Last summer Earth Echo International ran their sponsor contest where the most eco-friendly sponsor won a trip to Key West with a Warped Tour band. I was lucky enough to win that trip while working for thetruth.com and even luckier to have been asked to join Erin and the Warped Eco Initiative out on the road this year. This is my third year on the tour and I couldn’t be happier to be back. The first day of tour is always a bit like the first day of school with just a bit more dirt and a lot more tattoos. Im covered in dust,I smell terrible and I’m dehydrated…and I cant wait to do it all again tomorrow.

The scope of the tour and the eco-initiative is massive and I’m looking forward to telling you guys all about it in the coming weeks. The most amazing sight (and sound)of the tour so far is the solar powered stage. It’s nearly as big as the main stages and I would say sounds arguably as loud. I was in awe as band after band came on and off, each one playing guitars,drums,basses…all powered 100% by the sun. I think this stage can and will serve as an example to the entire touring world, that there is a sustainable, green option for just about everything and you don’t have to compromise on quality.

This venue was different then most we will encounter on the rest of the tour because they use Burrtec,a material recovery facility which picks up all the trash produced at the show and hauls it to their facility.They then place all the trash on a conveyor belt and actually sort out all of the recyclable materials that were mixed in with the trash. I was especially impressed by the dedication of  the volunteers that came out today and helped us pick up the bags of recyclables that didn’t make it into trash cans. There were returning volunteers, some who had been coming to help out for a few years now and the help they provide is immeasurable. Or rather I suppose it is measurable…in pounds of plastic they save from going into the trash!!!

Bear with me as I get settled into th tour and start checking back for guest blogs and videos from your favorite warped bands on what they are doing to keep the warped tour green.

Come by the tent and say hi and bring ten bottles or cans to recycle with you and you can enter the contest too! I’ve got to run to the showers before our bus leaves, very early, at the 10 pm bus call tonight. I’m especially excited to be in the very eco-friendly San Fransisco area tomorrow (a city where they charge you if you dont bring your own bags to the stores) and you can find vegan food on every corner.

Hugg this | Digg this

Wow, today is the penultimate (second to last) day of full expedition for all of us. Tomorrow we will be doing a wall dive near Longyearbyen and the following day is aerials and packing. As clichéd as it may be, I can hardly believe how fast it has all gone by. That sense of impending farewells is starting to grab hold of the trip, yet everyone is avoiding the topic. We have the web crew with us on this trip and they interviewed me last night. One of the questions they asked was, “what have you taken away from this series?” While there are many professional things I have learned and discovered, I think that above all, I have had the privilege to work with a group of amazing people, people who a year ago, were total strangers and have now become like family. In many ways, that is the best part of this past year. Now, as we all face the end of not only this shoot but of the entire series, we are all very sad. We leave this place in three short days, bound for London where we have some press work to do and various other odds and ends before I head home next week.

More on that later though, today is the focus of this blog and what a day it was. We returned to the walrus site this morning and quickly ascertained that there were walruses in the area. The goal was to film the walrus underwater and so Paul and Tooni set out in a zodiac to film them. Walruses are quite curious creatures and they were very interested in the small boats spending more than an hour surrounding them just off shore. From the bridge, we could see them circling and everyone was thrilled that they were willing to come so close. We never chase animals in this program, we only present ourselves at a respectful distance and hope that the animals are willing to come to us. The walruses were willing and those of us back on the Lance were sure that the away team must have captured fabulous footage.

After about two hours they headed back and we all crowded around them as they came ashore. Unfortunately, what we couldn’t have known was that the visibility underwater was terrible, only about 2 feet, so despite seeing loads of walrus on the surface, Paul spent over an hour in the freezing water and had nothing to show for it. Everyone is disappointed, especially after all the work that went into making this happen, but that is the way it goes when one is filming in the wild, nothing is predictable.

Tomorrow Lucy and I get in the water and we are both very excited…and sad. This will be the last full day of diving and the last dive of the entire series for any of us.

