For Felicity, this is a personal challenge combining all that she has learned about polar travel over the past ten years. It is meant to instil a spirit of adventurer and to shed light on what motivates individuals to achieve. She has partnered with Dr. Stephen Pack, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire, who studies the link between physical activity and psychological well-being.  Dr. Pack has helped Felicity prepare mentally for isolation and will be using her podcasts and journal entries during the expedition as part of his research. 

Kaspersky Lab will once again be supporting Felicity on her expedition.  Felicity has begun posting updates on the expedition website at http://www.kasperskyonetransantarcticexpedition.com. Here, you can follow her progress on an interactive map, which will include Facebook and Twitter updates. She will also be posting a daily podcast that you can listen to on the site.  

Latest from her Expedition Blog: 

Ross Ice Shelf: November 25, 2011

Hello from the Ross Ice Shelf! I finally got here. It took 2 planes today to manage to get me to the far side of Antarctica and the start of my expedition. A few hours ago they dropped me off on the ice-shelf after an amazing flight over the Trans-Antarctic Mountains – and here I am. I’ve set up my tent, I’m alone on the Ross Ice Shelf and looking at a big white horizon on the one side towards the North – and to the South, this wall of mountain, absolutely spectacular. I couldn’t ask for better weather. It’s really calm, it’s sunny, warm – so it’s been very kind to me for my first night on the ice. I can’t wait to get started in the morning – and start my journey to the South Pole and the opposite side of Antarctica. I’m currently at about 85 degrees South and tomorrow I’m going to be chipping away at that – so yeah. Here’s to a good nights sleep and a good start tomorrow. 

Read more

Click here to watch WINGS produced videos of Diana for Discover!

 Image courtesy of Diana Beresford-Kroeger

“'If you speak for the trees, you speak for all of nature,'” says Beresford-Kroeger, who has the mind of a scientist and the heart of an artist. She has studied the environmental, medicinal, nutritional, and even spiritual aspects of trees, has written about them in books such as The Global Forest and Arboretum Borealis, and on her property she maintains gardens that burst with flora and are open often to the public."-The Utne Reader.  

Click here to read the article about Diana in the Utne Reader 

For the second year, Sigourney and Odessa Buell ran a lemonade stand during the Perry Street Fair.  

 

Here are a few fun pictures of the action!

Odessa and Su making a sale!

Sigourney, Odessa and Rosa explaining to customers about Wings Worldquest.

Odessa taking a break.

More talk about WINGS!

Katrina, Sigourney and Odessa celebrating at the end of the day after they sold the 600th cup!

Cycling Silk 2011 Trailer from Kate Harris on Vimeo.

In the world of strict plans and fixed agendas, detours are just distractions. But on the Cycling Silk expedition, detours often prove the destination – and not just because we frequently get lost. So when KuzeyDoğa, an award-winning Turkish NGO, invited us to explore their biodiversity conservation projects in the borderlands of eastern Turkey – wooing us with wild animals, wide open spaces, and a visit to a Turkish bath – we knew it would be worth diverting from our intended route for a visit. After all, we hadn’t showered in a week.

So we steered south, away from the Black Sea, and began climbing onto the Kars Plateau, swapping heavy rain for heavier snow along the way. The roads grew so slick with ice we had to work twice as hard to go half as fast. Sometimes we couldn’t bike at all. Climbing a pass during a blizzard, the snow not so much falling as firing, flakes sharp and aimed as arrows, the police stopped us and made us cross the pass in a truck (driven by Osman and Mustafa, of course.) At least the heated cab offered respite from the snot-crackling, lung-stiffening cold. Surviving on the bike in such conditions required cartwheel breaks to centrifugally force blood back into extremities. While I exulted in this suddenly polar world, cryophile that I am, Mel may never join me on another winter adventure again, even if she someday thaws out from this one.

