seasonings tea: trappings of my culture, transitory and arbitrary. The boat is out of the water and successfully over the mudflat that had impeded us the other day. The air is full of the sicky sweet smell of the nearby pulp mill. David is off somewhere in the bilges risking life and limb to inspect empty tanks by crawling into them.

Outside is gray and chilly. An elaborate steel staircase has ben tack-welded to the side of the ship for easy escape and access.

The table is spread with month old activist newspapers, the galley torn apart in the midst of a huge cleaning effort by Bunny. Peter's voice echoes up from the engine room where he and Davy, the short little British engineer, are up to something, trying to hook up shore power, I think. Ulle is welding something down in the hold, maybe a pipe to reinforce the mainmast step. She has been working as a welder, being trained for it in Denmark, for the past five years. She just came down from the Women's Peace Camp at Seneca, where among other things she and the other inhabitants walked on beds of glowing coals.

Bunny is fresh off the Baltic ketch "Fri", back from a trip to Nicaragua where they did a cargo run of milk powder and rubber boots for the Nicaraguan government. "Fri" is the same boat we wrote to from Gibraltar, wistfully hoping they might stop there and pick us up on their way across the Atlantic. They were in Amsterdam at that time.

"Fri" had picked up a load of soybeans from the the Farm in Tennessee to try to distribute them in the Caribbean. Now she is in St. Augustine, with no money, and needs some planking work done.

Episode last night with one of the resident rats, which has eaten the poison left out for it and was staggering around the after washroom. It went partway down a drain but left its tail sticking out. I tried to pick it up with a pair of tongs from the engine room but it wouldn't let go of its hole. Poured some water down the drain and crawled, or backed part way out again. Later it had moved and gone down the hole, we think, because Peter threw a whole bucketful of water down and it just drained away easily, not blocked by any furry, poisoned body.

We are like the rat, just being poisoned a little slower.

Nov. 23

Still up on drydock with no hot water, no stove, and no working toilets. Colder weather, a storm yesterday. We had Thanksgiving dinner with the parents of an ex-crew member, Kevin Downing, who has been hanging out and volunteering on the job. I got a glimpse of myself in a full length mirror and I have definitely increased in size. Broad and wide.

Caught two rats in the traps yesterday, and found a dead one under the stove. I'm lurking in the cabin reading a mediocre novel.

Nov. 24

The weather cleared up today: warm in the sun, cool in the shade, breezy. I wiggled the bicycle out under the chain on the locked gate and went for a ride among all the suburban houses.

Last night Ulle held a pendulum made from her earing on a string over my belly, and divined by its oscillations that I'm going to have a girl. With my vivid dream of nursing a boy child, I'm content in my complete uncertainty.

Dec. 4

Escaping paint fumes in the Jacksonville University library. I biked here on the rusty red boat bike, leaving the others to wrestle with the steel plates, anchor chains, dead rats down the drain, and so on. Horrendous epoxy paint fumes woke us this morning moments before the welder's generator came roaring to life.

On the bright side, until I remember that as the designated cook I'm responsible for feeding them, we have quite a crowd here now, with more arriving daily and all working eagerly away. Bunny, the thin dark haired New Zealand live wire, will be joined today by her sweetheart, Henk, a tall blond Dutchman with a long braid down his back. Martini, another Dutchman , is first mate: tall, witty, skinny, dark haired, like a wired junkie, having a new romance with Hanne, the Danish enginerette. Grace, the surfing champion from Ireland reminds me of my blonde skier friend Susie Dodge, physically and even in the shape of the jaw: athletes, balance artists. Grace is an expert scuba dive and risked her life diving amongst nuclear waste barrels being dumped in the Irish sea. A bespectacled young Swiss doctor from Doctors Without Borders arrived last night. Peter, the skipper, is the only American on the crew for the voyage and I think the Europeans find us quite barbaric. Showing Natalie, the newly arrived Belgian cook, the "Bread " section of the Pick & Save supermarket, was an embarrassment as she comes from a family of professional bakers. She was in a state of shock when she saw the aisle full of Wonder Bread and anxiously asked whether there wasn't some other aisle to buy actual bread anywhere in the store. There wasn't.

