Water cannons blasted up into the air, both from the tug protecting the berth and from the power station itself. I held the Rainbow Warrior on a straight course, 30 metres off the berth, I put the windscreen wipers on. The first anchor dropped. I think they had expected us to try to come alongside, but instead we laid out 180 metres of anchor chain on the harbour bottom. When we got to the end of the chain and it pulled tight we let go the other anchor. The police were ignoring our small boats now, all attention was on us, some policemen giving us the thumbs up, they all wore smiles - this is the land of smiles - I waved and gave one of my own speciality Cheshire cat grins. With Rainbow Warrior pulled up tightly between her anchors we unfurled our message - QUIT COAL.

Map ta Phut industrial area is home to two coal-fired power stations. Now, the Belgium-based company, Suez Energy International, plans to build another 660 MW plant - they’re calling it GHECO 1. At the same time the Arctic ice is melting and Polar Bears have a one-way ticket out of this reality. We have nothing to loose, really, by taking action. We have everything to loose if we don’t. The thing that makes me most sad, however, is that Europe has committed to reduce carbon emissions by 30 percent by 2020, but the largest energy consortium in Western Europe plans to build one of the largest CO2 emitters in Thailand.

The fact that Map Ta Phut port control was calling on VHF radio channel 16 was not my concern, I maintained full speed towards the harbour entrance with both engines clutched into the propeller.  My first concern was a small tug and a dredging barge.  The tug was anchored mid-channel but it was hard to tell whether a towrope was stretched across the channel joining the two until we were right up on top of them both.  All clear, I zigzagged between them.  The port control had given up calling; they had received our statement of peaceful protest, of non-violence.  Next concern was `Coast Guard 99′, all grey and black with a three inch cannon pointing our way, she sat in our path.  I brought the engines to half-ahead and steered straight for her midship sector and then hard-a-starboard the wheel, full-ahead on the engines.  We swung around her stern, a couple of metres off, hard-a-port and we were back on track.  Concern three was a huge harbour tug, the kind that pushes around super-tankers.  It did the same, only it reversed in to cut us off, but the skipper must have been dozy and thought I was going to either stop, or turn the Rainbow Warrior around.  As soon as the harbour tug was in spitting distance on my beam, I swung the wheel over the other way and gave the engines everything I could.  Rainbow Warrior slipped past her too, and then straightened up to run down the side of the coaling jetty of the Belgium owned coal-power station, GLOW.

Thap Sakae is a small fishing village near Prahchuap Khiri Khan. Fields of coconut trees and swamp forest are held between its golden beaches and a low mountain range - Kao Ban Tad - that separates Thailand from Burma. Rainbow Warrior anchors off the beach and her crew go forward to receive a hearty welcome from the people of PKK. We are laid with garlands of flowers and then drawn into dance and song - it’s a celebration of kindred spirit. Here the people are heavily opposed to the development of a coal-fired power station that is planned to provide the energy for a proposed steel-smelter. Nine local environmental activists have been assassinated in their defiance, but the community have only grown stronger in their opposition to the plans of government.

They chop the heads off coconuts and hand them to us, to quench our thirst. They hand us leaves and onto them ladle rice and a hot Thai meal. We share food with a thousand before being whisked off, in the back of pick-up trucks, to the forest defenders camp. Here the people of PKK have built shelters and tied together bamboo to form a lookout-tower that rises fifty meters into the air. We climb to the top and view the swamp forest all around, I can see Burma from here. This forest is to be cleared away for the new industry. But, that has not been able to happen since the camp has been occupied for two-and-half years, no bulldozers have been able to get through. Such solidarity in a community I have never experienced quite like this and I am inspired. It gives me hope that if we want to save ourselves from extinction, we can stand together. These are the warriors of PKK.

There are three large islands on the east coast of Thailand; Ko Samui is the largest, then Ko Phangang, and a little further north lies the smaller, Ko Tao (Turtle Island). This morning I brought the Rainbow Warrior close up to the coast of Ko Phangang, to inspect the beaches for my planned holiday. The SW monsoon funneled between Samui and Phangang, the boat heeled over to ten degrees and cut through the water between the islands at a rate of eight knots. Marieke, our international climate campaigner from Germany, kept her binoculars trained on Ko Phangang. Here, on a white sandy beach - she pointed it out to me - she met her husband. That was five years ago. She felt better back then, with her hand in his, today her emotions were mixed up with a feeling of sea-sickness.

As we rounded the northern tip of the island, the sky grew dark with the onset of a storm. I decided to leave the sails out full and ride with it. Rainbow Warrior heeled over more and more as the wind increased to 35 knots and then continued to rise. When the angle of heel reached 20 degrees over to starboard I brought the bow up to face the storm, in order to luff the sails, to reduce the tension that we could put some reefs in them. Canvas whipped violently and up high in the rigging blocks clattered against booms. Guests - most seasick - showed added concern as they watched the crew moving about the deck calling out to one another as Rainbow Warrior fell into the grip of an isolated thunder storm. But you cannot sink a Rainbow. With reefed sail, on the resumption of course, she came out with flying rainbow colours and a top speed of 11 knots.

