We are in Brest France, and then on to Gaza

Hello friends,

Sorry for the lack of reports from the Marianne av Goteborg, but my engineering work load has been quite heavy and there has been very few access points to the internet as we have been at sea a lot.  We have already gone through two gale force North Sea storms which certainly tested the crew and ship, ripping the two name plates from the bow of the ship (as my Dad would say “a ship of wood, with a crew of iron”).  We arrived in Brest France yesterday, with the local port Police waiting for us as we tied up to board the ship interrogate the captain.  We have already been stopped by the French coast guard off of Dover, and were thoroughly searched while at sea, as well as the German police stopping us while were in a lock in the middle of the Kiel Canal.  Some of these officials have admitted that they were ordered to specifically stop us and try to find an excuse to detain or turn us back.  Fortunately all our papers are in order and as we are officially a “leisure ship” and not a fishing vessel anymore, the regulations are much easier.  It is rather unheard of for a leisure ship to attract so much attention from the police and port authorities, but of course it is our destination of Gaza that has brought the Israeli government to demand that our ship be repeatedly stopped and searched.

Tomorrow we set out to cross the Bay of Biscay with the next stop being a very pro Palestine Spanish fishing village.  There we will honour the 5th anniversary of the Israeli assault on the Mavi Marmara on may 31st, with a grand community dinner and celebration.

I will likely have very little opportunity to make many more blog entries, so please keep an eye on our ship’s website https://shiptogaza.se/en/ for regular updates.

Thank you all your interest and support.  I suspect I will need it all in the near future, as the Israeli Occupation Forces have already declared that they will violently attack our ship somewhere off of Gaza.  We should arrive in Gaza, or an Israeli prison in mid to late June.

Bye for now.  Kevin