Whether because of the cold or despite it, we fell in love with Kars. The Plateau is a territory of enchantment: foxes loping across plains wide as thought, owls patient as stone on signposts, mountains giving cold shoulders to the world. A place more sky than earth, no wonder it set us soaring. We had good company up there: slow-reeling vultures, skinhead buzzards, fang-billed falcons, and many other birds populate Kars skies. Since we visited in the cold heart of winter, though, most vagrants of the air were off sunning themselves at the equator. Birds of prey migrate by skipping like stones from thermal to thermal, rising on one column of hot air and gliding down to the next forming, back and forth to Africa, Europe, and India, stopping in the South Caucasus along the way. If only bikes could be physically powered by the same principle.

While territory is an instinctive concept for birds, the political divides we map onto their habitats are meaningless to them. There’s no explaining borders to the birds; they fly far above our fences. But even so, fences define boundaries, however arbitrary, that can fragment the habitats where birds stop to breed and feed during migration. This is especially true of the borderlands where KuzeyDoğa works, including the Aralık-Karasu marshes skirting the base of Mount Ararat, on the border of Turkey and Iran, with Armenia and Azerbaijan nearby.

Read the rest on the Cycling Silk Blog!

Another glassy morning, water slick and still, with an almost oily sheen indicative of these ocean dynamics. We’re in a high pressure system, about 600 miles from the center of the accumulation zone. Light, variable winds force us to motor along, occasionally grabbing ahold of opportune gusts to shut off the engine. There’s nothing like the quiet peace of gliding along under sail only.

Today’s research was a repeat of yesterday – trawls mostly filled with tiny Portuguese Man O War, VelellaVelella, juvenile Myctophids, and translucent crabs. We’re running the high speed trawl continuously, stopping twice a day to deploy the manta trawl, and for Garen to conduct his research – more about that tomorrow.

Along with our barometer, spirits are also sky high. After tonight’s dinner – vegetable wraps with handmade tortillas, roasted onions and garlic, and a peach cobbler – we capped the evening with a round of recited poems, songs, a hilarious Scottish eulogy by Charlie (not a word of which was intelligible) and a sunset bagpipe serenade on the Sea Dragon’s bow. 6 or 7 cameras were immediately on hand to capture the moment. Its difficult to find words to describe how wonderfully incongruous both the sight and sound of this are….I’m fairly certain having a skilled bagpipe player on board a research expedition to the South Pacific Gyre is a first.

Read more on the 5GYRES Blog

We’re underway! 11 of us stand on deck, soaking in the stunning view as we navigate our way through the gorgeous channels that wend lazily from Valdivia to the sea. Picturesque little villages break up the thick, green forests bordering us on all sides. A perfect day for setting sail --- and for a helicopter flyover!

For the last 2 days, Friedemann has been hustling to track down a helicopter, to shoot some aerial footage of the Sea Dragon making its way to open water. We all encourage him, somewhat skeptical but hoping that it will work out. This would be ubercool...

“Listen, it’s coming! Everyone take your places on deck!”

We quickly raise the sails as the tell tale chopper sounds ricochetthrough the air. A tiny, black dot swoops its way towards us, hovering low over the water, circling our boat, and then disappearing into the bright sun. We try to look busy for the cameras,pulling on random ropes while Friedemann and Bill – our two filmmakers - shoot blissfully from above.

By far, this has been our most dramatic departure yet, and the results are spectacular! Jeff fetches the filmmakers in the dingy, elated with excitement. Viewed from 300 meters up, the Sea Dragon was merely an elegant white speck against a sparkling backdrop. This will be our home for the next few weeks.

12 hours into the voyage, things take a temporary turn for the worse. Sea sickness sends a third of the crew either to their bunks, or heaved over the side of the boat, ashen faced and miserable. And a critical piece on the watermaker blows. Our Skipper Clive wakes us with the news, holding the part between two fingers – a small fitting the size of a thumbnail. We’d have to head back to Chile for repairs. Without water, we wont make it to Easter Island, much less Tahiti, the next leg of the voyage.

