The Wild Angle

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The Rainbow Warrior has landed! Greenpeace’s famous environmental campaign ship – the “Rainbow Warrior” – docked in Cape Town’s harbour and invited interested visitors to enjoy a tour on one of the world’s most eco-friendly ships.

We found out about the ship’s presence by one of our friends and immediately agreed to join her for a tour on the boat. In the early afternoon we drove to the famous V & A Waterfront and headed to jetty 2. We easily spotted the vessel from afar: the huge aluminium A-frame sail masts rise high into the sky and the ships striking green body boldly bears the Greenpeace logo as well as a white dove leading a flashy rainbow, making it an immediate eye-catcher. Before being able to board the boat it was necessary to sign up for the tour. Several people had already put their names down and were eagerly waiting for their group to be called up. We were up for a long wait before it was our turn, as we had about 12 groups ahead of  us. To pass the waiting time Greenpeace organized a few stands where visitors could inform themselves on the organizations work and their effort to maintain our worlds’ environment, kids and adults could get their faces painted with rainbows or one could listen to the joyful sounds of the Marimba band playing outside. We skipped the face-painting and opted to to have coffee and stroll around the Waterfront instead.

After a very lengthy 2 hour stand-by we were finally allowed to board. The Rainbow Warrior was introduced to us by a volunteer from India, who has been working on board the ship for several months and explained what operations are conducted with the vessel. We were on deck of the 3rd Rainbow Warrior – the first of it’s kind in Greenpeace’s fleet that has been specifically built for the organization in 2011 and is considered as one of the world’s most eco friendly ships – one of the properties being that it is powered mainly by wind (you can read more about the ship here). After the introduction we were lead to the bottom deck to view the heli pad and take a look at one of their action boats (rubber ducks) on board. We were also able to have a peak at their satellite communication hub and the captain’s control room.

Compared to the waiting time the tour was rather short but it was doubtless a very special, once in a lifetime experience to see the boat from up close and being able to speak to dedicated volunteers and activists on their quest to make the world a better place.