Until then…

To view all of Philippe’s video blogs from Oceans, visit EarthEcho’s Youtube channel: www.youtube.com/earthecho1

To learn more about the BBC/Discovery Channel co-production Oceans, visit: www.bbc.co.uk/oceans
These blogs are the express product of Philippe Cousteau and represent his own experiences and opinions during the expedition. The views and opinions within are in no way representative of the BBC and do not necessarily represent the views of the BBC.

Hugg this | Digg this

I had a quick breakfast today and started getting my gear together when I heard the news. No diving today, ice pack had been blown over the dive site by the wind and was shifting around on the surface unpredictably. Ice is okay to dive under when it is stationary or predictable but loose pack is neither and very dangerous. Our surface boat could be cut off from us by closing ice and our exit from the water eliminated very quickly. So there would be no diving today. Paul and I set out in the boat to make sure and were both very disappointed to see the loose pack floating right on top of the dive site.

Back to the ship and another day of reading, playing the card game UNO, brushing up on my research and writing. Lucy and Tooni were on shore doing an archeological exploration on a site that used to be a center for land based whaling. Smeerenberg translates in Dutch to ‘blubbertown’ and contributed to the vast whaling networks that eliminated Greenland Right Whales from this part of the Arctic. The afternoon saw Lucy and Tooni head across the fjord to Virgohamna, a base for a particularly ambitious kind of polar exploration; by airship. In 1897 a team of explorers set out in a hydrogen balloon to be the first to reach the North Pole, unfortunately the group wasn’t seen for another 30 years when their remains were found by a fishing vessel. The next attempt was in 1906 when an American explorer made several attempts to reach the North Pole by air, none of which were successful. He, however, lived to tell the tale.

Tomorrow we set out south towards the walrus site. Last time we went there it was too rough to get close to the walrus, hopefully tomorrow the weather will cooperate and we can give it one more try. Goodnight.

To view all of Philippe’s video blogs from Oceans, visit EarthEcho’s Youtube channel: www.youtube.com/earthecho1

To learn more about the BBC/Discovery Channel co-production Oceans, visit: www.bbc.co.uk/oceans
These blogs are the express product of Philippe Cousteau and represent his own experiences and opinions during the expedition. The views and opinions within are in no way representative of the BBC and do not necessarily represent the views of the BBC.

Hugg this | Digg this

Today was the total opposite of yesterday. We woke early and got right to work. Tooni and Paul were in the water first thing after breakfast and Lucy and I were standing by topside ready to analyze, sort and catalogue anything they brought up from underneath the ice. The Arctic is an amazingly diverse place with complex ecosystems that we are only beginning to understand. Most people think of the Arctic as a white lifeless desert, where few creatures exist apart from the Polar Bear and the walrus. That couldn’t be further from the truth, as countless animals have adapted to live on, in, or beneath the ice.

As in other parts of the oceans, the basis for these food chains are the small organisms, the phyto-plankton and algae that in turn feed the larger creatures, such as the copepods and the amphipods which provide a food source for countless other animals from fish to seals to birds. The goal of today’s work was to collect some of the amphipods and copepods, (tiny crustaceans) that live in this environment. While there are several different species, some benthic (bottom dwelling), some pelagic (free swimming), we were interested in the sympagic species, the ones that live with the ice. Just a few minutes into the dive we heard over the comms that despite the lousy visibility, they were having success and as soon as the dive was over, a fine mesh net with a funnel catchment area at the bottom of it was passed up to us. The temperature is below freezing and with the wind chill it had to be hovering below zero, so everything was difficult.

Lucy and I flushed the net and canister into a bucket and began sorting. In all, we recorded 4 or 5 species, including one that, according to our biologist Jurgen, was not recorded by science. A short interval for lunch and the divers were back in the water and more specimens were handed to us. Well over a dozen animals were caught and recorded, valuable information that we are contributing to the Census of Marine Life, a global biological study that is attempting to collect information on as many species as possible. Our concern is that these fragile ecosystems are changing and we still lack a baseline understanding of their dynamics. Without such an understanding, it is nearly impossible to tell exactly what is happening, let alone how to work to re-establish balance.

