Thank you Amsterdam! London here we come!

Gerda Stet, at left, has greeted every Greenpeace ship arriving and leaving Ijmuiden, the Netherlands for nearly 30 years. The flag she's waving there is from the ship Solo, which sailed for Greenpeace from 1990-1995. It's one of only 30 flags that were made, and may be the last one left. If you know of any others still in existence, please let us know in a comment!

Amsterdam gave the new Rainbow Warrior a great welcome and sent her off in style today as well. We showed off her environmentally friendly construction, her hyper-efficient sails, and her revolutionary A-frame mast design to 12,000 visitors -- with special tours for the donors and supporters who made her possible.

On the Java Eiland Greenpeace Netherlands created a week-long festival with bands, organic shopping, bicycle-powered internet, workshops, and presentations.


We'll transit the North Sea today and tomorrow. Yesterday Bruce Sterling, science fiction author, futurist, and "design critic of things not yet invented," took a tour of the ship. He took a keen interest in, well, the chairs actually. And quite a few things none of the several thousand visitors on the ship took much notice of. But then, he teaches design. Unsurprisingly, he was also having a good hard look at our onboard book collection, noting with approval the presence of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. He was too gracious to mention it himself, but we really should have a copy of Heavy Weather, Sterling's dystopic vision of a world in climate chaos, aboard. Great read, important warning.
Next stop is London, where  the Rainbow Warrior will be in the Thames River. She'll be at anchor on November 10th just below Tower Bridge, so if you’d like to get a memorable photo and see her from afar you should get a good view from near the Butlers Wharf, Shad Thames.