Incredulous, we look at the tiny culprit, heads spinning with the implications. Going back now means another delay of at least 24 hours, and we’re already behind schedule. Marcus heads out to investigate with Dale. If these two MacGyvers can’t fix it, we will doubtless have to turn back.

Success!! Marcus finds a roughly matching part, and an hour of tinkering later, Dale finesses the piece into place. A narrow miss, thanks to our resourceful handymen.

We’re now roughly 30 hours from Robinson Crusoe, a small, remote island where we’ll do a bit of exploring before getting back on our route to Rapa Nui. And soon, we’ll begin our research – which is what brings us to this far away part of the world, studying plastic marine pollution in an area that has yet to be explored. We truly have no idea what we will find.

In just a few hours, Marcus, myself and our amazing new crew set sail for the 5^th Subtropical Gyre, to study plastic marine pollution in an area of the world where no such research has taken. We have no idea yet what we’ll find – if this Gyre will fare better or worse than the other oceans we’ve explored – thus far, in our 20,000 plus miles across the North Pacific, North Atlantic, South Atlantic, and Indian Oceans, we have yet to find a gyre devoid of plastic pollution.

Our route will take us directly through the center of the accumulation zone in the South Pacific Gyre, as predicted by Dr. Nicolai Maximenko from the University of Hawaii. Maximenko’s computer simulation looks at drift buoy data to predict where the most dense region of the “accumulation zone” might be – in other words, where plastic trash is most likely to accumulate. We’ll zig zag our way through the accumulation zone, collecting surface samples to analyze in a lab.

We’ve spent the last few days in Valdivia, Chile – prepping the boat, buying 6 weeks worth of food, as our boat will continue onto Tahitia, and doing a bit of crew bonding – nothing like a beach clean up to get us thinking about the mission ahead. This, and several evenings of lively conversation over empanadas and local beer!

We have an incredible and diverse group of people on board – mostly men this time for some reason….

We have Garen Baghdasarian, professor of Marine Biology from Santa Monica College, and his wife Sara Bayles, who will be conducting a study on plastic particles and phytoplankton; Paula Alvarado, an Argentine journalist for Treehugger and Discover Latin America, who will be posting regularly for both; 3 filmmakers – Bill Bowles, Charlie Bradford, and Friedemann Hottenbacher, who will be shooting a documentary for German/French TV; Ben Lear, a musician who recently composed a Folk Opera that takes place in the mythical “island of garbage” in the North Pacific Gyre, and our intrepid crew  - Skipper Clive Cosby, First Mate Dale Selvam, Second mate Jeff Ernst, and myself and my husband Marcus Eriksen, running the expedition research goals.  In addition to the research, an unusual musical element seems to be emerging – on board we’ll have 3 harmonicas, a guitar, a violin, and a bag pipe.

Time for one more trip to the market to load up on fresh veggies and fruit, and we’re off! We’ll be posting regularly along the way, sharing our findings, so follow along and feel free to ask questions – we’ll answer these from sea through our blog!

At the end of 2009 Felicity Aston led the Kaspersky Lab Commonwealth Antarctic Expedition, a multi-national 8-woman team from Ghana, Jamaica, India, New Zealand, Singapore, Brunei Darussalam, Cyprus and the UK who skied more than 900km from the coast of Antarctica to the South Pole. Most of the women were either the first person or the first woman from their country to ski to the South Pole and yet they were not experienced explorers (some had never seen snow before joining the expedition) but ‘ordinary’ women who wanted to inspire others to follow their dreams or make a change for the better in their lives.

Felicity's book tells the story of her experiences putting together and training the team, as well as their remarkable 40-day journey together in Antarctica. ‘Call of the White: Taking the World to the South Pole’ is published by Summersdale and is now available at Amazon:

For inquiries please contact:

Felicity Aston

www.felicityaston.com

felicity@felicityaston.com

(Interviews with the author can be arranged and High Resolution images are available.)

