Tues, July 26

Photo © SOI

STUDENTS ON ICE | 12, ch Fosbery | Chelsea, Quebec, Canada | 866-336-6423

Tuesday July 26, 2005

July 26 - Sea Day sailing from Iceland to Greenland. Our education program of lectures and workshops will kick into high gear today!
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Hi All,

We're at sea this morning with very calm conditions and making excellent progress. Everyone had a good and needed rest last night. We're beginning the program this morning with a lecture from David Gray on "Birds of the Arctic".

Geoff

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JOURNAL UPDATES (arrived and posted Wed am July 27th, 9:30 AM ET)

Morning,

Below and attached describe our incredible day yesterday. My journal to follow later today and will be posted on my ‘Leader’s Daily page.

Geoff

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July 26, 2005
Middle of the Denmark Strait

To put it mildly, it was a whale of a day! An incredible day where one wonderful thing unfolded after another. We awoke to extremely calm seas and sunshine. With Iceland behind and Greenland ahead, this was our first official "Sea Day", which means an opportunity for lots of lectures, workshops, hands-on activities, time on deck, bird-watching and much more.

Oh, and did I mention whale watching?!!

Our first whale sighting was a 0730hrs, the next at 10:30hrs, then again, and again and again. We saw at least 50 whales throughout the day including a Sperm whale, Fin whales, Minke whales, and dozens of Sei whales. However, without any doubt the highlight of our day was an encounter with the largest creature ever to live on our planet. a Blue whale!!!!!!! In fact, not just one but two! A mother and her calf. For the next hour and a half we shared space with these two magnificent animals. All the students were out on deck and the sense of awe and wonder in the air was palpable. We could hear and feel the whales as they exhaled and inhaled they were so close. Richard Sears, our whale expert, was like a kid in a candy store, and he explained to the students just how rare it was to see Blue whales. Indeed, this was the first sighting of a mother and calf in the Denmark Strait! In over 40 years at sea our Captain has only seen 5 Blue whales. Our team of Students on Ice saw two on their first day! In order to properly identify both the Blue whale, we put a Zodiac in the water to get close enough to get a good photo ID for the Blue whale catalogue. Diz, Richard and I approached slowly and were able to get some excellent shots which we'll now cross reference to see if these are Blue whales that have been ID'ed before, and if so where. Stay tuned.

Great lectures by David Gray on Arctic Birds, Peter Johnson on Coastlines, and Fritz on Ice and Glaciers filled the rest of the day, as well as several fantastic workshops on Weather, GPS navigation, Whale ID, and the Bottle Drop Project we are conducting to study ocean currents (more on that later).

At the end of the day, everyone was experiencing a state of euphoria. The positive energy charged through each of us, and our sense of being a team, a family grew because of what we had all just shared. Whales continued to appear all around the ship, even at our day's Re-cap and Briefing on the stern deck, were the feeling of celebration was strong. A giant group hug,
stories and impressions shared made it a great moment. Today we truly connected with the natural world. Let's hope some seeds were planted that will last a lifetime.

As though all that were not enough, our day concluded with a timely and very inspirational talk by Justin Trudeau after dinner. The power of Justin's talk and his impact on the students can be seen by reading some of the student journals sent this morning to the website. Amongst his many messages, was the power of every individual to make a difference in our world.

Geoff
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Hey, yesterday was another day full of once in a lifetime experiences! We started off great: some people had spotted a whale. Unfortunately Rebecca and I were not fast enough to get up on deck in time so we missed it, then we ate breakfast. We then split into our 2 groups and went to different activities. The second group (our group) had a lecture on whales. It was great because the man who did the lecture had taken all the pictures and some of them were so good and unbelievable, you could have not got a better shot! We then hopped on the Zodiac to get into a town called Olasvsik.

First we looked around the dock and saw a fish factory. In our small group of about 9 people we started talking to some of the workers and they showed us some fish. Since they could see that we were really interested they invited us on a tour. We had to put on booties, hair-nets and smocks. We really looked hilarious. Once we entered the factory we immediately were struck by the intense smell of many, many fish! We got to see how many people spent their day as the main industry in Iceland is fisheries. After the tour we went beach combing down a nearby beach. The beach was very rocky; however we found starfish, mussel shells, tons of seaweed and kelp and a gigantic dead jellyfish. We then boarded the Zodiacs and went back to the ship for lunch.