By the time the diving was done, everyone was cold and tired but Lucy and I still had a lot of work to do. This was our last day on the ice and we still had to do our ice drilling. NASA has been conducting research via satellite on ice thickness and distribution for several decades now. However, they always need to confirm their findings from space with real data on the ground. Our job was to measure the thickness of the ice flow surrounding us and determine if it was first year ice or multiyear ice. First year ice is less than 9 feet thick and multiyear ice can be several times thicker than that. Multiyear ice is good, because it means that the ice is not melting in the summer. Unfortunately, our findings indicated that we were indeed moored to first year ice, a bad sign. We had to drill in four locations and take an average of the depths and the whole process took about 5 hours.

Half way through, we were able to take a pause and enjoy a brilliant dinner. The crew made a special treat for us today, a BBQ, reindeer and baked potatoes! It was fantastic and I only mention it because, well, it was that good. It must be the American in me but there are few things better than a good BBQ and nice cold beer and how many times does that happen north of 80 degrees latitude.

After dinner we carried on drilling and by the time we were done it was 11:30PM. I don’t think that I have ever been so cold. It was good work though and Lucy and I were both delighted to be doing more real science and contributing to our global knowledge of this incredible place.

It is our last night, we will be leaving in the next hour or so and as I sit here, I am overwhelmed by a sense of sadness. I do not want to leave this place. Over the last few days I have come to appreciate its austere and mysterious beauty, its harshness. An unforgiving landscape, after all our work it is clear that the Arctic holds more life, more wonder, and more majesty than I ever could have imagined. One gets the feeling that a lifetime would not be enough to even scratch the surface of this place. As I walked back to the boat tonight, the snow crunching under my feet, each step I took got heavier and heavier, the weight of this experience, of this place was finally wearing down upon me. The Arctic is greater than any of us, and it deserves more than the ignorant disdain with which it has been treated by humankind. Only in the last few decades have we begun to understand how deeply our actions are affecting this frozen world, and only now, when it is becoming too late, are we finally waking up to the reality that as goes the Arctic, so goes the rest of the planet, it may seem a million worlds away but the ice is with us every day.

To view all of Philippe’s video blogs from Oceans, visit EarthEcho’s Youtube channel: www.youtube.com/earthecho1

To learn more about the BBC/Discovery Channel co-production Oceans, visit: www.bbc.co.uk/oceans
These blogs are the express product of Philippe Cousteau and represent his own experiences and opinions during the expedition. The views and opinions within are in no way representative of the BBC and do not necessarily represent the views of the BBC.

Hugg this | Digg this

Well, as I feared, today was rather uneventful, with one exception. This morning at about 4AM, Matt Dyas, one of the producers, came and banged on my door. “Polar Bear,” he shouted and I immediately jumped out of bed. We had been told that it was very likely that we would see a Polar Bear out on the pack ice and everyone was on edge. A Polar Bear, imagine, the largest land carnivore in the world, the icon of the Arctic here and I would get to see it. I could barely get dressed fast enough and raced out of my cabin bounding down the stairs and out the door to the back deck. By this time it was a ways in the distance but with binoculars I could still see it quite clearly, its white fur only slightly darker than the snow.

Polar Bears are remarkable creatures, though they are capable of fast bursts of speed, they generally have a slow lumbering gate when they walk; this is to ensure that they don’t overheat. They have hollow hair which provides excellent insulation and black skin underneath, which absorbs the heat from the sun. They live most of their life on the ice only gathering with other bears to mate. They are ferocious predators and will eat anything they can get their paws on. They are excellent swimmers and tenacious hunters. One of the cameramen on our shoot explained that during another expedition to the Arctic, his assistant was scuba diving and filming in the water when a polar bear turned up and jumped in. Feeling quite confident that he could just swim away from the bear by swimming down, he began his descent only to find the bear was following him. He had to swim down to 90 feet before the bear gave up! Thankfully, our bear was far away and we continued to watch as he faded into the distance.

After a few hours more of sleep it was morning and the first major day of diving under the ice. Tooni and Paul suited up and plunged in the water to explore the morphology of the ice from underneath. The visibility was no more than 10 feet, as the ice is melting more than anyone expected, which clouds up the water. That, coupled with the gear freezing up and the extreme cold, meant that everyone was focused on those dives and so Lucy and I had the day to ourselves.

