From September 6 to 26, 2024, some twenty scientists boarded the icebreaker Le Commandant Charcot for a crossing of the Arctic Ocean, from Nome (Alaska) to Longyerbyen (Svalbard) via the North Pole. They responded to a call for projects from ARICE (ships and platforms of opportunity) in cooperation with the PONANT company. We were four scientific coordinators to assist these researchers.

Opportunities to reach this central region of the Arctic are very rare, but the contribution of cruise ships to polar research raises hesitations and debates (read the CNRS opinion: Opportunity-driven campaigns: Ethical partnerships for scientific research? ).

Scientific work carried out during the Transarctic focused on : - thermohaline and biogeochemical properties of the Arctic Ocean - sea ice - marine ecosystems (pelagics, sea ice and bioaerosols) - the carbon cycle - the plastisphere - ship performance and structural response - ethnographic studies of polar scientific expeditions

An international team of researchers with complementary expertises: Maurizio Azzaro, Elena Adasheva-Klein, Leticia Barbero, Indiana Bruzac, Nicolas Cassar, Federico Citterich, Fuat Dursun, Francesco Filiciotto, Caroline Guilmette, Christian Haas, Ricarda Kluge, Jan Kubiczek, Alireza Merikhi, David Pearce, Alessandro Ciro Rappazzo, Elisabeth Rosselli, Franz von Bock und Polach, Shiye Zhao, Lixin Zhu.

See photos.

Fifteen years after Vagabond's departure, I have the opportunity to see again Inglefield Bay. Emotions! France and I arrived in October 2004 for the first wintering. Our first daughter was born during the third wintering. And France was expecting our second daughter at the end of the fifth wintering! One day, the four of us will return to see the cradle of our family.

Léonie, Aurore and I meet up with Eric, his crew and Vagabond in Narsarsuaq, having moved from Saint-Pierre and Miquelon. We step off our friend Hubert's Pilatus PC-12 onto the Greenland tarmac, and after a joyful evening and night on Vagabond, its super-pilots Georges and Sophie take off again with our four delighted Saint-Pierrais for a lovely return flight! Our family crew is ready to welcome the geologists.

This year is very different from summer 2023, even if Laurent Geoffroy is still the leader. The instruments to be set up on last year's well-studied terrain arrived by cargo ship in spring. The instruments? Stations equipped with seismometers, to detect the earth's internal movements, to be installed for one year on carefully studied sites, constituting a system of two transects over a hundred kilometers.

We are now in phase 2 of the investigation that begun last summer into the astonishing formation of this south of Greenland region!

As the cargo ship has dropped off the IPEV container with all the equipment in Narsaq, we converge there after each installation. Vagabond becomes heavier at each rotation when carrying 3 stations: concrete blocks and batteries are our mainstays as the equipment is loaded and unloaded! There are 15 in all. Laurent is accompanied by Christian Schiffer, a geophysicist expert with these seismometers. He is German and Danish, and lives in Sweden. The 6 of us enjoy a friendly and active atmosphere on board Vagabond!

After three weeks, all 15 stations are installed and Christian is leaving. It's time for us to welcome on board Marie and Charlie, a fine artistic team of women who have come to immerse themselves in the place and in the feelings of our daughters, in order to feed the script of their animated film project: the story of a little girl who embarks on a scientific ship with her captain father, in the Arctic...!

Laurent, always on the lookout for geological clues, takes us to the paradisiacal bay of Tasiussaq, reached after a slow progression through the luminous mist of an iceberg-laden fjord. After visiting an isolated farm, the girls go for a swim in a low-lying lake, while Laurent and Eric take a geological tour of the vast bay.

A few days before our departure by plane, leaving Vagabond wisely moored in the port of Narsaq under the watchful eye of our friends Paul and Monika, a moderate earthquake - a rare occurrence in the region - is shaking us... less than 8 days after the instruments had been installed. How wonderful!

About Protero-Litho2 project.

June 26: family, friends and music on Eric Tabarly pier... Many emotions as I leave the Saint-Pierre and Miquelon archipelago after 3 years full of encounters and discoveries. To soften this big departure, I'm accompanied by 4 friends from the French Islands: Maryline Lecourtois, Rachel Robert, Hoel Chaigne and Vincent Rinaldo. Report, by SPM la 1ère.

Despite tricky conditions (weather, remote location...), Vagabond has been pampered in recent months. The sea was rough as soon as we left the harbour, but we set off calmly. Getting our sea legs was not smooth for all of us!