In the afternoon we hiked up the Snaefellsjökull glacier. It was a long and treacherous hike; however it was all worth it in the end. The view from the top was absolutely spectacular! We could see Reykjavik which was days behind us. We did a complete snow pit analysis and then made our way down back to the bus. Rebecca made a comment how the trail that we went up was down quite a distance and she said "That is where we came from." Afterwards I said "No actually we came from our mommies..." Then I slipped and fell and slid all the way down the steep slope doing backwards somersaults on the way down. Everyone followed including Rebecca. We were having a blast on the way down! We went onto the bus all dirty, smelly and sweaty as the hike was so long and hot. That was a great experience both of us will never forget! Once on the ship we had dinner (both of us tried raw fish!!!!) and then had group discussions about our day!

Jessica and Rebecca

To Jessica's Friends and Family:

Mom and Dad don't worry I am fine after sliding down the glacier it was a lot of fun! I was also one of the first people up the 45 min hike at a 45º angle. It was great however very, very hard!!

To Rebecca's Friends and Family:

Sorry that these journals are out of date by the time you get them - there are not enough hours in the day to write. Hopefully, we'll have more time on our two day sail to Greenland. And I didn't bring enough film, so I bought some off people who brought digital and film cameras. I was in the middle of the hike up the glacier, and it was much better getting there on my own steam. What an accomplishment!!!

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Last night I stood at the bow of the ship and I looked out at the ocean. It was big. Ocean all around me with nothing else in sight. How do we know if we're moving or in what direction we're moving? After all, Einstein came up with his theory of relativity to make us come up with these questions and confuse us. Now I know why early explorers loved sailing. It's inspiring to look out and think that eventually you will cross a big desert, or should I say anti-desert. I would not mind changing into a career that requires me to do some sailing. It's like being an astronaut on earth. And if you asked someone before 1960, they would say an astronaut is like a sailor off-earth. The feeling of sailing into the mist or fog leaves us with mystery. It is an unknown. Isn't this what mankind strives for? To discover and understand something that other people don't know about? One other thing that has surprised me on this trip is the way other people talk. Many students and staff on this expedition have already been to Antarctica. Yes, you heard me correctly. No-man's land. Yet these students and staff talk as though it was just a regular trip to Europe. As though it was simple to go there even without being a celebrity researcher. And the part that surprises me is that it is easy to go to one of the most coveted places on earth. We just make it seem hard because we never research opportunities like these. Anyway, I just realized what euphoria on this boat feels like. It's like the feeling at a cast party after a wonderful show where the cast became like family. Don't ask me how that connects, but it's the same feeling. I guess it's because I am surrounded by many scientists who are all experts in their fields. They are all famous in what they do. For example, Justin Trudeau is on this boat.

Who is Justin Trudeau, you ask (chances are you are from America)? I didn't know at first, but after seeing so many people excited to meet him, I found out. Apparently he is the son of the last prime minister of Canada. Meeting him is supposedly like meeting a Kennedy. This must be making all the Canadians on this boat (the majority of them) really excited. Anyway, the morning started off with an interesting wake-up call.

They let us sleep in until 8:00 AM and they always wake us up through the PA. This morning the PA came on and a different voice than usual came on and started singing some odd songs. The first thought that ran through my mind was that the students have taken over. Mutiny was in process. But no, I was wrong. After breakfast we had an interesting lecture about the birds of the Arctic and how to identify them. First lecture I didn't doze off in. Woohoo. I think it's because it was in the morning and I was wide awake. After the lecture, our whale specialist had impeccable timing and spotted a sperm whale in front of the boat. We all sped to the bow of the ship and the decks. The bow, once again for those of you who don't remember the game of Ship Captain or whatever, is the front of the ship. Remember, you bow forward. Hmm we're bowing to Mother Nature. Anyway, the sperm whale was fascinating. Right before it left, it put its fluke, or tail, above the surface in the way you usually see pictures of whales. After awhile, a sei whale was also seen. This whale turned out to follow our ship for awhile before leaving. What I found funny was people's reactions when the whale popped up above the surface. The more of the whale that could be seen, the higher pitch the "ooohs" and "aaahs" were. Directly proportional. After an hour of whale
watching, we had to go to various locations for workshops.

