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 arrived in Cartagena, Columbia, December 22, and will stay until January 9. Next port is Norfolk, USA, arriving January 31.

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

Docked in the port of Cartagena

Follow our journey

Statsraad Lehmkuhl visits Cartagena, December 22, 2025 - January 9, 2026

Cartagena, Colombia

Statsraad Lehmkuhl visits Herradura Bay, December 9 - 13, 2025

Herradura Bay, Costa Rica

In the ports Statsraad Lehmkuhl visits, schoolchildren are invited to share how they experience climate change affecting the environment where they live. They do this by handing over a message in a bottle to the captain.

Delivering emergency messages to the grown-ups

Latest news

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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

Ensenada, Mexico

La Paz, Mexico

Herradura, Costa Rica

Cartagena, Columbia

Herradura, Costa Rica - Panama Canal

Norfolk, USA

Cádiz, Spain

Brest, France 

Dublin, Ireland

Bergen, Norway

Cartagena, on the northern coast of Colombia, is one of the most important port cities in the Caribbean, with close to one million inhabitants.

The Spanish arrived in the early 1500s and established a colony here in 1533. The bay where Cartagena lies offers a good natural harbor, and the Spanish settled and founded the city on the site of a local village.

They named the city after Cartagena in Spain, the hometown of many of the sailors who crossed the Atlantic.

Cartagena became an important export port for silver from Potosí in Bolivia, which in the mid-1500s was the largest silver mine in the world. This made the city an attractive target for pirates and privateers, and after the Englishman Francis Drake attacked in 1586, the Spanish began building the fortification walls that today surround Cartagena’s historic center.

In 1697, French forces attacked Cartagena, and the fortifications were strengthened even further - work that continued until the late 1700s.

Cartagena remained under Spanish rule until November 1810, when the Spanish governor was deposed and the city declared itself a free and independent state. In 1815, Spain sent what they called a “pacifying expedition” against Cartagena - 59 ships and more than 10,000 men. The city was besieged from August until February 1816. 

Thousands died of hunger and disease before the city finally fell, and several of its leaders were executed. But in 1820, rebel forces attacked the city again and regained control in October 1821.

Years of conflict, a deadly cholera epidemic, and the rise of competing ports led to a long decline. Conditions improved toward the end of the 19th century, when the city got a railway connection and state support for reconstruction and modernization.

Today, Cartagena has one of the largest ports in South America, and trade, industry, and tourism are key sectors.

The climate is tropical, with one wet and one dry season. A total of 1,073 mm of rain falls annually, most of it between May and November, with October as the wettest month. The normal maximum temperature is 31–32 degrees year-round.

Normal maximum temperature in December: 31.4 °C
Normal rainfall in December: 48 mm

Costa Rica in Central America is a fascinating destination for anyone who loves nature experiences: a long coastline with beautiful beaches and mangroves, large and small islands, lakes and rivers, mountains rising to more than 3,400 meters, untouched forests, and rich wildlife.

A quarter of the country is protected, so it is no surprise that tourism is an important source of income.

Costa Rica was colonized by Spain in the 16th century and gained independence in 1821 when the country became part of the First Mexican Empire, and then a member of the Federal Republic of Central America in 1823. In 1847 Costa Rica formally declared independence.

After a bloody civil war in 1948, the country became the first in the world to abolish its military, and it has held free and fair elections ever since.

Costa Rica cultivates bananas, pineapples, coffee, and other crops, but the production of medical equipment, pharmaceuticals, software development, and ecotourism are now the country’s most important industries.

Statsraad Lehmkuhl anchors in Herradura Bay, about an hour’s drive from the international airport in the capital, San José, located inland.

Herradura means horseshoe in Spanish - which is exactly what the bay looks like: a wide curve with dark, fine sand at the innermost part. 

The bay is one of the country’s most popular destinations. In Herradura you’ll find hotels, apartments, a golf course, and a marina with boat rentals. But no pier large enough for a 98-meter sailing ship, so Statsraad Lehmkuhl will lie at anchor in the bay.

Costa Rica has a tropical climate, warm all year round, and only two seasons; one wet and one dry. 

Over the course of a year, 1,629 mm of rainfall falls, most of it between May and November. The rest of the year sees little rain. The normal maximum temperature in Herradura ranges between 29 and 31 degrees year-round.

Normal maximum temperature in December: 29.9 °C
Normal rainfall in December: 21 mm

A message in a bottle is something we usually associate with an emergency, something cast into the sea by a shipwrecked person asking for help when no other means of communication exist. During the One Ocean Expedition, messages in bottles are also being sent out, but here the emergency messages come from children to adults.

Here you can read about the Message in a bottle -project and how schools can take part.

Also in La Paz, the ship received messages in bottles.

– Message in a Bottle can be anything from nice drawings to video productions. And yes, it’s very moving to see how engaged the kids are. There’s no doubt that the generation growing up now has much more on their agenda than my generation ever did, says Captain Jens Joachim Hiorth.

Three school classes came on board in La Paz, 130 children. Jens Joachim was handed the messages, and one of the students explained what they had created and how they had approached the task.

– I haven’t had the chance to go through everything yet, but what I have seen so far is wonderful, Jens says with a smile. We even received a bottle ship, they had made a little ship and placed it inside a bottle! They may have had a bit of help with that, because that’s not exactly easy. But it was fantastic, and I’m looking forward to seeing everything displayed.

All the Message in a Bottle -items will be exhibited during One Ocean Week when Statsraad Lehmkuhl returns to her home port of Bergen, Norway, in April 2026. The messages will also be available to view on the One Ocean Expedition website.

After the handover, the children were shown around the sailing ship. For that, Captain Jens Joachim needed help.

– These were young children who only speak Spanish. Fortunately, our science coordinator Natacha speaks Spanish, so she did an excellent job showing all 130 of them around and explaining everything.

The purpose of the One Ocean Expedition is to raise awareness and share knowledge about the ocean, and Message in a Bottle is an important part of this.

– I think it’s an important project because it supports the whole idea behind the One Ocean Expedition, to reach everyone, from the very youngest to the very oldest, all the way up to heads of state in the most extreme case. So Message in a Bottle is a very important element, especially because it’s we adults who have created the mess. And then comes a generation after us that unfortunately has to deal with the problems, says Jens Joachim.

– But with the level of engagement they show, there might be hope. Still, they will need some help to get started. We have a lot of work left to make things as easy as possible for them when the baton is passed on.

Jens Joachim believes the next generation will manage to clean up.

– Yes, I do. I mean, I have two little girls myself, and if I didn’t have hope, I would sink into some kind of deep depression. So of course I have hope for the next generation.