I spent most of it reading, catching up on our research and playing guitar with intermittent visits outdoors to see what was going on. During one visit, another Polar Bear came to within a quarter mile of the boat; temporarily causing a panic and making everyone get off the ice and come onboard. The bear showed little interest in us though and kept on its way. I must admit that it was a rather frustrating day. Unable to leave the boat and go exploring, inactivity was getting to both Lucy and me, though I admit there are definitely worse places to be stuck for a day! Tomorrow should prove much more exciting, as Lucy and I will be investigating and documenting the various invertebrates that live under the ice. This is part of our work for the Census of Marine Life, then we will spend the afternoon drilling ice cores to determine the age of the ice we are moored to, in order to send that data to our contacts at NASA, to help them with their research on the changing nature of the Arctic ice flows.

All that being said, I better get to sleep. Goodnight.

To view all of Philippe’s video blogs from Oceans, visit EarthEcho’s Youtube channel: www.youtube.com/earthecho1

To learn more about the BBC/Discovery Channel co-production Oceans, visit: www.bbc.co.uk/oceans
These blogs are the express product of Philippe Cousteau and represent his own experiences and opinions during the expedition. The views and opinions within are in no way representative of the BBC and do not necessarily represent the views of the BBC.

Hugg this | Digg this

Today was a travel day. We were finally heading north. Our destination was just above latitude 80 degrees, this will be inside the true Arctic Circle and everyone was excited by the prospect of being so far north. Eighty degrees puts us around 600 miles or so from the North Pole, by far the closest I have ever been. This is where the endless fields of ice exist; known as pack ice because it is essentially large flat pieces of ice flow packed together. Incredibly diverse ecosystems exist here with birds, fish, invertebrates, crustaceans, Polar Bears, walruses, whales and seals, forming a complex web of life. Most people think of the Arctic as a barren landscape but they would be wrong. Even I had no idea how much life exists in these extreme environments and our job over the next few days is to try and catch a small glimpse of that diversity and share it with the world. There is much more at stake here than just Polar Bears, as the ice melts, an incredible array of life is in great peril.

It was about 8AM when we started to see sparse bits of ice floating along and everyone rushed outside to take photographs and film our first encounter with the ice. The best was yet to come and by the afternoon, we were firmly amidst the pack; the boat lurching back and forth and the ice cracking and groaning as we made our way through, sticking to open channels when possible but occasionally being forced to break through solid pack when no other avenue presented itself. We spent a good few hours filming the introduction to the pack ice and our personal feelings about being here. I for one am so very excited, the Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest ocean and yet, along with the Antarctic, it is critical to maintaining the balance of climate on our planet and its changing face has drastic consequences for us all. The Arctic sea ice cover has diminished at least 10% in the last 25 years and the thickness of the ice has diminished 40% in that same time.

Today is Matt Dyas’s birthday and so the crew planned a costume party for him. The idea was to have everyone come up with their own costume and scrounge the ship to put it together. The results were hilarious and dinner turned out to be a total riot, from walruses to shipwrecked sailors to Star Trek characters and everything in between, it is amazing what this crew will come up with. After the festivities, we all decided to wind down and gather in front of a movie, Anchorman to be exact, before retiring to bed. Tomorrow is a big day for most of the crew, though I have a light one, as Tooni and Paul will be the ones in the water. Everything takes so much time and work that the producers are only able to focus on one story per day, so we rotate on a day and off a day. They unfortunately never get much rest and I am amazed at the dedication and stamina of the BBC crew.

Tomorrow will be a quiet day for me but I have a feeling that some sort of adventure awaits nonetheless.

To view all of Philippe’s video blogs from Oceans, visit EarthEcho’s Youtube channel: www.youtube.com/earthecho1

To learn more about the BBC/Discovery Channel co-production Oceans, visit: www.bbc.co.uk/oceans
These blogs are the express product of Philippe Cousteau and represent his own experiences and opinions during the expedition. The views and opinions within are in no way representative of the BBC and do not necessarily represent the views of the BBC.