The ones that were offered were whale identification, clouds, bottle drop (I'll explain this once I do it sometime in the future), and GPS. I went to the GPS workshop because I wanted to learn the actual basics of it instead of just relying on my experiences. One thing that I got clarified was that 3 satellites only give you a 2D position (latitude and longitude) and more than 3 would give you elevation. I always thought the 3 required satellites gave you the latitude, longitude, and elevation. I also learned that the U.S. government had full control on how accurate civilian GPS will be. I knew they had control, but I never knew they had that much control. For example, after 9/11 the government weakened the accuracy by a lot. The last thing I learned about was that because of this control, other countries are launching their own satellites to create their own systems. Once the workshop was over, I headed over to lunch where the chaperones were doing something interesting. They labeled all the tables with our color (shirt closest to body). Just for kicks, they added a topless table. No, no one was sitting there. I thought we weren't supposed to discriminate against color! Haha I'm kidding, bad joke. This was done so we met new people that we haven't met yet due to the magnetic force a group of friends exerts. After lunch we went for another lecture, but this time on coastlines and how they form. We then had our first bottle drop. More like the group that did the workshop did their bottle drop. Just before that (yes I am jumping back in time) we had another whale sighting. This time it was a finback whale. Supposedly the largest whale and 2nd largest animal in the world I believe. However, it was kind of anticlimactic because to my untrained eye, it looked just like a sperm whale or sei whale. Anyway, after the bottle drop, we had a lecture about glaciers by "Fritz", one of our educators. He is the oldest person on our expedition and probably one of the funniest. His humor reminds me of Douglas Adams when he wrote The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. That was the best lecture we had yet. His comment about Antarctica: "If you ever find yourself in the middle of it, it's boring. It absolutely sucks!"

No, that does not turn me off from still wanting to travel there. After the lecture, our expedition had one of the greatest moments on the trip so far. We sighted two blue whales, a cow and a calf (mother and child...no, cows cannot swim). We were in the Denmark Strait and this is the first sighting and picture of a cow and calf in the area. Our whale specialist went out in a zodiac boat to properly identify it. Nothing has made him happier. He is very passionate about his work and this is one of the milestones of his career. This is how life should be. Grab a passion, pursue that passion, reap the benefits. Well after whale watching we had our recap of the day and had dinner. After dinner we had an amazing lecture by Justin Trudeau. The lecture centered around the fact that we need to pass this opportunity of ours onto others. We are the ones who need to tell the world about the problems they are facing but also make a difference in fixing it. Unfortunately, many people don't care about these problems. They acknowledge their existence, feel a little sympathy, and that's it. I know this because I was one of those people. This experience (it has only been 4 days!!) has already changed my perspective. There only needs to be a way to allow the rest of the world to experience this. Only then will they be convinced. One idea I have is to convince my group of friends to go for a group trip, either this year or next year, to Antarctica. I know they would all be excited, and I know they realize there's a problem. But it won't make them do much about it until it hits close to home. My group of friends are some of the brightest people I know in various and completely different fields. People say we are the future of this world, so why not have the future leaders of the fields all experience the same thing. This way, everyone would fight for a common goal. Anyway, something less profound: my current location is N 62º W 34º. These coordinates would be useful in tracking where I am.

Ankur Gupta, San Jose, California

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Hey mom and dad you told me to do a journal entry so HEY here I am doing one! This trip has been pretty cool so far, we did this crazy bottle throwing today where we put messages in a bottle with a way to contact the Students on Ice office when they are found. The food on this trip is so amazing!!! Jerry is the best waiter ever.

Justin Trudeau just came and spoke to us tonight about getting people involved in the environment and taking care of the planet. He apparently is like a Kennedy but for Canadians. I thought a lot of his messages where very informative. Over all it was an amazing day.