Six more dinners to cook before I leave, back north for Christmas and maybe for much longer.

I haven't yet resented cooking here, it not being my favorite role, but the hungry hordes are increasing. Martini and a delegation of suspicious shipmates brought me a carton of orange juice which smelled bad, and I took a sniff and had them throw it out immediately. I had admittedly been watering the OJ to make it stretch further, but that lowered its sugar content enough to make it susceptible to fermentation. Cooking it is not my first choice of jobs. However, in my pregnant state it is the least toxic job available, so it makes sense for me to do it.

The library is a welcome refuge today, but you can only spend so many days reading magazines. I had a doctor appointment yesterday: good strong baby heartbeat, forty dollar fee. Ulle wanted me to ask the doctor about scabies for her, since she may have been exposed. I had to imply it was me, which set off a panic in which the doctor examined me for scabies nits and found grit from the sandblasting in my pubic hair, which he identified as parasite eggs.

Jan. 6

I'm back in the Hudson Valley, pregnant as a watermelon. David is still in Florida for a few weeks. Not really sure when he will be back, but it should be by the end of the month at the latest. I wish he was up here with me, but I feel that if I seem to restrain him now or take away his last few months of freedom, he'll blame me for it later.

I have moved into a funky old slum of a house in Garrison , but I love it and my friends live here. I can see the Hudson river out my window as I lie in bed. The house is always bustling with activity, full of people and music, and I've been keeping busy running around collecting baby things, singing at benefits for Nicaragua or Ethiopia, and visiting the midwife.

March 16

David is back . Just before he left Florida and Greenpeace, he was arrested and thrown in jail for 24 hours, not for any ecological protest but for sassing a bouncer and getting kicked out of a bar in Jacksonville.

EPILOGUE Part 1:

Excerpt from the book "Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior", by David Robie

Back in Jacksonville, things were moving. But slowly. A few more people had arrived yet there seemed to be confusion over how to fit a trawler with a sailing rig.

Skipper Peter Willcox, the 32-yera old American who had been in charge of the "Rainbow Warrior" for the past three years, was on hand by the end of October. So were two friends of his, Sarah Underhill and David Rohl [sic.] Ulla Thomsen, a highly skilled 24-year old Danish fitter and turner who had been working her trade for six years, got on with the welding. Chief engineer Davey Edward, 32, a laconic Yorkshireman with experience as a merchantman on flag carriers such as the Blue Line, and North Sea oil rigs, arrived at the same time.

The "Warrior" was slipped at Marvin's Boatyard and Lane Crane Services, not far from the Pearl Bridge spanning St. John's river. The trawler was surrounded by tug boats and a rusty scrap metal dump.

Depressing. The crew grew to intensely dislike Jacksonville. A tiny cubbyhole passed for a Greenpeace office in the city and they had little local support. The Pacific seemed like a faraway dream as winter came.

Everybody worked long hours, dawn to dusk, sometimes six or seven days a week. They were tired and there were few diversions, just a dingy bar nearby and occasional forays to a cinema.

One evening, about eight of the crew and workers on the "Warrior" ended up in a real hillbilly nightspot. A huge taco sauce bottle stood in the middle of the dance floor. The band was playing country and western. All the bouncers were dressed in black, and they were bored stiff.

The "Warrior " crew got strange looks from the locals, partly because of their slightly shabby clothes. David [Hval] was wearing a tank top, having dragged off a pullover. A bouncer sauntered over.

"Hey, man, yer not allowed to wear that thing in here", he said, leaning menacingly over the carpenter."Take 'er off"

Rohl took him at his word and pulled off the tank top, exposing his chest, to put on the pullover.

A couple of bouncers pounced on him and wrenched his neck in a headlock. In moments it was a brawl. Rohl, Martini Gotje and Hanne Sorensen were arrested and tossed into a cell for the night. "

EPILOGUE Part 2:

[Sarah's journal]

July 11,1985

Dad came driving up unexpectedly today to our cabin and tipi site out in the wilds. He brought the local paper with the following news:

UPI/AP

GREENPEACE FLAGSHIP EXPLODES

Auckland, New Zealand- At least two "suspicious" explosions ripped through a Greenpeace trawler in a New Zealand harbor, sinking the vessel and killing a photographer, an official of the environmental group said yesterday.