Hugg this | Digg this

We were scheduled to head up to the pack ice today and everyone was very excited. However, the engineer we had to medivac off the ship yesterday left us short on crew. That meant that we had to head south towards Longyearbyen to rendezvous with another engineer by boat. That meant the whole schedule is topsy turvy…again…but that is the way expeditions go and we just have to roll with it. Everyone is more worried about the engineer and we all hope he is okay.

After the production team locked themselves away in the lounge for an hour, they emerged with a plan that they announced to the rest of us. Today we would be going to the southern walrus site which is close enough to Longyearbyen to meet the engineer but also allows us to film the walrus we were planning on filming on our way back from the pack ice. Everyone was pleased with this plan, as it meant we didn’t miss any days of filming, so by early this morning, we had arrived on the site. I had the morning off, as the walrus is Tooni and Paul’s story, which meant that I had time to…yup…you guessed it…sleep in! Now, as many of you know, I hate to sleep in but if it has to be done I am always willing to do my duty.

After I woke up, I had a few hours to catch up on my blogs and go through photos, etc. By lunch time the crew had returned and everyone was in high spirits. It was cold, but they had seen walruses and filmed a great sequence. Unfortunately, the conditions were too rough to film them from the water, but nonetheless, the topside footage was great. After lunch Daniel, our producer, told me that a sound crew would be heading out in the afternoon to record natural sounds on the beach and that if I wanted to, I could accompany them. I was really excited, I have wanted to see walruses all my life and this was my chance. I quickly donned every layer of clothing I had and headed out to the bow.

Mike Kasic was getting his sound gear ready and we all boarded the small motorboat with Martin, our Norwegian guide, and headed to shore. Not wanting to startle them, we went very slowly and carefully towards the group, which were lazily sunning themselves on shore. Walruses are incredible creatures and the largest pinniped in the Arctic. Pinnipeds are the classification given to seals and walruses. An adult male walrus can reach 2 tons in weight and has no known predators. The large male that we saw swimming in the water was easily a ton and a half, though I don’t think he was full grown yet.

They are odd creatures, with their huge white tusks jutting out of their mouths and their lazy demeanor as they lay on the beach. They can be fierce when provoked and adult males often have scars all over their necks where they have engaged in combat with other rival males. Walruses are in grave peril as the ice in the Arctic melts. During the winter they use the ice packs to rest on and as the temperature climbs, their traditional food source is moving away from their usual hunting grounds. In many places in the Arctic, the walrus are getting thinner and thinner and along with the other Arctic icon, the polar bear, may not last the century.

Today though, they were doing what they have been for millennia and it was wonderful to see them.

Tomorrow we have a party for Matt’s birthday so everyone is hoping that the weather doesn’t get too nasty!

To view all of Philippe’s video blogs from Oceans, visit EarthEcho’s Youtube channel: www.youtube.com/earthecho1

To learn more about the BBC/Discovery Channel co-production Oceans, visit: www.bbc.co.uk/oceans
These blogs are the express product of Philippe Cousteau and represent his own experiences and opinions during the expedition. The views and opinions within are in no way representative of the BBC and do not necessarily represent the views of the BBC.

Hugg this | Digg this

Today was particularly exciting. Beluga whales are magnificent creatures and this was our chance to see them up close, and if we were really lucky, get in the water and snorkel with them.

Unfortunately, there was a bit of an emergency this morning, when one of the Norwegian ships crew was taken ill. He was complaining of a headache and sharp tingling pains down his left arm. The captain immediately feared a heart attack and called the emergency helicopter to come and medivac him off the ship. We are all keeping our fingers crossed for him and hope he is okay.

After the helicopter had come and gone, we were able to launch the boats to start our search for the Belugas. Yesterday we had no luck in finding them and today there were no guarantees either. The Belugas in Svalbard are famous for their shyness but that did not deter us. We set out pretty early, in one of the small boats, as there were reports that they had been sighted some six miles in the distance. It was a cold morning and the wind was blowing hard but we had put on our drysuits with the hope of getting in the water, so we kept relatively warm. Our production coordinator, Gemma Thomas, had sorted out some new top of the line survival suits, but they had been held up in customs and had not reached us in time. I must say, that the production coordinators never get enough credit. Both Sophie and Gemma are the best that anyone could ever wish for. Always so helpful and friendly, we are all lucky to have them handling this series.

