Cape Farewell Youth Expedition 2007

Amy, Amy, Amy, Akash, Akash, Akash,

Good to know that you are following us. Oh my word, Greenland is quite a place. So, when are you dropping by base-camp for lunch club and to share stories?

(PS you can all leave comments for the Greenland crew at voyage.capefarewell.com)

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Hey Youth Team. How are you? What is it like to be home again after the Spitsbergen experience?

We’ve been thinking of you as we take the Noorderlicht on. We hear lots of stories from the crew – seems you charmed them. They enjoyed having you on the boat a lot. Dan showed me a video of you running into the sea. Ouch, how could you do that? So cold…

We had a rough journey over to Greenland, but Simon, Carol and Emily managed to test salinity and temperature at regular intervals – looking back, I can’t imagine quite how. We encountered huge amounts of sea ice as we approached East Greenland, much more than anticipated. This means that we haven’t been able to get into Scoresby Sund where we had planned to go. Instead, we’ve headed further south into the Denmark Straights and are exploring fjords south of Scoresby and North of Nansen Fjord.

This is one of the least visited areas of Greenland. We sailed into a fjord yesterday that we believe no-one has visited since 1940. As we floated there, we witnessed sea ice form within 10 minutes around us. Simon had been telling us that a very small drop in temperature can result in a sudden freeze but that he had never seen this himself – the text books come alive. Today, we bust a groove in the boat through a LOT of ice to get to a glacier front. Even close up we could hardly see the glacier front through the mist and falling snow. Ice for miles around on every side of the boat and an eery, ghostly silence. People spoke very quietly on deck. What is it about ice and snow that makes people whisper? Or is it more to do with experiencing glacial melt in this truly visceral way?

Anyway, Dan sends love and misses you all. Every time we put on your waterproofs to face the storms we see your names in pen all over them. You are with us in some way!

See you all soon,

Vickyx

Well, I was asked to write an article about my time in the
Arctic for our school newspaper, this is what I wrote…

Well, my name’s Amy Sturgess and I was lucky enough to get to go on a once in a lifetime trip to the
Arctic. Over the past few terms
Moorhead has been involved in a project with
Cape Farewell, an organisation that is trying to raise awareness of climate change. Some of the present Year 10 have been taking part in different activities run both in and outside of school on the subject of climate change. Out of the 30 in our class I was the one who was picked to go to the
Arctic!

Seeing the sun set every day, feeling the breeze, waking up in the mornings to the sound of nothingness, the whole thing was just incredible! The ten days that I spent in the
Arctic along with some amazing people – 6 from
England, 3 from
Canada and 2 from
Germany, was packed with lots of things for us to do.

When in Ny Alesund, a small town in
Svalbard, Norway, we visited a beach and tried to make some kind of sculpture from the blocks of broken of ice. While building a part of one of the other glaciers fell. The sound of it breaking roared over in our direction. It was as if it was sending a message to us, it made me realise just how badly we are damaging our planet.

Even though the project was about looking at the science and the arts of the expedition we all had a little fun along the way. We couldn’t go all that way and not have a swim. You could call it crazy but we called it curiosity. 2.5?C, “Don’t try this at home”. We all made a deal, if we went in we had to get our whole body under the water, including our heads. It was freezing!

I’m sad that this experience had to end, however now I am here to share my experiences with the whole community. I was inspired by so many people during my trip and now I have realised that the world is really changing and so is the climate so if we carry on the way we are we will seriously damage the planet. So let’s make a difference!

I just want to say a massive THANK YOU to you all;
Sub Sub, Colin, Jess-Star, Keithy, Mark-Love, ZALATAN, Dan, BIG Joe & Duncan Darling,
The trip was just incredible, including you guys! Thank you for everything!
AMY LOVE ALWAYS!
XXXXX

Hi every one i am really sorry i havent wrote lately i ddint really want to go on the website because it makes me really upset. I miss all you guys so much and i really want us to have that reunion soon. I hope every one is ok and your all doing fine at school and work. If we never see eachother again i just want you all to get what you want out of life and live it to the full. love you lots … lots of love

hayley xxxxxxxxxxx