The explosions rocked the Greenpeace flagship "Rainbow Warrior", a 160-foot trawler as it lay anchored at its dock in Auckland where it was in the midst of a six-month campaign against the French nuclear tests in the South Pacific.

Navy divers found the body of a Greenpeace photographer, Fernando Pereira. 30, a Portuguese native, shortly after the "Rainbow Warrior" went down.

The blasts rocked nearby buildings and several people on board were flung or jumped into the harbor as the vessel heeled over.

Greenpeace spokesman Bryn Jones said the ship sank by its stern but the bow was still tied to the dock in the Auckland harbor.

"We've spoken to the police and they are treating the death as a homicide which means obviously they think this was an act of sabotage," Jones said.

"Our impression in talking to members of the crew was that some kind of explosive device was attached to the stern which accounted for the explosions which sank the boat within a matter of minutes," he said.

"Our actions are all peaceful direct actions, " Jones said at a news conference earlier. "We never endanger anybody else's lives. We have not in the past provoked this kind of response."

Jones said it was the first death of an active Greenpeace member in the history of the organization, which formed in 1971 in Canada and adopted "confrontational policies."

Eleven people were reported to have been in the ship for the night when the first blast occurred.

After the first explosion, Pereira and another crewman went aboard to investigate. The crewman returned to the quay before the second blast, which killed Pereira.

In Washington, Chris Cook, national director of Greenpeace, said the rest of the crew was accounted for.

Pete Willcox, the American skipper of the vessel, said: "We don't know what happened. Thee were some loud bangs, the boat shook and we sank within four minutes. I had only time to walk off."

The "Rainbow Warrior", a converted Scottish trawler that had recently undergone $135,000 of work in Florida, arrived in Auckland on Sunday and was to have led a protest flotilla on a four-month Pacific cruise. It was to have visited the French nuclear testing site at Muroroa Atoll and to urge people in Australasia not to dump nuclear waste in the sea.

The 30-year-old ship has been seized in numerous countries since Greenpeace bought it in 1977 and used it to campaign against whaling, pollution and nuclear power.

Greenpeace has three other vessels. In May it announced it was sending its newest ship, the "Greenpeace", to Antarctica to establish a permanent base and claim the entire continent as parkland.

Further Adventures with Greenpeace: Toxic Trade Patrol Caper

Journal Entry, Nov. 9, 1987

In early September, word came from Greenpeace that they wanted us down in Philadelphia for an action against exporting toxic incinerator ash to Panama. Dave was to sail down with the Greenpeace ketch "Mondcivitano" , a 60' wooden cruiser which we had been living on and sailing for the summer. Our Clearwater/Greenpeace friends Kevin Downing and Melissa Ortquist, also bound for the Action in Philly, would be driving down with me and two year old Jake in the cream colored Cadillac owned by Greenpeace hot air balloonist Flip Templeton.

They met me in Norwalk, Connecticut, at the Willcox's, and the next day we set off. The trip went quickly and we soon found ourselves threading our way through the streets of inner city Philadelphia.

We eventually located "The Crossings", a group home/youth hostel in a big old three story house. It was teeming with Greenpeacers from all over the country. There was a big kitchen, a big carpeted meeting room, dorm rooms upstairs, a cook serving meals, and even a large supply of toys for Jake's enjoyment. We had been expecting none of this, and had expected to stay with friends until the boat arrived. But we were immediately welcomed into the ranks, fed, bathed and were soon watching Greenpeace videos on the VCR.

