One word? When seven would do…

Oops, getting really behind here. I’m out late three nights this week too so need to catch up now otherwise I never will.

So Sunday then. Someone had posted to our local list a while back about Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior being docked at London for the weekend and boarding passes to have a tour being issued if you emailed to register. I’d failed to read the website properly about confirmation being emailed on the Friday before and had assumed as we’d not heard we hadn’t got places, but sure enough on Friday I got an email with our four boarding passes to be printed out. We don’t have a printer so I had to go to the library and print them off on Saturday.

So Sunday came, pouring with rain and very windy again. Ady was keen to just stay home and have a quiet day but I was adamant this was something we’d be pleased we’d done so I insisted. I was starting to think I may have been wrong when the rain got heavier the further into London we drove mind you.

We drove as it’s £35 for the 4 of us to get into London by train and Greenpeace had already warned us that the nearest tube station to where the Rainbow Warrior was docked was closed on Sunday so we reasoned even London carpark prices would be cheaper than train tickets. I’d found what looked to be the closest carpark to the docks online and we used that postcode in the sat nav. As always getting into London it shows as just over an hour but ends up as nearly double that once you hit the traffic. This time we didn’t hit traffic at all until the Blackwall tunnel ( which always disappoints me as the walls are actually white), then utterly lost our bearings on a one way system and ended up in a different car park altogether.

It was attached to a mini shopping mall and there were posters saying if you spent £10 in any of the shops you could get 3 hours free parking so we bought some bits from Tesco for lunch and got our free parking token too. We then got utterly lost and wandered around the docks in a huge circle for nearly an hour. It didn’t really matter as the rain had stopped and there was plenty to look at but eventually we decided we were edging far too close to our free parking limit so we asked one of the many Canary Wharf security officers who were around. He was really friendly and offered to take us part way there so we walked along with him and also gathered another two people heading the same way. The kids and I were disappointed we didn’t attract more of a crowd really, we liked the idea of the security man as a sort of Pied Piper leading us to the ship :lol:.

Finally we rounded a corner and there was the big Greenpeace banner – hurrah!

I swapped our passes for stickers with our tour letter on and we had a quick look at the Greenpeace stuff for sale. The kids and I got badges each and we put three books in the box for the crew. Attached to the boarding passes had been an email asking if we could bring books for the crew’s onboard library as they were bored of all the books they had already so I’d raided our shelves for a few of our unwanted books to donate.

Scarlett then got hijacked to have her photo taken, and Davies joined in, when she was spotted by a photographer. She had them holding a banner and against various backdrops and wanted to use it on the website. Not sure if it was for Greenpeace or The Wave, will have to keep an eye on both sites and see if I can spot them.

Ady and I had very welcome hot drinks and then it was time for our tour. I think we were really lucky as most of the tours were being conducted by volunteers but we were led round by one of the actual crew. She was Spanish, a deckhand and both passionate and very knowledgable – obviously 😉 We all got onboard (I think there were 22 of us in the group) and had an introductory chat to Greenpeace’s history and a brief overview of their campaigns and current issues. We had various pieces of equipment on the ship pointed out to us and were told this was the second Rainbow Warrior as the first is currently continuing helping wildlife from her position sunk off the coast of New Zealand. A few items remain from the first boat including a pair of binoculars and the original bell:

Inside we looked at the equipment used to chart routes, the captains log, how the ship is controlled, both hi-tech and old fashioned.

We came out and had a go at the ship’s wheel (no longer actually in use) and the compass, while peering through some portholes into the living quarters below:

Scarlett asked about seeing dolphins as was told it is such a regular occurance that a wooden dolphin called Dave now lives at the very front of the Rainbow Warrior, and told the story about how he got there:
“Dave the dolphin loved to come with his pod and play in the waves caused by the Rainbow Warrior but he loved the crew and the work that Greenpeace did so much he wanted to leave the seas and join the crew. He went to see Neptune, God of the Oceans and when Neptune heard about the good work that Greenpeace do and saw how much Dave loved them he gave his permission. Neptune remembered the story of Pinnochio and used the same magic to turn Dave from a real dolphin into a wooden one. Now he is part of the Rainbow Warrior crew and has the most important position on board, at the very front of the ship. He still sees his pod when they come to play around the ship”.

Sailing with Greenpeace has now been added to the list of things she wants to do when she grows up ;).

Tour over we all hung over the side of the ship to be videoed performing a wave (suspect that will also be on the website at some point) and then our guide gave us all a hug, thanked us for coming and sneakily showed Davies, Scarlett and I down one of the portholes to where a actual Greenpeace flag was draped underneath.

We had a quick sit in the dinghy and met the polar bear who had arrived

Then decided the sky was looking grey and grim again and we’d definitely have gone over our 3 hours free parking so we should try and find the car park.

We found a way, way shorter route back and were only about 15 minutes over the 3 hours. It would have been £9 for parking but putting the token down brought it back to £3.50 so that was a nice surprise :). And it started raining again almost as soon as we left the carpark.

Coming home was long and tedious, we took a very diverted diversion to find a McDonalds for the kids tea. I think we got home about 630pm. Everyone agreed it had been a really good day and we were all really glad we’d gone.

I started reading to the kids. I’d been reading some of it myself the day before and been really impressed with it, highly recommend it. Perfectly level for Davies and Scarlett :). We read the intro and then I read out the various ‘files’ or chapters within it and let them choose which we read first. They both chose ‘does God exist?’ so we read that.They wanted another chapter and I would have obliged but Total Wipeout was on so they chose to watch that instead!

I watched X Factor, the kids went to bed and we had a late dinner of curry. There, only 48 hours behind now!