The One Ocean Expedition

Monday 21 April 2025 - Friday 6 June 2025

The Statsraad Lehmkuhl embarks on a new grand voyage with One Ocean Expedition 2025-2026, with PML scientists Dr Saskia Rühl, Dr Mayra Rodriguez and Professor Steve Widdicombe onboard. Dates: April 2025 – April 2026 (PML participation 21st April – 6th June)

The year-long expedition will start in April 2025 and will cover the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, the Arctic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, and the Caribbean Sea, with stops in at least 20 ports across three continents.  

The goal of the One Ocean Expedition is to raise awareness and share knowledge about the ocean’s crucial importance for a sustainable future from a global perspective.  

Image above: Sailing route for the One Ocean Expedition 

Meet the scientists onboard: 

Dr Saskia Rühl, Digital Marine Biologist 

Dr Saskia Rühl will be joining the One Ocean Expedition as part of the lecturing team for the ESA-led Advanced Training Course on Ocean Synergy Remote Sensing 2025, which covers the two of the earlier legs of the expedition. Her journey will go from Tromsø, Norway, via Reyjavik Iceland, down into the Mediterranean and into Nice, France, and taking six weeks, beginning in April, and finishing on 3rd June. 

Whilst at sea, her involvement primarily focuses on teaching the 48 international students on board the Statsraad Lehmkuhl, and Dr Rühl will be lecturing on and demonstrating the biological carbon cycle, and plankton/particle imaging related techniques.   

Dr Rühl will also be actively conducting research on board too, and will be collecting samples to characterise plankton communities and measure particulate organic carbon concentrations, withthe intent to publish the results upon her return. 

Once anchored in Nice, at the Old Harbour, Saskia will be taking part in events on-board the ship as part of the third UN Ocean Conference 2025. There will be talks and demonstrations on board – open to the public – for attendees to find out more about what teams have been working on onboard the ship.  

Saskia’s involvement in the One Ocean Expedition has been supported with thanks to the ESA. 

Dr Mayra Rodriguez, Earth Observation Scientist 

Image caption: Dr Mayra Rodriguez in Norway.

Dr Mayra Rodriguez will be travelling from Tromsø, Norway, via Reyjavik Iceland, down into the Mediterranean and into Nice, France. Her leg will take six weeks, beginning in April, and finishing upon her arrival in Nice on 6th June.

Dr Rodriguez applied to participate in the expedition through the ESA Ocean Advanced Training Course, with the proposed research to explore the spatial and temporal variation of chlorophyll-a and primary production using fluorometry, and how their relative change relates to environmental factors like sea surface temperature. The proposed study is connected to her research on the ESA SCOPE project led by Dr Gemma Kulk, and CBIOMES project led by Dr Shubha Sathyendranath. Mayra was selected, along with roughly 48 other international students, to participate in the expedition, which concludes at the UN Ocean Conference.

Dr Rodriguez will take part in a side-event at the UN Ocean Conference 2025 – with conference attendees invited onboard the Statsraad Lehmkuhl. She and fellow students will present their research at sea.

Professor Steve Widdicombe, Director of Science

Professor Widdicombe will be joining the tall ship for the High-Level Discussions on the final passage before the UN Ocean Conference, joining in Mahon, Menorca and concluding in Nice, France, from 1^st – 3^rd June.

He will meet with international leaders of ocean science and policy to discuss  Earth Observation Action for a sustainable Ocean.

Professor Widdicombe will share  PML’s institutional priorities for a sustainable Ocean, and the importance of Earth Observation.

Professor Jamie Shutler, University of Exeter, and Honorary fellow of Plymouth Marine Laboratory

Professor Shutler has been involved in designing this incredibly forward thinking and advanced teaching programme and cruise – the first marine science research and teaching cruise on a fully science equipped sailing ship. He is teaching the cohort before they embark on the ship in why and how they can study ocean carbon from space. Along with why the exchanges of energy, heat and carbon between the ocean and atmosphere control our climate, and why these processes are key if we want to quantify current and future ocean health.

Professor Shutler will also provide the cohort with insights and connections to the European Union funded efforts for monitoring and studying ocean carbon, along with the advances being made within the ocean carbon research that is funded by the European Space Agency and being pioneered by the teams he leads.

Find out more about the One Ocean Expedition >>