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 Ensenada, Mexico on November 17 and is now at sea en route to La Paz, Mexico, arriving November 24. Aboard are participants from the Mexican organisation Innovaciones Alumbra.

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 La Paz

Follow our journey

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

La Paz, Mexico

Statsraad Lehmkuhl visits Ensenada, November 16–17, 2025

Ensenada, Mexico

Statsraad Lehmkuhl visits San Diego, November 11 - 16, 2025

San Diego, USA

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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

Herradura, Costa Rica

Cartagena, Columbia

Herradura, Costa Rica - Panama Canal

Norfolk, USA

Cádiz, Spain

Brest, France 

Dublin, Ireland

Bergen, Norway

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

What is now the city of San Diego was the place where European explorers first arrived and later settled after reaching California.

But, as in the rest of the United States, Indigenous peoples had inhabited this area for thousands of years. The Kumeyaay people lived in small villages. One of these, Kosa’aay, was located in what is now San Diego’s Old Town. Kosa’aay was home to 30–40 families living in pyramid-shaped houses.

The first Europeans to arrive in San Diego were the Portuguese explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo and his crew aboard the ship San Salvador. He claimed the bay for the Spanish Empire in 1542 and named the place San Miguel.

In November 1602, Sebastián Vizcaíno mapped the areas now known as Mission Bay and Point Loma. He renamed the site after the Catholic saint Didacus, better known as San Diego de Alcalá, giving the city the name it still bears today.

In 1769, the Spanish built a fort on Presidio Hill. They also established a mission, but it was moved a few kilometres after the Kumeyaay destroyed it in 1775. They did not welcome the Spanish takeover of the lands where they grew and gathered food.

When Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821, San Diego became part of the Mexican province of Alta California. The fort on Presidio Hill was abandoned, and the mission station closed. The mission lands were given to former soldiers, and a small town – a pueblo – developed beneath the hill.

However, conflict between the Kumeyaay and settlers continued, and many left the town.

By 1838, only 100–150 inhabitants remained, and San Diego lost its status as a pueblo. In 1846, the United States went to war with Mexico, and the same year, U.S. forces took control of several towns in Alta California – including San Diego, though only after heavy losses in what is now known as the Battle of San Pasqual.

After peace was declared in 1850, San Diego became the county seat of San Diego County. The original settlement under Presidio Hill was far from the harbour at La Playa, and during the 1860s, the town gradually moved toward the sea - where downtown San Diego is located today.

Like San Francisco, San Diego grew rapidly during World War II, driven by the expanding defence industry. The growth continued after the war, and by 1950 the city’s population had doubled compared to 1930, reaching more than 300,000 residents. 

Fishing was also an important part of San Diego’s economy, and a reason for people to come here for work, and in the 1970s the city was known as “the tuna capital of the world.”

During the late 1970s, jobs in the defence and aerospace industries declined, and San Diego shifted its focus. The city began to invest heavily in tourism and research. Today, the University of California San Diego (UCSD) is the city’s second-largest employer.

San Diego’s landscape is rugged and diverse, shaped by hills, and canyons cutting trough flat plateaus known as mesas.

Summers are warm and winters mild, and the landscape is covered with drought-resistant trees and shrubs. Most of the city’s modest annual rainfall,  249 millimetres a year, falls between December and March. The normal maximum temperature ranges between 19 and 21°C in winter, and 22 to 25°C in summer and autumn. 

Like San Francisco, San Diego often experiences a band of fog along the coast.

Normal maximum temperature in November: 22 °C
Normal rainfall in November: 20 mm