A troop of young canvassers, mostly teenagers, and various office staff were up from DC. There were also delegations from Boston, Florida and Toronto, all bringing vans full of Zodiacs- the fast inflatable outboard motor skiffs used in many Greenpeace protests- outboard motors, radios and climbing equipment. There was a bloc from San Francisco, a woman rock climber from Seattle, about seven feet tall, who was doing aerobics all over the couches in the meeting rooms, and a few folks from offices in Detroit and Michigan. The atmosphere was reminiscent of "Wind in the Willows" at Ratty's house before the attack on Toad Hall: the air of conspiracy, secret plans, and bustling activity, with the phone ringing constantly and people coming in with dispatches. I enjoyed just observing it all and trying to figure out what was going on, while Jake became the mascot and had a ready audience of amiable adults plus all the new toys.

The first panic was that everyone thought that the freighter that was to load up with incinerator ash to take to Panama, had already arrived, early, and was loading. Perhaps they would be loaded and gone before we had a chance to stage our little "media event." But some prudent soul thought we'd better double check and make sure that this really was the right ship. If it was we would continue a plan for two climbers to get on board the boat and chain themselves to it at night.

Jakie and I were asked to come out on a reconnaissance mission, as we would not arouse suspicion. Just a mother and child exploring the docks on Labor Day [ although it was a miserable day, pouring rain.] At the last minute Kevin was sent with us, so we were a decoy family, while the car waited for us in a weedy side lot, where another car from our team was also on watch to see if the ship tried to slip away.

We wandered in to the dockyard in the gray and wet, getting no signs of life from the watchman's trailer at the gate. The ship was riding high in the water and there was no activity going on with the cranes to load or unload it. a bunch of guys, either ship's crew or dock workers, were sitting around in the adjacent warehouse looking out at the rain.

They told us that, contrary to our intelligence reports, the ship was unloading cement, not loading toxic ash. The fine white dust coating everything in the warehouse seemed to bear this out.

We then visited the ash pile, a mountain of black, oily slag with chunks of debris and twisted metal mixed with it, foul looking stuff. A hapless crew in hard hats were busy "processing" it: dumping it onto a conveyer that fed into a hopper which sifted and sorted out the larger chunks. We puttered around, deciding to pose as locals from a concerned citizens group. The guy overseeing the processing got nervous when he saw us, wouldn't answer questions, and asked us to leave, very uptight. The foreman arrived and was a bit more agreeable. He told us to come back the next day and talk to the PR man.

But we had found out what we need to know. The ash boat had not arrived. We returned to the car in high spirits. The remote possibility that we were being lied to by the guys at the wharf could be dismissed as paranoia. If they were loading the ash, the dust everywhere would have been black and sooty, not the fine white powder we were seeing.

When we got back to the house with the news, everyone relaxed a bit. Now we had to set up all the elaborate schemes that were planned. Kevin and Melissa would have time to train the canvassers in zodiac use, which was what they had been called down there to do, although may other zodiac experts were on hand as well.

When Jim Vallette, one of the top organizers, explained his vision of what the zodiacs would do, I thought it was one of the most harebrained ideas I'd ever heard. "Mondcivitano" was to be a viewing platform for the press and film crews, which was what we'd expected. But the canvassers, young kids with uncertain swimming experience, were to throw themselves into the water ahead of the ship as it readied to leave. They would wear survival suits, which meant they would not be able to swim, just bob around like corks. In the usual three to four knots of current running in the Delaware, they would be pretty helpless unless they could hold onto something to keep themselves in one place. Then, to add to the folly, a "symbolic fence" was to be erected, something on the order of a volleyball net strung between floats constructed of 55 gallon drums, with pallets on them, anchored by cinder blocks. A banner with an appropriate witticism would be displayed on the fence, which would pen the ship into its berth. I immediately pictured the thing tipping over, and floating downstream half submerged. Zodiacs were to be on hand to set up the fence and monitor the swimmers.

So Kevin, Melissa and I and various willing gophers began making lists and assembling materials for the rafts, after I unwillingly accepted the theory tht we would actually build and use them. When Jim went around asking everyone whether or not they were willing to get arrested during the action, I declined. I did not want to be separated from Jake for any reason.

Meanwhile, Act I was about to be staged. Two young climbers, very Zen chaps from Toronto and Detroit, were getting ready for a midnight mission. They had taken a great liking to Jake, blond little bundle of energy that he is.

