Thank you for downloading the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service, with me,

Michael Segalov.

On the 14th of September 2013, the Arctic Sunrise, a ship belonging to the Environmental

Campaign Group Greenpeace, left the Norwegian port of Hiegnus embarking on an Arctic expedition

making its way to the Paturacese, just off the northwestern coast of Russia.

Frank Kewitson, a Greenpeace campaigner, is amongst those on board, and at 6 p.m. on September

19th, he's sitting in the ship's mess, having dinner.

And over the tannoy, the first mate, Paul Rosicie, he says, man, there's like a sun and

a full moon out there, it's beautiful, and I look down and I realise, you know, this

exactly the same meal I've had for quite a few weeks now, I thought I'd just pop up

and deck.

It's a lovely scene, sun's just setting, and I'm staring over towards Poroslovna, the

Gospel of Oil rig that we've come to, to protest against, and I see this like angry

little insect rising above the rig, and it's sort of coming towards us, I'm kind of

rooted to the spots.

And obviously it's not an insect, obviously it's a helicopter.

You don't go strolling in to the Russian Federation and board one of their oil rigs and not

have any consequence.

The previous morning, September 18th, at the break of dawn, Frank and his colleagues

had commenced a long planned direct action.

The aim was to board this Russian rig, halting the activities only made possible by receding

ice in the region.

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