What a Weekend

We have had a really busy weekend, but the results have been great.

The ship’s Cape Cod stops began with the arrival of the Arctic Sunrise in Provincetown on Thursday afternoon. The east coast component of the Clean Energy campaign has been focused on Cape Cod in an effort to win America’s first offshore wind farm, and the Sunrise’s visit to the Cape is the culmination of a busy summers worth of work.

As the ship arrived for its first stop on the Cape, she was greeted by dozens of Greenpeace fans waiting on the quayside in Provincetown. On Thursday evening, in conjunction with our local allies, we screened a new film by local videographer Liz Argo. The focus of the film was a one-week trip to visit the Nysted offshore wind farm in Denmark. With little effort we turned out more than 60 people for the film.

The screening ended by about 8:30, and provided the crew and staff some well deserved down time in Provincetown. Friday morning, we opened the ship to the public, and had packed tours all day long. We ran more than 300 people through the ship, talking to residents and tourists about our work on Greenland and how residents of the Cape have a real opportunity to lead this country towards a clean energy revolution by supporting the wind farm proposed for the waters of the Cape.

We shut the tours at 5:00pm, and shoved off for our next stop, Hyannis. Transiting from P’Town to Hyannis brought us through the Cape Cod Canal, which separates Cape Cod from the mainland. The mouth of the Canal is also home to one of New England’s dirtiest power plants. As the ship was about to enter the Canal, Casey, Angie, Mateo, and Fred X projected global warming images on the side of the power plant projected global warming images on the side of the power plant drawing a contrast between the dirty power plant and the wind farm proposed for Cape Cod. After about a half hour of projections, the Coast Guard asked our team to shut the projector down. The team was held for about an hour and a half and then released.

We arrived in Hyannis at about 1:30am Saturday morning and dropped the anchor. We had a fantastic anchorage just offshore from the Kennedy Compound. They had a perfect view of the Sunrise from their front porch.

Saturday was quite a day. Because we were anchored in the harbor, we used RIBs to bring visitors out to the ship. But the day got far more exciting. At about noon, boats protesting our support of the wind farm surrounded the Sunrise. It was a scene. Boaters with banners and megaphones spent about an hour circling our boat while a plane flew overhead pulling a banner that read “Greenpeace Go Home!” But the opponents of the wind farm did themselves no favors. While we were bringing our supporters out to the ship, the protestors tried to cut off our RIBs, making large wakes trying to get our passengers wet and making rather obscene gestures. I am pleased to say that our staff and crew took the moral high ground throughout the afternoon and there was quite a contrast between the behavior of the protesters and the behavior of the staff and crew on board. It really made me proud to a part of this team. Our supporters who visited the ship including families with small children were appalled with our opponents behavior.

Working the RIB crews all day long, we were able to bring over 150 visitors to the ship. I really was amazed by how much people enjoyed the opportunity to come see the Sunrise and hear about the work that we do.

Capping the night, we again used the projector to hit the Hyannis Marina. The founder of opposition, Wayne Kurker, owns the marina. After tagging the marina, Casey and the land based projector team hit the headquarters of our opposition. This was the first time that Greenpeace US has used this high-powered LCD projector in the field, and it worked great.

We overnighted in Hyannis Harbor, picked up anchor at 8:30 on Sunday morning and motored towards Nantucket. After arrival we dropped the RIBs in the water again and opened the ship. We ran more than 120 people from Nantucket out to the ship, and again the response was strong.

The media response has also been great. We have blanketed the Cape Cod media for the last week, including three articles including three articles – three days in a row - in the most important paper in Cape Cod, radio interviews, weekly newspaper stories – the Cape based media has been great.

Finally, we head for our last on Cape Cod tomorrow morning, Woods Hole, then it is on to Long Island, New York City, and Miami.

Stand by more.