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First contact with Greenpeace The first time I had contact
with Greenpeace was in Kiel, Germany. I was working on a boat
where Greenpeace held a press conference. It was about the
canal in the Baltic between Denmark and Germany. Because it's
so narrow a lot of accidents happen with ships. Greenpeace
demanded that there should be a regulation and a system to
control this area to prevent future accidents from happening
and to preserve the precious environment.
Only a few days after I got on the Rainbow
Warrior I already had to face the Indian authorities. As soon
as we launched the inflatables for a toxic patrol next to
the beach of Alang, I got a call from customs. They asked
me all sorts of questions: who we were, what we were doing,
how many people were on board and what nationalities. They
also wanted to come for a visit. It took them a few hours
to arrive, they eventually did around eleven o'clock. Eight
people came and four of them were armed. It was exciting (not
in a nice way), but I was not scared of them. We had all kinds
of paperwork for them, so after two hours they left. And we
finally could go to bed.
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