Open boat and closed meetings on board the Rainbow Warrior. Whilst hundreds of supporters moved about the deck, inside the belly of the boat a core group discussed ways to speed up the energy revolution. We are running out of time, change is too slow - the people on the planet are in peril. Renewable energy not only helps solve climate change, but it also empowers people to participate in providing the country’s energy - in the form of small independent power producers; imagine every home with solar, wind and biomass, feeding the GRID. But the G8 leaders need to take ACTION for this to happen, to keep the global average-temperature increase below a 2 degree Celsius rise (compared to pre-industrial levels). These industrialised countries must commit to 30 percent cuts in CO2 emission by 2020 and 80-90 percent by 2050 compared to 1990 levels. This is the incentive we are looking for. They must stop subsidising coal, utter madness. Rainbow Warrior sails from Songkhla campaigning to promote renewable energy, now in Thailand, whilst the world keeps burning.

Crew winched on the headlines forward and the stern lines aft - we weren’t going anywhere. Musicians plugged into a tower of black speakers, they jammed away. They were in full swing on the quayside and I had to step into the shelter of the bridge in order to be heard over the radio by the fore-deck. Then the tug came in and shoved us alongside, right through the mud. Rainbow Warrior went aground, alongside in Songkhla. It was high water when we came in and the pilot assured me there was six meters, but… Gangway went down, agent came up. Right-hand thumb prints were taken of everyone on board before we stepped ashore into Thailand, welcomed in the sunshine by long finger-nailed dancers and traditional music from the South. Seven coloured ribbons of the rainbow were hoisted to the very top of the mizzen mast, their ends tied to the shore - the old girl was dressed carnival-like, sitting in the mud, as the revelry went on around her old  hull.

We awoke in the morning and the wind was calling.  Anchor came up and sails filled, Linh got smaller, Phu Quoc got smaller, and eventually Vietnam became nothing at all.  Across the Gulf of Thailand we sailed to reach Songkhla.  This is an ever ending story.  And here comes, another beginning.

Those who had not been to walk on the beaches of Phu Quoc had the opportunity in the late afternoon. Across the white sands and up to the temple on the rock that marks the port of Duong Dong. I sent off a silent prayer there. Then we met at Rohan’s Ice Cream Parlor in the evening, had a beer for Hans, and went out to dinner. It was our last meal of the first visit of a Greenpeace boat to this land - this Viet Nam.

On the 07 March, this year, Hans got dressed for breakfast. He was staying in a hotel in Saigon, having been discharged three days earlier from the hospital, following his recovery from Pneumonia. Linh was by his side, as they approached the stairs leading down to the lobby, when an icy pain ran down his arm before the hammer stroke hit the left side of his chest. Hans Monker toppled down and lay at the bottom, dead. I loved Hans, Linh loved Hans, Greenpeace loved Hans. Hans was a man who could only be loved. And we miss him so.

Mid morning, two boat loads for the Avon brought Linh, her mother, brother and sister, and a group of Hans’ close friends, from the shallow harbour (where the previous night we’d watched a fishing boat pulling itself off a sand bank, heaving on ropes it had tied around the rocks). The blue awning was strung over the main mast and a fire already started for the barbeque. Hans started sailing as a radio operator with Greenpeace in 1990, a year after this Rainbow Warrior began her life campaigning for the environment. This was his home - and so I welcomed family to Cassia Hans, and took them inside. We stopped in the Radio Room, the office of Hans, we sat in the mess-room where he played guitar, and then went into his cabin - so small, only a few at a time - the place where Hans slept (although it was never so tidy when Hans lived in it).

Lunch was ready and Ronnie ceremoniously ordered the attack, men opened bottles of beer, women and children picked up their plates - to Hans, CLINK. And it was all so easy, so gentle, and we all felt love and at times tears.

The crew took off their shoes and walked through the open gate to Cassia Cottage, not to follow any ritual, but to feel the soft grass underfoot. I felt my feet sigh in relief at the first touch of vegetation since New Zealand, so many months ago. We were welcomed with a beer - something Hans would have had in hand - and then, in the fading light of the first day in Vietnam we walked down onto the soft white sandy beach. Standing in a circle of new friends - all friends of Hans Monker - I felt euphoric; Linh was there and so was Rohan, Ocean, his wife, and their beautiful Kiwi/Vietnamese baby. I watched over the water as, not far away, the lights of the Rainbow Warrior lit up to welcome the night.
At a long white-clothed table, beneath over hanging palm trees, we sat down to a banquet of finest Vietnamese prawns, sea food hot-pot and on the side the internationally renowned Phu Quoc fish sauce. As wine and beer flowed, so did conversation and friendship - a time of sharing, a time of love.