It took an hour, but we finally made it to the whales. Tooni had gone ahead of us in a spotter boat and was diligently keeping an eye out for them, with her usual good humor and wonderful smile, despite the blistering cold; I often wonder if anything could dampen her spirit. As we approached the whales carefully, keeping a respectful distance, not wanting to disturb them, the whales seemed not to notice us, as they went about their business, slowly surfacing for breaths of air at random intervals. At this time of year, Beluga whales are molting their outer layer of skin. Unlike most other whales, which shed skin year round (not unlike humans), Beluga whales do it all at once. Scientists think that the whales in Svalbard stay near the glaciers and use the cold fresh water outflow from them to help slough their skin. They will also swim up to shore and roll in the shallow gravel beds as a way to exfoliate. That is exactly what they were doing today and so we decided to land the vessels ashore and approach them from land, much easier and more respectful to do it quietly from shore rather than on a loud boat.

Unfortunately they don’t conform to our schedule and by the time we got to shore and off loaded the gear, the whales had moved on. The Beluga’s don’t tend to stay in any one place very long, this is likely an adaptation to the fact that Orca whales used to be abundant in these waters, until whalers all but wiped them out. Orca whales hunt Beluga’s and therefore it would have been safer for them to keep moving from place to place. After a few hours on the beach, hoping that the whales would come back, we finally had to give up. It was getting colder and everyone was starting to chill to the bone. We had seen them from the boat and at one point a whole pod had surfaced all around us.

It is always such a magical experience when wild creatures decide to share a moment of time with you. Their beautiful white bodies arching out of the water and then sinking back just beneath the waves. As with so many things, there is a sad part of the Beluga story. As apex predators, meaning they are at the top of the food chain, Beluga whales concentrate the pollutants of their environment in their blubber, pollutants that they accumulate by eating other creatures that have also accumulated pollution in their bodies. In some parts of the world, such as northern Canada, dead Belugas are treated as toxic waste because their bodies have absorbed so much pollution.

A cautious warning for humans, many of which eat the same kinds of fish as the white whale and live on or near the shorelines of those polluted waters. Even here in Svalbard, the Belugas have very high levels of pollution in their bodies. It is a terrible condemnation of humans and our short sighted behavior that these peaceful creatures should suffer so much. Indeed, Beluga whales are often called canaries of the sea because of their complex and beautiful vocalization but one could also call them canaries for a different reason. Like the birds that coal miners used to bring with them to indicate high levels of toxic fumes in the mines, Belugas remind us that the ocean is sick and that when the ocean is sick, so to become all the creatures that depend upon it, including humans.

To view all of Philippe’s video blogs from Oceans, visit EarthEcho’s Youtube channel: www.youtube.com/earthecho1

To learn more about the BBC/Discovery Channel co-production Oceans, visit: www.bbc.co.uk/oceans
These blogs are the express product of Philippe Cousteau and represent his own experiences and opinions during the expedition. The views and opinions within are in no way representative of the BBC and do not necessarily represent the views of the BBC.

Hugg this | Digg this

The plan started off pretty well, we were all rested from a good nights sleep, having packed it in pretty early last night. We were watching The Smile of the Walrus, one of the documentaries that my father produced, directed, and filmed for the Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau. According to the local guides, today was the day to find walruses and get up close to film them. Well, as the old saying goes, ‘best laid plans of mice and men.’ When the crew got out to the Walrus site there was an auspicious lack of walrus, there weren’t even any signs that they had been there recently, if at all this season. I remained on the boat, as this was not one of my principal stories, but was planning on joining them in the afternoon for a sneak peak if they did find some. Unfortunately, by lunch time the crew had not found a single walrus and had aborted the search.

Apparently, if they aren’t here, they are further south, a good distance out of our way. So rather than chase them, we decided to keep moving north into Beluga territory a day early; we would be passing south on our way back from the ice pack and would try the walrus again at that time.

