Pete was the original skipper aboard the Rainbow Warrior. Aside from his huge CV as a peaceful protester he is also an accomplished and eloquent writer.
My name is Peter Bouquet, and I was born in 1949. After growing up in a remote part of Devon I went to sea in the British Merchant Navy in 1966. I've been at sea - off and on - since then.
After serving an apprenticeship as a deck cadet, I got my 2nd mates certificate in 1969 but was never very happy with the "conventional" life at sea. I was always looking for something else, although I didn't know what.
I didn't successfully follow my studies - in fact I failed my 1st mate's exam and I was just drifting and beginning to think I should get my act together and find work ashore - get a "proper" job. Sam had been born too, so there was the responsibility of being a Dad.
I was watching the BBC news one evening in 1977 and there was a report about some people looking for professional seamen to "help save the whales". The report was filmed on board a rusting trawler called Sir William Hardy in London's West India Dock. I woke up - someone switched the light on in my brain!
I got in touch, and joined in 1978 - and I had the honour of "permanently marking" the new name Rainbow Warrior ( we did it by drilling indentations with a Black and Decker around the letters) on the bow and stern the night before we sailed.
The rest, as they say is history. I've been involved in many Greenpeace campaigns and I've always believed in peaceful non-violent direct action and the citizen's duty to peacefully protest, and record to the best of our ability, the abuses of powerful elites. The Quaker philosophy that you should bear witness to a crime, even if you can't stop that crime at the time, is my guiding star.
The voyage of Musichana to the Chagos islands is based on this approach. I am also extremly proud that my son Sam will be able to meet up with us there. I don't know what else we can do as individuals. I hope that our voyage and our actions will will reach out to people all over the globe. And most of all I hope that a rich individual or Organisation will be sufficiently affected to donate a good sea-going ship to the Chagossian people in Mauritius so that they can go home.