Davey started with Greenpeace in 1983. In the early days he sailed on the Cedarlea in the Irish Sea during campaigns against radioactive waste discharges from the Sellafield plutonium factory in England. After the bombing, he worked as chief engineer on several Greenpeace expeditions to Antarctica before hanging up his boiler suit and taking a desk job as head of Greenpeace marine services in New Zealand. He left Greenpeace in 1994 and moved up to scenic Opua in the Bay of Islands, to open a pre-school and run his own ship repair business. He and Patti returned to Amsterdam in 2007 and their son now lives in Perth, Australia with his partner and two children.