Logistical stopover in St-John's in Newfounland, where we welcome on board paleoclimatologists Minoli Dias, head of the scientific program, and Natasha Leclerc, assistant and diver. They have already been on board Vagabond to collect coralline algae in Greenland and Nunavut, and it's a pleasure to be reunited for this new project after lengthy preparations (funding, logistics, permits and authorizations...).

July 3, 9pm: Vagabond docks for the night at the village of Hopedale in Labrador. Final preparations and meeting with our community contacts before heading off the next morning to the dive site 20km east of the village.

For the past 10 years, Vagabond and its crew have been collecting coralline algae for Jochen Halfar of the University of Toronto and his colleagues. This usually involves prospecting by studying maps and satellite images first, then using a camera operated from Vagabond's tender. When these searches are fruitful, I dive the site with hammer, chisel and net, usually with a teammate, to try and collect the healthiest and thickest coralline samples possible.

This year there are 4 of us, and the site is already known for record samples. For a week, Vagabond stays at anchor and one dive follows another. The water is cold, visibility sometimes quite poor, but the team is united and the collection exceeds all our ambitions: more than half a ton of coralline is brought up on deck! A considerable amount of sorting is necessary, and Minoli ends up keeping 304 kg of samples, which will be transported all the way to her laboratory in Toronto.

Minoli and Natasha leave Hopedale on July 9, heavily laden but very satisfied, while my Saint-Pierre's crew continues with me for a 4-day crossing to Greenland. Drifting ice pach is blocking the entrance to the fjords, so we have to skirt around them to the north and battle our way through the pack ice to reach the entrance to the Ikersuaq fjord. We reach Narsaq on July 14th!

Article: UTM researcher tracking 1,000 years of sea ice change in hopes of predicting future conditions.

12 days of gateway, 8 of them nomadic, with our autonomy safely stowed away in our ski-drawn pulkas.

Buchans, a small point at the end of the road on the map of Newfoundland, theoretically retains its continental climate, cold and snowy in winter. It will be our starting point, as it was last year. However, on the 1st day of our journey, the forecast is a dreadful thaw and rain. In fact, a downpour. The large lake we're aiming for is a pool covered in water; on ice that's still solid, of course, but bare... and with the strong wind, balance and trajectories are rather hazardous. So we opt for a less open route, wandering through rivers, hills and small lakes. But we soon realized that the open rivers had broken the beautiful ice tracks on which we'd thought we'd glide so many times. This major change means that we have to cross a lot of undergrowth, where weaving between trunks while dragging a pulka is no picnic. A change of scenery and a variety of terrain are guaranteed, and we look forward to it every evening! Weather changes are also frequent: crossing a small frozen lake can start out sunny, only to end in snowy gusts that send the temperature plummeting.

Eric has the tools of our freedom and safety right in his pocket: in the form of previously downloaded applications containing morphology and constitution of the terrain, as well as more or less ancient trail layouts. In this way, we can assess the possibilities of reaching one point or another, crossing a wood or joining a track... and finding a spot sheltered from the wind for the evening's bivouac.

Along the way, nature offers us its surprises: a lemming passing between our skis, moose spotting in the undergrowth, a squirrel too greedy to be afraid, ice sculptures caused by river flooding, the masterly colors of the setting sun, and the strange sensation of gliding (sometimes rubbing) over the grasses of marshes still a little frozen...

Long live adventure, whatever it looks like!

See the album.

We arrive in Nuuk at 6pm with the photographers on September 6th, then Eric and I set sail again for Saint-Pierre at 3pm the next day: we don't want to miss out on a good weather window to head south.

The wind is strong: as soon as we leave the sheltered waters between the islands, the heavy swell swung our hull without mercy. Our top speed is up to 8 knots, but our stomachs aren't prepared and it's difficult to rest. In two days we sail a good distance. On the third day, we eat and rest, we're back to life. Eric and I take turns during 48 hours of calm weather, enjoying to see a lot of dolphins and sparkling night skys, where as many stars as satellites are travelling.

Finally the Newfoundland coast appears, in the distance. Then the wind starts again, but headwind. The cyclone Lee is forecast, and our weather window is getting tighter. We push the engines, hoping to get through, but the result isn't brilliant: the diesel-oil dirt clog the filters and stop the engines several times. Around midnight with headwind and swell, in a sticky mist, the St-John’s port entrance catches our eyes. It's already almost behind us when we decide to opt for rest and safety. We do a sharp turn over 90° and reach the shelter.

