One Ocean Expedition 2025-2026 

A 12-month global voyage with the Norwegian tall ship Statsraad Lehmkuhl - a floating ambassador for the UN Ocean Decade. Combining sail training, ocean science, education and diplomacy to inspire action for a sustainable ocean. 

2025 - 2026

One Ocean Expedition

Statsraad Lehmkuhl departed La Paz, Mexico, on November 26 and is now at sea en route to Herradura, Costa Rica, arriving December 9. Aboard are participants from “One Health School,” organized by the University of Stavanger in collaboration with the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro – and everyday people sharing the journey.

Over the course of a year, the expedition will visit ports across three continents. Several legs are open to the public - no sailing experience needed! Welcome on board!

Sailing route

At sea en route to Herradura

Follow our journey

Marine biologist Adrian Munguia Vega is looking for species never seen before. – People believe that, okay, we are just traversing an empty ocean, that there is not much going on because we cannot see it. But there is a lot going on, you know.

In search of the secrets of the Gulf of California

Statsraad Lehmkuhl visits La Paz, November 24–26, 2025

La Paz, Mexico

Statsraad Lehmkuhl visits Ensenada, November 16–17, 2025

Ensenada, Mexico

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Following the success of the One Ocean Expedition 2021–2023, Statsraad Lehmkuhl is once again setting sail on a 12-month circumnavigation to promote ocean sustainability. The voyage will include 27 ports of call across three continents, combining ocean science, education and international cooperation to raise awareness about the crucial role of the ocean for a sustainable future.

On The One Ocean Expedition, Statsraad Lehmkuhl is filled with students, researchers and voyage crew who all work together to sail the big ship and gather experience and knowledge about the ocean.

Life on board

Tromsø, Norway

Bergen, Norway - Lerwick, UK

Reykjavik, Iceland

Nice, France 

Ponta Delgada, the Azores (Portugal)

Nuuk, Greenland

St. John's, Canada

Bermuda

Los Angeles, USA

Bermuda - Panama Canal 

Vancouver, Canada

Seattle, USA

San Francisco, USA

San Diego, USA

Herradura, Costa Rica

Cartagena, Columbia

Herradura, Costa Rica - Panama Canal

Norfolk, USA

Cádiz, Spain

Brest, France 

Dublin, Ireland

Bergen, Norway

The Gulf of California is 1126 kilometers long and between 50 and 240 kilometers wide, separating the Baja California Peninsula from the rest of Mexico. The gulf is part of the Pacific Ocean, but it is so vast that many consider it its own body of water, the Sea of Cortés.

It’s not the size that fascinates marine biologist Adrian Munguia Vega - it’s the depth, more than 3000 meters at its deepest point.

Vega is a researcher affiliated with the University of Arizona in Tucson in the USA, and also the founder and director of a private genomics lab based in La Paz in Mexico. The laboratory he leads is developing new techniques to measure biodiversity with genomic tools in the ocean.

Vega is collecting the tiny particles that all animals and plants leave behind where they live, particles that contain DNA - genetic material.

– The ocean is a soup of DNA. You know, every animal, plant, anything that lives in the ocean releases its DNA the same way that when we go into a pool - you know strains of your hair fall out, and cells from your skin will peel off. It is the same with fish, and all the invertebrates - they release DNA to their environment. And over the last ten years the DNA sequencing technologies have advanced very far, and now we have the ability to sequence millions of sequences simultaneously, Vega explains.

To sequence DNA means identifying the order of the four building blocks that all DNA consists of, shortened A, T, C and G. The sequence is unique to each species. Once you know it, you can determine which animal or plant the particle comes from.

The method is called eDNA, short for environmental DNA, and Statsraad Lehmkuhl has the equipment scientists need both to collect water samples and to filter them so the particles can be analyzed.

The Gulf of California sits where the Pacific and the North American tectonic plates meet. Twelve to fifteen million years ago, the Pacific plate tore away the piece of the North American plate that is now the California Peninsula, and the gulf opened up in the rift that formed.

This is one of the most diverse regions in the world, home to more than 5,000 species of small invertebrates. Parts of the Gulf of California are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. But only a small share of all species is known, far fewer than scientists once believed.

It used to be common knowledge that most species live near the ocean surface, and that their numbers decline the deeper you go. Now the marine biologists understand that this was due to a bias in their knowledge.

– As we are starting to get more samples from the deep ocean, we are realizing that that's not the case. Some of the water samples from the deep have the same number of species, and sometimes even more species, than at the surface. And we are realizing that samples from the deep ocean are very diverse. At the same time the species that we see at the surface, where we can dive, where we can observe them, are very different from what we see in the deep ocean. So, you know, it's changing our view, the deep is not a very lonely, empty space. It is a place that has a rich biodiversity, we just didn't have the tools before to observe it, and we just assumed that there was not much going on there, Vega says.

Vega compares the DNA sequences in his samples with sequences registered in genetic databases. One is maintained by the US, one in Europe, and another in Japan. All three are updated daily and contain DNA sequences for all known species.

Often, there is no match, meaning the species that shed a particle in the deep has never been observed before.

– When we sample the deep ocean many of the sequences, maybe half, don't have a match, which means that nobody has seen anything like it. And that just tells you that we haven't spent much time exploring the deep ocean, and there are not a lot of people doing DNA sequences to try to understand what lives there, Vega says.

