One Ocean Expedition 2025-2026 

2025 - 2026

One Ocean Expedition 

Statsraad Lehmkuhl departed Ponta Delgada, the Azores on July 8 and is now at sea en route to Nuuk, Grenland, arriving July 29. 

Aboard on this leg are ocean scientist and students from the University of Bergen  – and everyday people sharing the journey. Over the course of a year, the expedition will visit 27 ports across three continents, including a historic transit through the Northwest Passage. Several legs are open to the public - no sailing experience needed! Welcome on board!

Sailing route

At sea en route to Nuuk, Greenland

Follow our journey

Statsraad Lehmkuhl is heading north toward Greenland. On board is a group of students led by Kerim Nisancioglu, who in many ways feels he is “on his way home.”

40 students on their way to the Arctic

Statsraad Lehmkuhl visits Nuuk, Greenland, July 29 – August 5, 2025.

Ports

Nuuk, Greenland

After the last encounter with whales, nobody really felt like swimming anymore.

Whales - living and dead

Latest news

Latest videos

Following the success of the One Ocean Expedition 2021–2023, Statsraad Lehmkuhl is once again on an international voyage to promote ocean sustainability. Over the course of 12 months, the expedition will visit 27 ports across three continents, including a historic transit of the Northwest Passage. 

On The One Ocean Expedition, Statsraad Lehmkuhl is filled with students, researchers and voyage crew who all work together to sail the big ship and gather experience and knowledge about the ocean.

Life on board

Tromsø, Norway

Bergen, Norway - Lerwick, UK

Reykjavik, Iceland

Nice, France 

Ponta Delgada, the Azores (Portugal)

Pond Inlet, Greenland  

Gjoa Haven, Canada

Cambridge Bay, Canada 

Whittier, Alaska USA 

Vancouver, Canada

Seattle, USA

San Fransisco, USA

San Diego, USA

La Paz, Mexico

Herradura, Costa Rica

Cartagena, Columbia

Herradura, Costa Rica - Panama Canal

Norfolk, USA

Cádiz, Spain

Brest, France 

Dublin, Ireland

Bergen, Norway

Professor Kerim Nisancioglu from the University of Bergen is leading a group of nearly 40 students on the voyage from the Azores to Greenland. The students come from many different countries, mostly Portugal, but also Norway, Greenland, and the United States.

– The students have very diverse backgrounds. Some work with data, some study the Greenland ice sheet, some focus on offshore wind, and many work on ecosystems and marine life, Kerim explains. Along the way, we will collect samples and spend as much time together as possible to learn from one another and eventually share the data and the insights we gain.

Kerim is a professor of climate dynamics, with a background in oceanography and glaciology, and he has worked in the Arctic, especially Greenland, for many years.

– I study how the ice is affected by climate change, how quickly it melts, and how much this contributes to sea-level rise, he says. Every year, Kerim spends one to two months in Greenland conducting research in the fjords and along the coast, working closely with local communities.

– We already know a lot about what is happening there, how climate change impacts the ice, the ecosystem, and the wildlife. But it is also important to connect these changes to what is happening offshore, beyond Greenland’s coastline, so we hope to observe and measure, and in that way contribute to the research being done in the Arctic.

The expedition has several goals, both scientific and personal.

– What I think we will gain from the trip is strong friendships between researchers from different countries. These students are the new generation of climate scientists and oceanographers from many cultures and places around the world, and the fact that they can work together across disciplines and national borders is a very important part of what we will get out of this course.

Gathering so many students together on a ship for several weeks is not without its challenges. It is demanding to be on a vessel that is constantly moving; there is always someone who gets seasick, and there is not much privacy. But Kerim is not worried.

– The students are very good at taking care of one another, he says. They gain an experience of a lifetime, and at the same time it is intense. We do a lot of work, conduct research, learn new techniques, and learn from each other. Even though the students also have some tough moments, we give them time to relax and talk about other things.

Kerim is glad that the trip to Greenland takes three weeks. It gives everyone on board time to find a rhythm and feel comfortable.

– Experience shows that it takes at least four or five days. And after that, most people are doing quite well.

One of the goals of this leg of the One Ocean Expedition is to connect historical and modern science.

– We are going to repeat some of the observations that were made 150 years ago, back when people knew very little about the deep ocean. Back then, sailors collected measurements from ships like this, lowering hemp ropes down to 5,000 meters to record ocean temperatures.

Measurements from that time show that today, the deep ocean is about 0.4 degrees warmer than it was 150 years ago.

– But those measurements were made with a method that needs to be calibrated, and that is something we are trying to address now, using modern instruments, but old hemp ropes, and working from a sailing ship.

During the One Ocean Expedition, there are research coordinators on board at all times. They serve as the link between the ship and the scientists, and they are responsible when measurements are taken.

– And they contribute to teaching, which is fantastic when we arrive with students, says Kerim. They also give us access to the measurements the onboard systems constantly collect, which we can build on and contribute to, something that is very valuable.

Kerim is looking forward to getting to know the students better. 

– Some I already know from online, we have had lectures for two months. But it is something completely different to be together now, he says. The social aspect, getting to know each other, understanding where people come from, learning about their cultures, learning about their work, sharing the knowledge we have. Sitting here on the ship, sometimes in the sun, but maybe also up in the mast in wind and rain, it works, and we get to know one another.

For Kerim, Greenland is a “second home,” but traveling there on a sailing ship is something special.

