<a href="Weblog: http://weblog.greenpeace.org/oceandefenders" target="_blank">Dave Walsh</a>, our man in Antarctica, writes:

"The Esperanza is rolling from port to starboard and back again, in some nasty Southern Ocean weather. After the serene calm of the Antarctic ice edge, we're back to tying everything down, and that includes ourselves and our laptops. There's been a few minor injuries sustained in the last 24 hours, from crewmembers being bounced around their cabins.

It's almost two weeks since fire broke out on board the Japanese factory whaling ship, Nisshin Maru, killing one person. For over a week we stood by, ready to provide towing assistance, in the icy calm of the Ross Sea, whaling fleet's crew worked to fix their engines. Finally, they managed to get the factory ship moving, and the entire fleet, plus our ship, the Esperanza, sailed north.

Today we escorted the whalers across the 60 degree South line of latitude - this means that they've now officially left Antarctic waters, and the northernmost limit of where their whaling takes place.

<!--more-->No more Southern Ocean whales will die from grenade-tipped harpoons this season, and the threat to the Antarctic environment by the fire-damaged Nisshin Maru has now been averted. Earlier today, the fleet pushed its speed up to 12 knots, and started steaming for home.

A little earlier, Japanese national television channel NHK reported that the fleet was now returning to Japan. The Japanese government, along with rest of the world, now has a responsibility to pledge that this was the last whaling season ever.

It's been a weird expedition - we came to the Southern Ocean ready to stop the whaling ships from killing whales. Instead, we ended up offering rescue services to the very ship we planned to protest against.

As the whaling fleet makes for Tokyo, we're setting course for Australia, where we'll mark the end of the Defending Our Oceans campaign. This doesn't mean that the campaign to end whaling has ended - just this expedition. The International Whaling Commission meeting will take place in Alaska in May, and we'll have a team there too."

Dave has more amazing photographs <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/deadlyphoto/" target="_blank">up here</a>