We were all woken up at 5:30 or 6:00 the next morning and marshalled down to City Hall, as the dawn revealed the two, perched on the scaffolding around the tower of the City Hall. They had hung a 50 foot square banner saying something like "Don't Ship Toxic Ash to Panama" and "No Envenene [Don't Poison] Panama". They had been up since before dawn but had just been spotted by a security guard as it got light. Now the police were on hand, and we all gathered around the building to lend moral support and watch what would happen. The climbers could be chatted with via radio. We had our placards [ example: "Export Brotherly Love, Not Toxics"] and a good view of the proceedings and the double takes from passers by. The banner was in full view of rush hour traffic.

So Jake, when he wasn't clinging to Kevin's legs [see photo] and I and our little group held our placards and looked on as more and more police arrived and blocked off the street, fire trucks pulled up to get in on the act. By about 8:30 the banner had been cut down, and the climbers, Ken and Richard, gave themselves up and were led away. It began to rain. We hung around City Hall awhile. Melissa and I sang a few protest songs and then we all went to breakfast. Some people went back to demand an audience with Mayor Goode, who they never got to see. Jake and I went back to the big house, having had enough excitement for one day.

"Mondcivitano" arrived that night, so we drove Flip's car back to the main wharf, Penn's Landing, to pick them up and bring them to the house for dinner, showers, and a welcome. Flip seemed to know everyone. The crew was burned out, exhausted, wired and excited to be there.

So now we had lost the element of surprise. They knew Greenpeace was in town. The house was visited, though not entered, by Police. The phone began to sound tapped, according to some. The ash ship had not come in.

The next day or so we all ventured over the river for a zodiac training and raft building session at a little hideaway Flip knew of on the Jersey side called Pyne Point Marina. Pyne Point was an extraordinary little spot, located on the waterfront of the rundown and poverty ravaged community of Camden, NJ. Approached from the water, it could have been a quiet country backwater surrounded by trees, with a dense jungle of vegetation, an overgrown island, muddy water, a fast-flowing current. The water was filthy up and the city of Philadelphia was directly across the river. When we came ashore, we were greeted by the sight of an endless collection of boats in various stages of collapse and disrepair, plus another fleet that were in everyday use. Decrepit power boats, graceful old wooden dinosaurs rotting away,

boats in the water, boats out of the water. Cranes and tractors, rusty and antediluvian, whether they had been sitting there incapacitated for the past ten years or been running yesterday impossible to tell, with a swarm of near naked kids, very dirty, playing energetically with a menagerie of battered plastic toys scattered everywhere. Throughout the yard roamed and loafed a pack of gruesome looking dogs, good watch dogs all, several generations of all shapes and sizes but obviously closely related, dirty, scabby, and thin. One in particular, a scarred veteran, limped around with a huge tumor on his rump. Mud, old tires, a workshop, an improvised kids' wading pool with muddy rainwater in it, all this was surrounded by big shade trees and hosted by Rod and Ann Sadler- Ron a big, black, good-looking man, Ann a freckled blonde with long sandy hair, dressed in jeans and work clothes, working at moving the boats around with her husband.

When Anne saw me calmly walking through the pack of junkyard canines, carrying my toddler, she greeted me, remarking that most people in the area were deathly afraid of the resident dog pack and wouldn't have dared to wander in with the dogs, who had quietly escorted me.

After hours of enthusiastic play with all the toys and kids there, Jake was exhausted and absolutely encrusted with dirt. He fell sound asleep before I could bathe him when i got back to the boat, so I laid him out on "Mondcivitano"'s cabin floor and was able to give him a thorough sponge bath without waking him.

The Sadlers turned out to be enthusiastic Greenpeace supporters and we eventually moved the boat over to their creek and anchored within easy rowing distance. Immediately outside their little haven was a very rough, very poor neighborhood, with hard core poverty and dilapidated houses for blocks all around.

We ended up spending a week or so just hanging out with the boat after all the other Greenpeacers had gone home. Panama stated that they would refuse to let the toxic ash enter the country, thanks to contacts made through Greenpeace and a Panamanian conservationist who had come up, Wilberto, who spent time at the Crossings House with us all and played for us, touchingly, a cassette of bird calls and jungle animal noises he'd made from his home in Panama, which would have been the site where new roads built on a bed of toxic ash led to a proposed resort area.

