New maritime directions…
…with old knees and slowly diminishing prose competence. But the spirit of Tainui survives, without shadow of doubt. What began as a summer cruise on 2005 morphed into a 12 year journey. Now that Tainui…
Category Archives: Refugees
Papua New Guinea interlude
At 6 am, the best time of the day here in Milne Bay, I sit on the jetty and sip rich PNG coffee. Today we load the last of our medical supplies before setting off…
PNG maritime outreach
Kula Spirit is a solid 44′ fishing trawler owned by Australian Wendy Stein. She is setting up an outreach floating clinic to visit remote villages without access to adequate medical services. Wendy started off in…
Out to the islands
We cast off mid–morning for our month-long islands circuit. A warm, windless sea. Departure delayed by my first patient – a local bloke with a chronic problem – huge, translucent cystic lesions on his head…
A diagnostic conundrum
This one is for doctors only A couple of weeks ago at a remote coastal village I saw a sprightly 6 year old lad. His mother gave a 3 week history of mildly tender ulcers…
And the answer is…
Like pinta, bejel and syphilis, the culprit is a spirochaete. Those ulcers are caused by treponema pertenue and the disease – yaws – is most common in younger children in tropical countries. Unlike syphilis, spread…
…and a minor postscript
Oh, and there’s a minor birthday postscript – as an added celebration of this new decade of mine, I have just put down a deposit on a new yacht! She is a pretty a little…
Barcelona Interlude
It is chaotic here in Barcelona tonight – fireworks and street dancing in celebration of summer solstice. I have had a busy day visiting Montserrat, trying to come to terms with Peninsular Wars, Benedictine monasteries,…
Leaving Malta
Our big CAT diesel has fired up and we depart as soon as spare lube oil is shipped on board. Yesterday I took a last minute visit to the local hospital to scrounge some more…
14 hours to pickup zone
We are 14 hours from the rescue zone off the Libyan coast, where we understand that some 8,000 refugees have been plucked from their little boats in the last 2 days. How appalling is that.…
An Emergency Evacuation
We were at the rescue zone off the Libyan coast, where we understand that some 8,000 refugees were plucked from their little boats in the last 2 days. How appalling is that. It is said…
Tunisia
With 25 kt northerlies, forecast increasing to 30 kts, there will be no refugee boats departing Libya in the next 3 days. Golfo Azzurro and the German rescue boat See Fuchs have taken shelter in…
Back on Station
With easing northerly winds we left Tunisia for the 10 hour trip back to the rescue zone. It is unlikely that boats will be setting off from Libya for another day or two because…
Statistics
In one 2 day period last month 7,000 people were rescued off the Libyan coast. According to the UNHCR, some 98,000 refugees crossed the Mediterranean in the first 6 months of 2017, most of them…
Conundrum
At noon yesterday we were buzzed by an Italian navy helicopter, then circled at dusk by a Libyan coast guard patrol boat. After the outpouring of refugee rafts from Libya a fortnight ago…
Back to the SAR with See Fuchs
After 3 rich and rewarding weeks in Golfo Azzurro I have taken sad farewells, changed ships and linguas francas. I will now be heading back south to the SAR zone in See Fuchs, a stout…
Back to Malta
After a week’s relentless northerlies we have had calm seas and sultry heat. By day we have been patrolling an E-W line outside Libya’s 12 mile zone. At night we move north and heave to…
The Wall St Journal on refugees
Here’s an article about our Mediterranean refugee rescue activities, published in The Wall Street Journal recently. I believe its author misrepresents the position somewhat. My letter to the editor in response follows. This was not published by…
Back with the Refugees
Shunned by Malta, Italy and the Libyan coast guard, the NGO Proactiva is now based in Motril on the south coast of Spain. Sadly Golfo Azurro is no longer operative but Proactiva still has 2…
110 saved, 65,000,000 to go
An extraordinary 12 hours. At sunset a Salvamente Maritimo (Spanish Coast Guard) helicopter had located a refugee boat with some 50 persons on board. We were just 15 minutes away from them and offered to…