That is the challenge with wildlife filmmaking, nothing is predictable and one has to plan for the unknown, life doesn’t follow a set schedule and so we just have to roll with it. It took several hours to reach the Beluga whale site and by the time we got there it was the afternoon. A group was assigned to the bridge to keep an eye out, and the rest of us set about filming some topside interviews, as well as content for the new website. So far, the BBC and Discovery Channel both seem pretty excited about the program. It is scheduled to air in the fall on BBC 2 in the UK and then in the spring of 2009 on the Discovery Channel in the US. In the meantime, a big website has been launched for the program at www.bbc.co.uk/oceans… check it out. There is a dedicated web team on the trip with us and they have all sorts of behind the scenes footage that will be going up throughout the expedition.

Alas, that was our fate for the rest of the day, as no Beluga whales were spotted. Beluga means white in Russian, and these whales are one of the few true Arctic whales. Also known as the white whale, they are a beautiful stark white color and live year round in these frigid waters. The ones in Svalbard are exceedingly rare and if we manage to get close at all to them it will be a real treat. We hope to be able to swim with them, but that is a long shot. Of course, the Oceans team is nothing if not ambitious!

Tomorrow we have another shot at the white whales and I have a good feeling about it. I’m in bed now, writing this after an excellent dinner and several long rounds of the card game Uno (an expedition regular), I am drifting off to sleep.

Goodnight and wish us luck for tomorrow…oh and don’t forget to check the new website…

To view all of Philippe’s video blogs from Oceans, visit EarthEcho’s Youtube channel: www.youtube.com/earthecho1

To learn more about the BBC/Discovery Channel co-production Oceans, visit: www.bbc.co.uk/oceans
These blogs are the express product of Philippe Cousteau and represent his own experiences and opinions during the expedition. The views and opinions within are in no way representative of the BBC and do not necessarily represent the views of the BBC.

Hugg this | Digg this

It’s official! I am an ice diver. We got up pretty early this morning and made our way to the gear locker to get everything ready. The ‘shakedown dives’ went in two waves: Paul, Tooni, Mike Pitts and Scott Tibbles (our two amazing cameramen) went first and Lucy, myself, Hugh and Ian were next. It was about 9AM by the time I was finally sitting on the edge of the ice looking at the large hole we were about to dive into. Dressed in my drysuit, facemask, thick gloves and harness, with a tether that would be my lifeline to the surface, I couldn’t help but be humbled by the seals in the distance that so effortlessly swam in and out of the water without giving it a second thought. As I slowly got to my feet, aided by Scott, and shuffled to the waters edge, a thin layer of ice had formed over the hole and I was about to jump through it.

This would be my first ice dive ever and I was starting to question the wisdom of humans venturing into such a hostile place. This wasn’t the first time I had leapt into the abyss, so I took one more step and in an instant I was enveloped in the cold water. As I popped to the surface, by my inflated drysuit, acting as a life vest, I peered up from the water just in time for a large chunk of ice to float past my mask. This was the real deal and I think for the first time, I truly felt like I was in the Arctic. Lucy was quick to follow me in and we submerged in unison and slowly floated under the ice, watching our bubbles float up and explode under the solid ceiling, sitting there with nowhere to go. I wondered to my self, how long would that air sit there, trapped, before it would make its way to the surface. In a land of such timelessness, I wondered if it would ever be free again and for a moment my heart skipped a beat as I realized that if something went wrong, I could also become trapped beneath the ice forever.

The water felt like little needles against my chin and throat but I was too amazed to care. Unfortunately the visibility was not very good; the water had a bluish grey quality to it that looked cloudy and almost viscous. Small jellyfish and tinafores were everywhere, but that was all the life we could see. The dive only lasted about 10 minutes and both Lucy and I were exhausted. The cold coupled with all our gear meant that these dives would be a lot more work than previous ones. As we surfaced, exchanging words of delights over our built in communication units, I was both sad and relieved to get out of the water. This was an experience of a lifetime and I am glad that nothing went wrong.

To view all of Philippe’s video blogs from Oceans, visit EarthEcho’s Youtube channel: www.youtube.com/earthecho1

To learn more about the BBC/Discovery Channel co-production Oceans, visit: www.bbc.co.uk/oceans
These blogs are the express product of Philippe Cousteau and represent his own experiences and opinions during the expedition. The views and opinions within are in no way representative of the BBC and do not necessarily represent the views of the BBC.

Hugg this | Digg this