– It is one of the absolutely most amazing parts of being involved in this, to sail into Greenland. Very few people ever experience approaching the coast and seeing the fjords, the mountains, the ice, the icebergs, and the wildlife. I have been there many times, but to arrive with a sailing vessel along the coast this way, it will be absolutely, absolutely indescribable.

The most special leg of the One Ocean Expedition is the voyage through the Northwest Passage, and Nuuk is in many ways the gateway.

Nuuk, which means “cape,” is located at the mouth of the long Godthåb Fjord. The city is the capital of the self-governing Danish territory of Greenland and the largest city as well as the cultural and economic center of the island. 

Just over 56,000 people live in Greenland, a little under 20,000 of them in Nuuk.

Inuit have lived in the Godthåb Fjord since 2200 BC. Around the year 1000 AD, Norwegian Vikings settled in Greenland, but these settlements disappeared around the year 1500. Today, almost 90 percent of all Greenlanders are Inuit.

In 1728, Denmark built a fort they called Godthaab where Nuuk now stands. Greenland was then a Norwegian colony, but Norway was in union with Denmark until 1814, and only then did the Danes formally take over the colony.

Nuuk is a small city, and like the rest of Greenland, it depends on economic support from Denmark. Today, trade, industry, and fishing are the most important industries. Half of Greenland’s fishing fleet has its home port in the city.

Ilisimatusarfik Kalaallit Nunaat - the University of Greenland - was established in 1987, the cultural center Katuaq in 1997, and throughout the 2000s tourism has grown on the island.

During the Second World War, Denmark was invaded by Nazi Germany, and in 1941 the United States occupied Greenland. The U.S. established several military bases on the island and in 1946 wanted to buy Greenland from Denmark. Denmark declined, but agreed that the U.S. could keep its bases.

In 1953, Greenland’s status as a Danish colony was changed to a Danish county, fully integrated into Danish society. In 2009, Greenland gained more self-government, but Denmark still has responsibility for foreign policy and defense.

Nuuk lies in southwest Greenland at 64 degrees north, about the same latitude as Reykjavik in Iceland and just a bit farther north than Trondheim in Norway. 

While the warmth the Gulf Stream brings makes central Norway lush and green, nature is entirely different in Greenland. The Greenland ice sheet, only the Antarctic ice sheet is larger, covers 81 percent of the island. Even the ice-free parts are - despite the name - barren and cold.

The winter is long; the mean temperature is below zero degrees Celsius from November through April. July and August are the warmest months. Average annual precipitation is 852 millimeters, with autumn as the wettest season.

As in the rest of the Arctic, climate change is very noticeable in Greenland. Since 1996, the Greenland ice sheet has decreased in volume. In 2012, 2019, and 2021, satellites revealed that the entire surface of the ice sheet was melting, and in 2021 it rained for the first time at the meteorological station on top of the glacier, 3,200 meters above sea level.

Normal maximum temperature in July and August: 11.1 and 10.7 °C
Normal rainfall in July and August: 69 and 91 mm

On Thursday, June 26, Statsraad Lehmkuhl was drifting about a week’s sail away from the next port, 

– We are now far enough ahead of schedule to afford ourselves to let the wind catch up with us, instead of continuing to chase it. We have therefore been almost without any wind since yesterday afternoon, just barely managing steering speed under all the sail, wrote Captain Marc Seidl in his daily report.

Taking it easy turned out to be a smart move. A pod of whales appeared around the ship, and it was nice not to be busy pulling ropes and handling sails. Everyone on board had time to enjoy the sight.

– We have had several visits from Sei whales who have shown their interest and curiosity for us, Marc continued in his report.

Sei whales are large animals, 15-20 meters long and weighing up to 30 tons. They resemble Bryde’s whales and fin whales, but unlike those, the Sei whale does not lift its tail fluke out of the water when diving. 

This was easy to observe from Statsraad Lehmkuhl, as you see on the photos of the pod taken both from the ship and with a drone.

Sei whales belong to the group of baleen whales and therefore don’t have teeth like dolphins and belugas. In the mouth, the Sei whale instead has about 700 baleen plates, which both look and function like the bristles of a brush.

With the baleen, they filter out krill, copepods, plankton, small fish, and squid. Over the course of a day, they can consume up to 900 kilos of food in this way.

Sei whales stay in small groups of three or four, and swim slowly at the surface with open mouths when hunting for food. But they are fast and can reach speeds of 27 knots if needed, faster than most other whale species.

There are Sei whales in nearly every ocean, exept in the far north and south. They don’t like areas close to ice, but thrive best in warm waters.

Only two days after the encounter with the Sei whales, the lookout once again rang the bell in the bow of Statsraad Lehmkuhl.

– Today two bells rang out for what was assumed to be a whale carcass on the port side. The course was changed to pass closer to confirm this - which we did - and two large sharks circled it. They had probably already eaten their share, and after taking a closer look at the ship, they and the whale disappeared in our wake, Marc wrote in his Captain's report.

Sharks prefer to catch their prey alive - none of them feed exclusively on carrion, but even a great white won’t say no if it comes across a dead whale.

As the photos taken by Matteo Baratella show, it’s not easy to recognize that the white mound floating in the ocean was once a whale. The white mass is blubber, the thick layer of fat that both keeps whales warm and serves as an “emergency ration.” But Marc has seen dead whales before.

– That was the big happening of the day so far, and a swim stop is not in high demand anymore, he finishes his report, presumably with a smile.