Jeanne Humphrey, Murfreesboro, TN

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We are spending the whole day today on the sea; on our way towards Greenland. The morning started out with whale watching and a lecture about the birds and I went to the GPS work shop later on. Yesterday was a beautiful day, we went into a little tiny Icelandic town and we went to a Glacier after that. There was a spectacular view from the glacier, a view which beats everything else from this trip until now. The weather has been terrific until now, clear sky and almost no waves; a perfect weather to see all the whales in! Greenland is waiting for us in the distance and I am really looking forward to see the biggest island in the world.

Mads Qvist Frederiksen - Denmark

Dansk ekstra-info: Det er helt vildt saa mange ting som vi har set paa saa kort tid, og maden er vidunderlige, I gaar fik vi en 5 retters menu til aftensmad. De er meget unge de andre der er med, men AK og jeg har det fedt med laerene.

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What a day, it was spectacular in so many ways. Sophie, Holden and Emilie you would have loved seeing the whales that I saw today. We spotted them as they spouted water from their blowholes high into the air. The huge sperm whale was swimming in front of the ship. We tried to follow it for awhile and as we watched in silence it flipped its huge blackish tail and dove deep into the ocean. The Fin whales swam just off the front side of the ship...close enough for us to marvel at their immense size. We were told they are the second largest whale species in the world. Fin whales are black and have a white stripe down each side of their bodies. They have a small dorsal fin and when they want to dive under the water they appear to round up and their backs and small dorsal fin rise out of the water. We also saw a Sei whale one of the smallest whales.

If you were to step in the sand you would leave a footprint, whales leave footprints too. A whale's footprint looks like an oil mark on the water, the mark is really not oil but the shape of the body before the whale submerges. Different species of whales make different footprints. Identifying footprints is one way marine biologists/oceanographers spot whales sometimes before they actually see it .It takes a lot of patience to look for whales as the ocean is so big , bigger than Lake Travis Sophie and bigger than Lake Ontario Emilie.

We all want to see if we can spot a great Blue whale [the biggest whale in the world] and Humpback whales [the most curious and playful whales]. There was absolute silence on the bow, the bridge and the upper bridge deck of the ship as all 102 expeditioners watched these magnificent mammals of
the sea go about their daily adventure unknowingly adding to ours.

P.S.

The best just happened with a call from the bridge we scrambled to the starboard side of the ship to gaze in awe at a mother blue whale and her calf. We shared space with two whales bigger than any dinosaur. The baby was a bull whale, a little boy and I named him Hunk. I think I may dream about
Hunk and his mom tonight!!!!!

Trudy Lum, Chaperone

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Here we are in the middle of the huge ocean between Iceland and Greenland. Everywhere I look the horizon is around me... We have great weather (thank god!), and up on deck the sun is shining and the whales come up to the surface to say hi to us. It's funny to see how people react when they see a whale, not to brag, but for me it's a pretty normal thing. Anyways, it's amazing to see people's reactions, and hear how their life is so different from my own. A lot of them live in big cities, full of smoke, noise and thousands of people. Now they are here... here in the middle of a huge ocean. Here they can really get close to nature. Feel it, see it, smell it, taste it, and hear it. And so can I... even though I grew up with it around me, I will never get tired of it!! So far the trip has been amazing. We fear bad weather though, because we are out in the middle of nowhere. But so far it's looking good :-) And in 1 ½ day I'll be home... really looking forward to seeing south Greenland, never been there. Oh, another thing, the food here is amazing! We even get dessert after lunch, and for dinner there are 3 courses of food. And lots of fruit! : )

Ved ikke helt om I folger med derhjemme paa denne web side, men jeg skal nok ringe lige saa snart jeg kan faa net paa min mobil. Det bliver nok d. 28 eller 29... vi skal nemlig til Nanortalik. Haaber alt gaar godt! Knus og kram

PS: vi kan ikke gaa paa nette her, de sender de her beskeder via satelit. Saa kan ikke tjekke min e-mail, bare lige saa I ved det. Men ringer her engang I slutningen af ugen.