The stopover falls on the weekend, so we're lucky enough to be able to make a real pilgrimage to the Irish session bars where we played with the Celtic Cods last autumn!

After a final 36-hour leg, we finally meet up with Léonie and Aurore on the pier of Saint-Pierre!

In the crowded port of Ilulissat, Vagabond finds refuge next to La Louise and it's a pleasure to see her captain again, Thierry Dubois.

In a few hours time, we move from science to photography: three people from Grenoble, Ludivine, Marc and Christian, are joining Christian Morel, the organiser of this photo trip, as well as Jessica coming from Saint-Pierre and Miquelon with Amaury, her 8-year-old son, who is as sharp as he was perceptive and attentive!

Of course, the starting site sets a high level: the whales are adding to the magic of the imposing ice front. However, as the idea is to head back down to Nuuk, we have to leave this scenery behind to find the islets and villages scattered along the coast.

The weather is not idyllic. We'll have to adjust our speed and stopovers according to the wind gusts, to appreciate the shades of grey and to capture the best moments of light. At night, however, we are treated to a magnificent full moon, known as the blue moon (in fact red), and a few northern lights. Sailing at night is necessary to cover the distance in time. We are doing 2 people shifts which makes some great moments of sharing and gives photographers the opportunity to discover this special atmosphere.

A natural stopover sheltered from the swell, in a mini pass, then a stopover between three islets, including the village of Itilleq, again to shelter from the headwind... Vagabond's anchor has the courtesy to slip only once everyone is back on board, after visiting the village and picking up mussels. On the thick seaweed that seems to cover the seabed, anchoring properly is not easy. A young Greenlandic fisherman tries to help us, then offers us an Arctic char of his catch. The next day he gives us seven more and tells us about his caribou hunts! Eric was even offered coffee and fresh caribou the day before at someone's place. Memories are coming back for some of the locals, who recall Vagabond stopping off at their place 9 years earlier with Léonie and Aurore, they were very young!

Still running between two gales, looking for new shelters on our way, we end up in a very high and narrow fjord: here, with two mooring ropes to shore, one on each side, in addition to the anchor, we are fine with the 40 knots of wind (50 knots outside the fjord) and the heavy rain.

To make sure our friends can catch their planes in Nuuk, we have to set off again for a night's watch... which is more hazardous than ever: trying to follow the single sounding line, which passes between a multitude of rocks, in a swelly and windy night. But above all, there's this really tight passage further south. We reach it at pitch dark, the mainsail still pinned to the mast with the wind astern. The swell is channeled by the islets, but the current is strong and the tide high. Despite our vigilance, with two people outside with head lamps to see better, Vagabond hits the entrance to the passage. Nothing serious, thanks the layer of kelp. But the bow is deflected and we almost climb onto the rocky coast. - Full astern! Then - full speed ahead! - but another rock appears in the light! In the end, it is sideway and the stern first, carried by the current and the wind, that we cross the passage. Adrenalin guaranteed.

As if to comfort us, we get the most beautiful morning in the world in the Maniitsoq Alps. We enjoy photos, lights and rest along the inland canals, before our arrival in the capital.

The photos and memories will remain with us forever.

Eric and I are sailing all the way straight to Nuuk to meet up with Jochen, for whom we have been collecting coralline since 2015, this stunning limestone algae known as a paleoclimatological marker. This time, he has a family team: his partner Martina, and his two daughters Citlali and Krista. Christian our friend photographer and Jean, another friend diver, are completing our crew. The idea is above all to recover measuring instruments placed in 2019 on good coralline sites for one year. It was before Covid... What happened to these instruments since?

The closest site from Nuuk is not the easiest: it will take 3 dives to achieve our goals! For the first dive, the current is too strong for the divers and the buoy supposed to serve as a marker is sinking, carried away horizontally. On the second dive later in the day at slack water, the visibility quickly becomes insufficient for the divers and safety from the surface turns to be hazardous. Finally the next morning, at low water, our divers easily find the instrument which has been recording temperature and light for 4 years (3 years bonus)! With some more algae samples collected near the logger, complete analysis will be carried out at the University of Toronto.

