Bright Lights, Wrong City
When the Langenort finally arrives in Poland on the 20th of June, it finds no where to land. While another ship sails out of the harbor, the harbormaster in W?adys?awowo informs Women on Waves that due to weather conditions the Langenort cannot enter W?adys?awowo and must sail to Gdan´sk instead. Women on Waves opts to sail to the more liberal Gdynia, where there is more support for their cause.
When the Langenort arrives in Gdynia, twenty something anti abortionists are already waiting at the dock. Their leader is talking in the harbormasters office. The harbor personnel is nervous and jumpy, and the Women on Waves organization gets lead from one building to another before they are given any information.
Meanwhile on land anti abortionists are going door to door in Wladyslawowo to find the house Women on Waves rented.
The Langnort is given a berth in a highly restricted area of the harbor where even the main organizers of Women on Waves are not allowed to tread. The captain is told she can follow the pilot boat into the harbor, but the pilot boat starts leading her in the wrong direction. So instead she sails in herself, and is greeted by an angry mob throwing various objects at the Langenort. By now it is already dark, and the mob flashes bright lights in the captains eyes to disturb her navigation. The captain decides not to dock, and anchors in the Gdynia bay instead.
June 20, 2003
In the morning Margie and Rebecca go to police headquarters and the harbour master to officially inform them about the ship's arrival. The head of the police tells us unofficially of course, that he supports our action and we can count on his help. We go to the harbour and the man replacing the harbourmaster shows us the berthing place for the ship. As we are leaving he suddenly runs after us and tells us that the ship must sail to Gdansk and it can not enter Wladyslawowo harbour due to weather conditions. Even though we object furiously to the sudden change of plans it becomes clear that we can not ignore the harbourmaster’s orders. But Gdansk is far away from Wladyslawowo and the bishop of Gdansk is a very powerful man. We do not want the ship to go there. Gdynia is much more liberal and one of the Polish women involved with the project, Marzena, is a member of the city council in Gdynia and knows the harbourmaster of Gdynia personally. Even though the wind is blowing quite hard indeed, we see a ship leaving the harbour during the discussion with the harbour master. We suspect the harbour authorities are just using the weather as an excuse to try to prevent the ship from entering the harbour, but there is nothing we can do.
It looks like we can get a berthing place in Gdynia and we inform Margreet, the captain, of the changes. The ship heads to Gdynia.
In the meantime Wanda (director of the Polish Federation of Women and Family Planning) and all the Polish volunteers of STER committee arrive at the house we have hired to be our new office in Wladyslawowo. The STER committee leaves again for City Hall to set up an exhibition about reproductive rights and abortion. They are asked to remove some of the exhibition panels. The press conference tomorrow has also been planned to take place in the City Hall but there are rumours that that the bishop of Gdansk has pressured the Mayor of Wladyslawowo to cancel it.
At the end of the afternoon the ship arrives in Gdynia. Margie, Rebecca, Marzena and two other Polish women, Halina and Ursula, go to Gdynia to make sure that everything goes well. When we arrive at the quay in Gdynia there is already a group of 20 anti-abortion guys waiting for the ship. Their leader is talking with someone in the harbour master’s office. The man in the harbour master's office refers us to another building. There they send us to yet another office but no one wants to let the ship enter and no one will to talk to us. There is fear in the eyes of the harbour personnel. We call the Langenort continually to keep the crew informed of the happenings quayside. Finally after speaking with a lot of different people at a lot of different offices, anti-abortion groups constantly at our heels, the ship is allowed to berth in a restricted area of the harbour. The berth is so tightly restricted that even the Women on Waves main organisers can not visit the ship. Margie explains that this is part of the "Isolate and Contain Strategy
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