Anne-Katrine, Nuuk, Greenland

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The wrong in this world is fully accounted for when the innocence is identified. I believe I have found it in Iceland. The trek up the volcano in Heimaey was incredible in that it was a symbol of pure nature: no fences, no safety precautions for the tiny trails to the top. This place was not marked by man but, rather....man was marked by it. In a world powered by control over everything-including nature-Heimaey's volcano stands as a force of defiance. The other breathtaking display of Iceland's wholeness was the hike up the glacier (Snaeffels- jokull). There was a semi-stamped out trail which was the most reliable guide due to lack of sight in the hovering clouds. And towards the top there was a spring that we could safely drink from-this was the coolest thing for me because I have always wanted to be that one-on-one with nature. At the top of the glacier the sun shone through and gave a clear view of the clouds rolling past over the ocean below us. As I said, breathtaking. I think the cold of Iceland symbolizes the basic principle of preservation-it keeps the purity aspect that the rest of the world has clearly abandoned, as ice preserves what ever has been frozen in it. I feel honored to have experienced this untainted nation. f.n.-virtually no crime or bugs or snakes....

Carolyn Roberts

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Good Afternoon to All!!!

Today has been such an amazing day! You probably think that the first full day at sea on the Explorer would not be as exciting as climbing up an active volcano, or a thousand year old glacier, but let me tell you that I have enjoyed this day just as much as the others. We woke up to the sound of Geoff on the intercom telling us that there was a sperm whale sighting in front of the ship. I must have been super tired because before I could jump down from the top bunk and put on my warm clothes, my roommate and I had fallen right back to sleep. The SOI team of expedition staff was kind enough to allow us to sleep in until 8:00 a.m. instead of the regular 6:30 a.m. I think that extra hour and a half of sleep made me feel a bit more refreshed and revitalized for the day ahead. We had breakfast and then packed into the lecture room for a talk from David Gray about Arctic birds. After that, we had about an hour to go out on deck and look for some whales and birds before we settled into our workshop sessions. I went to an interesting session by Peter about weather and cloud formations and learned a lot. After yet another break out on deck to do some whale-watching and gazing into the landless scenery, we listened to a lecture by Peter on ocean currents. All of these lectures are teaching me so much and my brain is totally packed with information that it hurts. Learning is something I love though, and I couldn't be happier to be building upon some of the knowledge that I learned in school.

Our third time for whale-watching was actually very special. As I was standing at the bow of the ship with Alysia, I turned to talk to her for one second, and as we both smiled and turned around, off in the distance we saw the blow of a whale. This moment was particularly special because Alysia and I were the only ones on the bow of the ship, Richard and David were on the top level and Diz and Eric were watching from the bridge. At the same moment we all shouted (or at least I tried to...) "WHALE!" and pointed into the far distance. All the students came running and the finback whale quickly approached the ship. I just gazed at it in amazement. It is a rare and truly amazing moment to see a whale in the wild...not held in captivity at Marine Land or another aquarium.

Today, I also began to think about a challenge that Airin (a chaperone) gave my reflection group last night. This challenge was to think about our five senses - taste, touch, smell, sight and hearing, and to recognize a time where we experienced something for the first time that fit into all of these categories. I was really up for the challenge so that's when I began to think while I was out at the bow. I stuck my head out of an open porthole on the bow of the ship so that I could look down and see the water splashing up as the ship came in contact with the ocean. I would get splashed in the face and could smell and taste the fishy and salty sea water. For my sense of sight I chose this morning where I sighted my first whale. It was so exhilarating! One of the most memorable moments today was being able to stand very still by yourself, staring into the distance and hearing a whale surface with the calming sounds of the ocean.

Today it really hit me that I was actually in transit to Greenland, with all the memories of Iceland behind me. I'm not surprised that I find this hard to digest because the same thing happened on the other two expeditions that I have been on - Arctic Floe Edge Expedition (June 2004), and Antarctica (December 2004). I'm sure that it will really start to kick in when I get home. This expedition is amazing. Words cannot even describe the emotions and feelings that you get seeing what we do. I am still extremely excited and can't wait for the journey ahead. Let's go!!!!!!

- Kelsi Prince --> Port Hope, Ontario, Canada

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