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!
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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

Hey everyone,

 Sorry I haven’t been on lately- I had forgotten how busy life is here- or maybe never realised..it’s so good to hear people who know how I feel. Canford, darling, is just a million miles from the peace that is Ny Alesund and the questions don’t stop – it’s great but in trying to describe and satisfy everyone you almost forget where you were and what you were actually doing. I find myself describing the simpler things because the those that meant so much i have barely had time to reflect on, let alone put in words. In the same way everyone is talking about how insignificant the once-important things are now- I also feel I want to do something more and my ambitions for what I want to do and where I want to be.

 I miss everyone tonnes. It was incredible to meet you people and to share your stories in the most unique and meaningful way. The trip had so many various benefits and there is no way to define every one of the amazing experiences I encountered, only to know that those incredible people who were with me I can share the memories with and use them for the worth they should be.

 It is nice to know that there is a place that I can re-visit in my mind whenever i chose, and remind myself that life is not all a made-over version of what it knows itself to be.

Never before this trip have I wanted to give or do more,

I hope everyone’s good and see you all soon,

 Love to you all… darlings x x x x x x

P.S. SHONA! I believe a REAL disco is in order VERY soon.. as is our dance lesson with Suba! x x x x 

Hello all,

Being back in the normal life is a wierd experience, I’ve been feeling a bit land sick if you know what I mean, I’m used to there being a little bit of rocking at least 12 hours a day. I’ve been recognised around school a lot and people I don’t even know have been talking to me!

Anyway, I would like to say that everyone on the boat was great and thanks to Dan, Jess, Mark, Keith etc.. for helping us with our projects and a big thanks to Colin and Suba for making this possible for us all, it was really great and hopefully we’ll all be able to meet up once again.

Tally Pip,

Jethro

Hey everyone!

It’s hard to believe, that this should be the reality. I feel like I dreamed everything about our trip. The amazing things we saw, the fun we had together and you all. Just a dream. Two different worlds and me between them. I’m happy to be back at home, to see my family, tell my friends everything about you and the Arctic, but it hurts to see how uninterested most are in climate change and the future of the Arctic. I can’t understand it. They all do as though erverything is perfect, but it isn’t. I know it and it seems that you are the only ones, who know it, too.

Today in school I told my class everything about the voyage. It’s normal that nearly everybody talks in lessons, but this time everyone listened. I was really surprised, but I think it’s a good sign and maybe (I hope so) they understood what I wanted to say! It’s important that EVERYONE does something against the climate change!

My classteacher allowed Lydia and me to work on the children’s story in Art lessons!

I miss you all soooooo much and every day increasingly!

I hope we’ll see us all soon!

Ina xxx

Well I’ve spent a few days resting and taking it easy after an exhausted series of flights home. Although I am happy to be back, I miss the tranquility of the Arctic.  After spending hours doing laundry and sorting my stuff back into place, I finally sat down to reflect on my experience.

I miss the energy and dynamics of everyone who was on board. We all played a significant part in the making of this expedition and without each and every one of us, the experience would have been different. I’m glad that I got to be there to share it with all of you.

The journey isn’t over. We still have a lot of work to do to spread the news about climate change to our friends, colleagues, parents, teachers and anyone who wishes to listen. You don’t have to be a climate change activist to inspire people, you just have to tell them your story as you see it, in your own words. The most inspiring and interesting stories are ones that come from the heart.

So go out and tell the world about Cape Farewell. Even if you have to resort to telling the funny or silly stories about our journey. At the very least, you’ll become a good story teller. 

Hi Everyone! Thanks for all your soulful posts Now then! what’s next ? We all had a marvelous, purposeful experience which was also fun. It fulfilled the objectives we set for ourselves more than a year ago, better than we could possibly hope for
We have a lot of images, footage, project material to work with, and once we have rested a bit we’ll start thinking about the follow up… how to share all that we did and learnt together.

Phew! There’s video to cut, photos to share and projects to complete. Above all we want to help you voyagers and your ground crew continue making an impact in your schools and communities.

We’re also planning a conference at the South Bank Centre to learn the lessons and spread the word of our achievement to other schools. This will help us to plan further work and voyages. Can’t give a specific date yet but we’ll let you all know soon.

Meanwhile if you need pictures, sounds or specific pieces of footage to help you in completing your project and working in the school then let us know what it is and we’ll make a list and get started.

Even if it wasn’t filmed on our voyage we may well have useful stuff from previous voyages eg funky close ups of Plankton, diagrams of the ocean circulation, carbon cycle in the deep ocean etc. It’s worth asking!

Love and changes

Colin

Hey Everyone..
..I said i was going to add a bruise blog to let everyone know how my leg was, so here goes…
…It’s fine! I was really disappointed, like Jess’ eye it went yellow and was  swollen but then a couple of days on it doesn’t hurt or anything. There’s no pictures because it’s faded. I’m quite annoyed that my body decided to heal itself so quickly. Grrrr!
Amy-Love Always…
Amy
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