This was all happening during Philadelphia's celebration of 200 years of the Constitution, and Reagan was to be in town, so the Harbor Police were on our case, with patrol cars constantly watching the boat from shore, all nervous that we would want to disrupt the big-wig festivities. One day the harbor police were circling around us, taking pictures, when Dave, in the dinghy, accosted them and invited them aboard if they were curious to know our intentions. So, much to the dismay of Kevin, Melissa and myself, a policeman, plain clothes, with dark glasses and a gun, came aboard. He wanted our names and addresses [Dave gave his] and was generally weird in his cop like way. Wanted to know our intentions.

The night of the Gala celebration, September 17th, was also Melissa's 30th birthday. Ray and Ann put on a big barbecue party at the marina, so we all danced, ate, drank, and played music with a big racially mixed crowd. Then with several boats we brought people out to "Mondcivitano" to continue the festivities and watch the new lighting get turned on along the suspension bridge. More singing and carousing, and tours of the boat ensued. It was a good first big party on the boat.

Soon after that it was time to leave. Dave and crew had to leave to sail the boat back up to Maine. Due to the time of the tide, at about 4:30 a.m. the next morning Jake and I found ourselves alone in our battered old pickup truck, navigating cautiously through the dark streets of Camden on our way back to the Hudson Valley as "Mondcivitano" set off down river.

Article from the Philadelphia Daily News, Sept. 8, 1987

2 Environmental Protesters Show Towering Rage

Two men representing a pro-environmental group climbed the scaffolding on City Hall tower

this morning and hung from the pipework a banner protesting the city's proposal to sell incinerator ash to Panama.

After several hours on their perch more than 350 feet above the street, the two- at the urging of police- climbed through a window into the tower and were arrested on charges of defiant trespass.

Their sign- a 50-foot square cloth banner saying "Don't Export Toxic Ash to Panama"- was removed later by police.

The sign also carried a Spanish exhortation, "No Envenene Panama" ["Don't Poison Panama"] and the name of the sponsoring organization, Greenpeace.

Under arrest on the trespass charges are Richard F. Harvey, 21, of Chicago, and Kenneth J. Hollis, 28, of Toronto, Canada. Police said they surrendered about 8:30 a.m. to Civil Affairs Sgt. Anthony Fulwood and Officer Booker Roberts, who called to them from a window high in the tower and urged them to come in.

Police said the men had begun their climb about 3 a.m. using equipment similar to that used by mountain climbers.

They unfurled the banner about 6:30 a.m. at the level of the clock on the north side of the tower- 361 feet above the ground.

After the two men were off the tower, a group of about 20 Greenpeace demonstrators gathered outside Mayor Goode's office on the second floor of City Hall, chanting "No, Goode, No Ash." Goode decided to meet with representatives of the group, according to James Vallette, a Greenpeace worker.

The protest here was aimed at the city's proposal to sell ash from its incinerators to the nation of Panama. Greenpeace said the ash contained toxic elements and was to be used for landfill.

Article from Philadelphia Inquirer Sept. 11. 1987

Panama Rejects City Ash

Officials see toxic potential

Panamanian health and environmental officials said yesterday that Philadelphia incinerator ash did not have the necessary permits to enter the country and would be barred from the nation's ports.

Philadelphia and its contractor, Bulkhandling Inc., were planning to send 27,000 tons of ash from the city's two residential trash incinerators to Panama next Friday.

That shipment was to be the first of a total of 250,000 tons to be delivered over the next 12 months for use in building roads for a large resort project on Panama's Caribbean coast.

But the Panamanian officials warned yesterday that the ship probably would be prevented form unloading in the country.

"The ministry of Health denies all permission for the ash to come to Panama", said Dr. Augustine Lune, a spokesman for the ministry, in a telephone interview from Panama City.

Lune said his department was concerned about the potential for toxic contamination from the ash".

"Panama will not accept it for the same reason that six states in the US will not accept it", Lune said. "If it is not good for the Unted States neither can it be any good for Panama."

