The beginning of June saw the launch of Arctic Sense – an exciting collaborative four-month scientific and communications expedition in the polar Atlantic. Another World Adventures Director Larissa Clark is on the team as head of onshore operations.

The multinational team is researching and documenting marine life in the region, with a particular focus on keystone Arctic and sub-Arctic whale species. Starting and ending in Stavanger, Norway, the voyage will sail via Svalbard, Jan Mayen, the Faroe and Shetland Islands, Edinburgh and London. They will sail on ocean conservation platform S.V. Barba. 

This expedition couldn’t come at a more important time – the polar Atlantic’s marine life is at risk from climate change, noise exposure, plastic and chemical pollution. The increasing pressures of large-scale shipping and mining also have the potential to have a devastating terminal impact on the local marine life. The crew will be using novel research methods, historical data and storytelling to build a compelling narrative on why we need to act now to protect our sensitive and threatened ocean environments. 

Photo credits: Featured photograph – Daniel Hug. Four centre photographs – top left – Sophie Bolesworth; top right – David Gonzalez; bottom left – Daniel Hug; bottom right – Andreas B. Heide. Bottom of post – left – Thomas Kleiven; right – Marco Schulenburg

Norwegian organisation Barba has been running science and storytelling sailing expeditions since 2010. For the Arctic Sense project, they have partnered with collaborative research group Whale Wise to implement a science programme that includes the use of drones and acoustic arrays. This information capture should help answer questions about which species of whales are in the region, how humans are already impacting them and what our future impact might be.

The core team led by Andreas B Heide will be joined by rotating crew members for different parts of the journey.

A part of the onshore team, Another World Adventures Director Larissa says: “I’ve always been passionate about combining unique experiences with valuable research, so I am delighted to be able to contribute my skills to such an important project. A big part of what Another World Adventures is all about is making sure that we are contributing to the protection of the amazing planet we live on and projects like this help us understand impacts and inform what we do next.”

You can find out more about Arctic Sense by visiting the Barba website and following the journey on social media on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook , LinkedIn and YouTube and through the hashtag #barbaboat.