– It is first when we understand what is living there, we can try to understand, okay, are these species maybe for human consumption? Are they a source of protein that we can exploit or not? Are there any endangered species here that we need to protect, and what ecosystem services are these species doing, and why are they important for us?

For Vega and his colleagues, joining Statsraad Lehmkuhl sailing along the California Peninsula and into the Gulf of California is a unique opportunity.

– There is not a lot of information from the deep ocean in general in the world, and very little especially in Mexico. So we hope to maybe describe for the first time which animals and plants that live in this place. The research tools that the ship has, give us access to parts of the ocean that are very difficult to reach unless you have a large vessel with a lot of cable and tools that you can deploy to take water samples from the deep ocean, he says.

Vega uses “the rosette,” one of the scientific instruments on board Statsraad Lehmkuhl, to collect water samples. He also deploys a camera to film what exists down in the depths.

– Every time we drop a camera, we see something. Sometimes we are able to reach the bottom, and every time it's just like a space exploration. You don't have any idea where you're gonna land, he says.

– Sometimes you land in very cool places that you never dreamt of, and you are maybe the first one seeing it. We have found rocky surfaces full of sponges, really big sponges, like a sponge garden, beautiful. People believe that, okay, we are just traversing an empty ocean and there might be just sand down there. That there is not much going on because we cannot see it - but there is a lot going on, you know. So for me, my real goal is to make people understand by showing it.

It’s easy to see that what drives Vega is not only scientific curiosity, but also a deep and personal desire to explore.

– Well, you know for me, exploring the ocean depths is really exciting because it's so close to home. But you are at the surface all the time, it is unreachable, you know. So for me, it's just the concept of being there but not being able to see - and then suddenly having these new technologies that allows you to understand and see what's going on. I think that's really amazing.

La Paz lies on the Gulf of California and is the capital of the Mexican state of Baja California Sur. The city is located on the southeastern side of the Baja California Peninsula, which stretches almost from the U.S. border and 1,247 kilometers southward off the west coast of mainland Mexico.

The city sits in a bay quite far south on the peninsula, and when the Spaniard Fortún Ximénez, as the first European, sailed into the area in early 1534, he believed the ship had anchored by an island. 

The encounter with the local people ended in horror. The sailors raped, pillaged, and plundered, but were eventually overpowere. Ximénez and several of his crew were killed. The rest fled with the ship and were later imprisoned by Spanish authorities.

The Spaniards attempted to establish a colony in the bay in 1535, but after losing much of their supplies in a storm, they gave up and left shortly after.

The city of La Paz was not founded until 1720. Until 1803 it was governed by Franciscan monks and became part of Mexico after the country’s independence from Spain in 1821.

La Paz grew rapidly in the 2000s, driven primarily by tourism. Visitors come here for diving, snorkeling, hiking, and kayaking in beautiful natural surroundings. If you want to dive with whale sharks, this coastline is said to be the place to go. 

Today, about 250,000 people live in La Paz, many of them newcomers working in hotels and restaurants, as well as in agriculture and fishing.

The climate is dry and warm, with temperatures ranging between 17 and 30 degrees Celsius throughout the year, and summer highs reaching 34–36 degrees. 

The city receives 186 mm of rain annually, most of it in heavy downpours during August and September. Between March and June, it is normally completely dry.

Normal maximum temperature in November: 29.8 °C
Normal rainfall in November: 6.2 mm

Ensenada, which means inlet in Spanish, lies in a wide bay just south of the border between Mexico and the United States. It has an excellent harbor, the second busiest in Mexico, but the city is perhaps best known as a tourist destination.

The city’s rise to fame began during the Prohibition era in the United States, from 1920 to 1933, when the production, import, transport, and sale of alcoholic beverages were banned. Party-loving Americans flocked across the border, and the city’s first hotel, Hotel Riviera del Pacífico, opened to welcome them.

The cocktail Margarita is said to have been created at this hotel.

The hotel closed its operations in 1964, but can still be visited today, it now serves as a cultural center and museum.

Like the rest of the Pacific coast, the bay where Ensenada now stands was inhabited by Indigenous peoples when the Spaniards arrived in 1542. The first Europeans to settle were monks, arriving in the late 1600s. 

In 1882, the town became the capital of the short-lived Republic of Baja California and grew alongside the mining activity in the surrounding mountains.

The War of Independence between Mexico and Spain, from 1810 to 1821, took a heavy toll, and by 1930 the city’s population had dropped to just 5,000. 

Tourists continued to visit even after Prohibition ended in the U.S., and by 1950 the population had risen to 20,000.

Today, Ensenada is home to about 330,000 people. In addition to its harbor and tourism industry, the city is a center for marine research, oceanography, and biotechnology. 

It is also an important fishing port, and the surrounding region produces grapes, olives, wheat, and vegetables.

The climate is pleasant all year round, with maximum temperatures between 25 and 27°C from July to October, and between 20 and 23°C for the rest of the year. 

The region is dry, with an average annual rainfall of only 280 millimeters—most of it falling between December and March.

Normal maximum temperature in November: 23.2 °C
Normal rainfall in November: 19.6 mm