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December 22, 2015

2005-2015: Twenty expeditions in just one decade

 

What is the best month to go on an expedition? Well, that depends on where you want to go and what you want to see. If you check Oceana in Europe’s website or our recently launched story map, you’ll discover the answer is actually any month – apart from December.

Since 2005, we have organised twenty expeditions. We sailed in the Baltic Sea in April and May – after the ice and before algae blooms – , we surveyed the Mediterranean and the Bay of Biscay taking advantage of the good weather from May to September, and we moved with the trade winds to research the Canary Islands till early November.

Most of our expeditions last weeks but sometimes longer – it took six months to the Oceana Ranger to sail from San Diego on the Pacific coast to Mallorca, in the Mediterranean (well, we made a few stops along the way to study marine ecosystems). Choosing the right moment to set sail is essential to the success of our work, and once at the sea, decisions on what survey point to research are often made according to the weather forecast. Learn more about our work in our on board diaries.