Four days of navigation later, heading north to the second site. Photographer, wife and daughters are on land, Jochen follows the operations through binoculars from Vagabond, the two divers are underwater and the wind is picking up, getting strong. From the dinghy, while looking after the divers who are difficult to spot in the little waves, I'm worried to see Vagabond pulling on the anchor towards the rocky shore... The divers are coming back, the valuable sensor was found! We leave quickly since the wind is pushing us, still heading north.

Navigating at night between the rocks of the inside route and the rough sea along the outside route, we are getting quickly to Sisimiut where we stop for a few hours to let pass a big swell and a gale. This is the opportunity for Christian to pay his respects for the first time at Kampé's grave, his late great Greenlandic friend. Julien, a French friend who has lived here for a long time, meets us at the harbor: today he is a guide on a cruise ship that we will visit, in addition to a nice shower.

After some mussels harvesting and cod fishing between the islets strewn on our route, and after taking the last water samples, we end up seeing a thin white line haloed with clarity: it is the shield of Ilulissat which is growing, growing to become this wall of enormous icebergs that we admire while sailing along. The show is sumptuous as always. The sketchbook of Citlali, an art student, is delighting. Beyond all hope, the 5 logger instruments from 2019 have been found, mission 100% successful!

To close our beautiful southern page in the heart of Gardar, I'm giving you here all these little things which sow memories and smells, which enliven the atmosphere on board.

Vagabond travels through lavish nature: besides the cod carpaccios, while the freezer is already full of fish, how many times have we plunged our arms between the seaweeds to come up with full pans of mussels. On the menu again, blueberry and crowberry tarts or coulis, decorated with a few juniper seeds; something to delight our taste buds.

Also the mind is satisfied during our informal philosophical breakfasts, most often launched by Laurent; luckily, he is the leader and he does not darken a little delay to start field work. We had good laughs looking at the cover of the book that our English geologist Jordan is reading: “Surrounded by idiots.” You mean us? Or how to feed these enjoyable breakfasts: why do we so often don't understand each other? Question of behaviors...

At anchor at Tuktutok (tuktu: caribou in Inuktitut), a caribou with oversized antlers followed by his small herd silhouetted against the sky this evening, then again many other evenings. Indeed, this island is a livestock farm. There are funnel-shaped enclosures up to the water's edge, then very white piles of tangled antlers where the caribous have finished their journey.

Marc did not mention the hours spent sewing the staysail, equipped as he was with all his panoply of sailmaking. Nor from the Foehn, this strong and hot wind coming from the East which pushed us at good speed over 20 miles to the exit of a fjord.

Gardar, the magmatic province that tectonic and magmatic researchers dream of, is located in the SW of Greenland, in the former territory of the Vikings.

You can pass through this region without noticing much, apart from lush vegetation (relatively at least for Greenland) and a network of very active farms (which, in particular, breed sheep).

But really, the province of Gardar is a hidden treasure. Here, a little over a billion years ago, the continent that would someday become Greenland was subjected to extensional forces that caused the Earth's crust to rift apart and the hot mantle(1) beneath to melt.

In the case of Gardar, the magma was injected into vertical cracks (called dykes), whose width in this special place is extraordinary on the global scale and throughout Earth's history. Here, dykes are up to 1000 m wide, when usually they only reach a few metres in width.

But that's not all, the mineralogical and chemical composition of the associated rocks here is also astonishing(2) (for specialists on the subject that is). Do these magmas really come from melting the deep mantle, as this is the case in more recent extension zones, or from melting the lithosphere itself?

In addition to giant dykes, volcanoes were common in this region one billion years ago. Today, after much erosion, we only see the magmatic roots of these volcanoes.

Some geologists have compared the Gardar to the East African Rift System, where extension is accommodated by faults (cracks) and sometimes by the injection of thin dykes. But we don't think so. The Gardar rift, if we can call it a rift, is unique in its structure and magmatic injection mechanisms.

Did the continents in the Middle Proterozoic (i.e. of Gardar age) have the same mechanical properties as the current continents? If the answer to this question is "no", what does this tell us about the rate of Earth's cooling since its formation?

These are some of the questions that the Protero-Litho2 program (2023-2025), supported by the IPEV (French Polar Institute), proposes to answer - with logistical assistance from the Vagabond, our preferred vessel for our work in Greenland, and her trusty crew.

(1) The hot rocks below the Crust (the outermost layer of the Earth).

(2) Their rare chemical elements are very enriched, with possible economic potential. However, the environmental consequences of exploiting such a resource are difficult to assess.