The environmental group Greenpeace on Tuesday protested the shipping of ash to Panama, contending that it contained heavy metals, dioxins and organic chemicals that could contaminate the environment. The group said it had contacted the Panamanian government official about its concerns.

The city was slated to pay Bulkhandling about 9.4 million to dispose of the ash. Bulkhandling could not be reached yesterday for comment.

Final Postscript

NY Times, July 29, 1989

Environmentalists' Vessels Sink Navy Missile Test

The Navy was forced to cancel a test launching of its newest missile today when four vessels manned by protesters sailed into a restricted zone 50 miles off the Atlantic coast of Florida and attached an antinuclear banner on the side of the submarine that was to fire the missile.

The protesters are members of the Greenpeace organization, an environmental group that is currently focusing on the deployment of nuclear weapons at sea. Their spokesmen charged that during the episode a 20-foot Navy whaleboat rammed a 60-foot ketch used in the protest. The Navy said it could not confirm or deny the report.

Josh Handler, a spokesman for Greenpeace in Washington said it was the first time the United States military had cancelled an exercise because of protestors. The Navy said it did not have any such records.

Cancellation of the test marked another setback in the testing of the Trident 2, the Navy's most powerful missile, which has a range of 4,000 miles; each trident can carry up to 10 nuclear warheads. On March 21, the first time the Navy tried to fire the missile from a submerged submarine, the $23.7 million weapon pinwheeled out of control and exploded four seconds after it was fired.

Today's test was cancelled after the vessels operated by Greenpeace sailed for several hours around the submarine Tennessee, which was supposed to fire the Trident missile, and her support ships.

The Greenpeace vessels, sailing under the Swedish and Dutch flags, ignored warnings to leave the restricted zone, according to the Navy. The launching was canceled the Navy said, "because of intentional interference from foreign flag ships in a designated hazardous operating area."

"Concern for the safety of the personnel of the interfering ships precluded launching the test missile, the Navy Said.

Shannon Fagan, a Greenpeace spokeswoman at the organization's command past in Daytona Beach, Fla., said Greenpeace was "happy" about the cancellation of the test launching.

"But we would be happier if the Navy canceled the Trident Missile 2 altogether", she said.

Shadowed, the Navy says

Ms. Fagan said two large Greenpeace peace ships and two motorized rafts had sailed into the test zone and shadowed the Tennessee for hours. One of the launches slipped up to the side of the vessel and its crew attached banners reading "Nuclear Free Seas" to the radio mast and side of the submarine, she said.

The Navy radioed the larger vessels, the 60-foot ketch "Mondcivitano", and the 190-foot MV "Greenpeace", with warnings to quit the area because of the imminent test, but the crews refused, Ms. Fagan said.

"Our captain radioed back that he did not recognize US Navy jurisdiction there because it was international waters," she said. American territorial waters extend 12 miles offshore.

At one point, Ms. Fagan said, a Navy whaleboat twice rammed and caused minor damage to the "Mondcivitano", which sails under a Swedish registry.

Some Whaleboats Confirmed

Navy officials said they could not confirm or deny that the ramming occurred. They said the guided missile destroyer Josephus Daniels, which is assigned to the Atlantic Fleet, based in Norfolk, Virginia, did have whaleboats, which are similar to lifeboats, in the water at the time.

Greenpeace grew out of a committee of environmentalists in Vancouver, British Columbia, who sent an old fishing vessel temporarily named "Greenpeace" to the Aleutian Islands in 1971 to protest a United States underground nuclear weapon test.

The committee renamed itself the Greenpeace Foundation and began organizing other dramatic protests intended to draw attention to environmental causes and to oppose the spread of nuclear weapons.

[errata: the "Mondcivitano", which David was skippering, was not rammed. The "Greenpeace" was the vessel that got rammed by the Navy. The steel hull was slightly breached, and the vessel took on some water. The boat's library was damaged, including the much-lamented loss of a complete set of "Tintin" books.]

"Mondcivitano" is Esperanto for "World Citizen".

THE END of this particular set of Adventures