Hello from the North Pole! Well…almost. I’m writing from Longyearbyen, which is located in the Svalbard archipelago, halfway between Norway and the North Pole. It also happens to be the world’s northernmost settlement.
It has been quite the journey over the past month to get here. I started off diving with National Geographic photographer Keith Ellenbogen, who is working on a project in the waters of Long Island, New York. Although we didn’t get many pictures, thanks to less-than-ideal conditions, I did learn a lot about the determination and patience that are so crucial to going on assignment!
Keith headed off to the United Nations Headquarters to set up an exhibit for The Ocean Conference, and I traveled over to Dutch Springs in Pennsylvania for their first ever Expo Weekend. Here I met up with several scholarship sponsors, including Faith Ortins of DUI. Faith kindly invited me to join DUI on a week-long Arctic trip with Oceanwide Expeditions, during which we will be diving in polar waters and learning about remote dive medicine — our ship Plancius departs from Longyearbyen tomorrow! Final details were ironed out and plane tickets booked. I also practiced with my dry gloves and heavy undergarment insulation in the chilly waters of Dutch Springs, knowing that these would be crucial tools for this kind expedition.
Seeing that I was freezing in Dutch Springs wearing even my thickest undergarments, Faith made another amazing offer to let me borrow a DUI BlueHeat heated undergarment system for the Arctic trip. She had it shipped out to me so fast that it arrived at my home in Virginia before I did! I took it to our local river dive site for some practice, staying very toasty and warm.
Prior to traveling to Longyearbyen, I stopped over in Denmark for five days along with fellow European scholar Mae. We learned the ins and outs of our underwater photography rigs from Lars Kirkegaard and the FOTOGRAFIT crew. Lars also taught us all about the basics of photography and editing. We went to the pool to practice and then out in the sea for some more fun!
I’ll be off the grid for the next week aboard the polar ship, but stay tuned for more detailed blogs about Denmark and the Arctic. Thank you to Keith, Lars, Faith, and DUI for their incredible generosity this past month. Thanks also to Reef Photo & Video, Nauticam, and Light and Motion for supplying the necessary equipment to document these amazing experiences. To Rolex and OWUSS – thank you for making this all possible!