The crew, lead by Dr. Marcus Eriksen and Anna Cummins of Santa Monica, CA will sail over 2,000 miles from Valdivia, Chile, zig-zagging through the South Pacific Gyre to arrive at Easter Island on April 7. Little data on plastic in this region exists. The researchers however expect to find the same kind of plastic pollution - known to harm marine life, fisheries, and possibly threaten human health - that they appear to have have found in every sample they've taken while sailing through 20,000 miles in the North Pacific, North Atlantic, South Atlantic, and Indian Ocean Gyres. No other such researchers have sailed through all of the world's five subtropical gyres.

Read more...

5Gyres Blog

WINGS Expedition Blog

View of ice surface looking towards Gamburtsev Mountains and Dome A. The intense blue sky reflects the high altitude and thin atmosphere of the polar plateau. [Robin E. Bell--Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, New York]

Imagine biting into a piece of cake with a thick layer of frosting at the bottom instead of at the top. Robin Bell and here team of scientists have found a similar scenario in at the bottom of Antarctic ice sheets, where freezing water is responsible for as much as half of the ice sheet’s thickness. The findings, she says, indicate that water moving through ancient river valleys beneath more than one mile of ice has changed the basic structure of ice sheets.

“We went to the middle of the ice sheet to explore the hidden mountain ranges,” Bell told WINGS, adding that, “usually the ice sheet looks like a nice pile of tortillas. Finding the frozen ice was like discovering a dollop of guacamole under the ice sheet. At first we thought is was an error but there the features were again and again.”

Fully equipped Twin Otter on skis taking off from AGAP-S camp at 3500m heading north to survey over Dome A. Four radar antennae can be seen hanging down on each wing. Energy was transmitted from the four antenna on the left wing, through the ice sheet where it reflected off layers in the ice and the hidden mountains. The returning energy was received on the four antennae on the right wing. The pods on the ends of the wings contain the magnetometers. The gravity meter and the laser altimeter are mounting inside the aircraft. [Nick Frearson--Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, New York]The study was part of a collaborative effort of seven countries to study one of the most remote parts of Antarctica, known as “Dome A.” The 4,200-meter Dome A—an area the size of California—is the top of the East Antarctic ice sheet. Large ice sheets like the one that covers Antarctica grow when falling snow accumulates faster than it disappears, over long periods of time, causing thickening and lateral spreading. But it turns out that this type of accumulation is not the only way that these ice sheets can thicken. Using state-of-the-art ice imaging systems, Bell and colleagues discovered that a large fraction of the ice at Dome A accumulated by the freezing of water at the bottom of the ice sheet, rather than from snowfall onto surface of the ice sheet. This process occurs when water pooled at the bottom of the ice sheet is cooled by convection, or when water forced up steep valley walls is super-cooled; altering the thermal and crystal structures of the ice column as well as the topography of the ice sheet surface.

AGAP south camp on East Antarctic Plateau resting atop over 2 kilometers of ice. On the south side of Dome A at 3500m above sea level, this camp was one of two camps that supported the scientists studying the Gamburtsev Mountains and the overlying ice sheet. [Robin E. Bell--Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, New York]

Although water has long been known to be important to ice sheet dynamics (mostly as a lubricant), Bell’s study reveals just how drastically

basal water can modify the structure of ice sheets. Scientists need to understand how ice sheets are put together in order to accurately predict how they will be affected by global climate change.

Ice penetrating radar over the freeze-on ice along the southern margin of the Gamburtsev Mountains. The plume of freeze-on ice is 1100m thick along this profile and the normally flat internal layers are deflected upward 400m. [Robin E. Bell--Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, New York]

Related Links and information:

Bell and her team have published the results of their study in the 03 March 2011online edition of Science magazine. http://www.sciencexpress.org.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-03/leo-sai030111.php

http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/pi/gambit/

http://www.earth.columbia.edu/articles/view/2289