Welcome to the GORE-TEX® Arctic Challenge. At the start of July 2011, a team of adventurers became the first to travel from Scotland to the Arctic Circle in six-metre RIBs. Explore our content and look back through the team's tweets, pictures and videos which captured the mammoth journey.
Keep bang up to date with the challenge by following our LIVE positions and tweets. The grey line shows the projected course. Red and blue lines will show our live location. Click on the grey tweet markers to see what was happening at that exact spot. You can also explore the map in fullscreen mode
A great end to a great story
Earlier this year we undertook an incredible journey from Scotland to the Arctic Circle in our two trusty RIBs, Lundy and Tresco.
These 6.3m, Suzuki-powered Humber RIBs were our home for six days and will bring back fond memories for the rest of our lives.
Now, several months later, we are delighted to be able to report that these two fantastic RIBS are now being used the charity, Sea Shepherd.
Having proved the vessels capabilities on the 1,000 mile journey earlier this year, Sea Shepard is adding these two boats to its current fleet, consisting of three large vessels and numerous smaller ones.
The not-for-profit organisation was established in 1977 and has since defended wildlife and habitats of the world’s ocean creatures. Its main aim is to protect ecosystems and species by preventing illegal whaling and fishing in our oceans.
The whole crew is delighted that these two RIBS are now playing a part in defending ocean wildlife worldwide, thanks to Sea Shepherd.
Carswell Gould preview the Challenge film!
Integrated marketing communication experts Carswell Gould will be showing the GORE-TEX® Arctic Challenge film for the first time at their party on Thursday. The film will then be made available for anyone to view on this site.
If you interested in what Carswell Gould did to promote the challenge and make the film you can go behind the scenes here.
Day six.
View more of our videos on our youtube channel.
For those of you who’ve been wondering what we’ve been up to since completing the challenge here’s the answer - Orca spotting off the coast of the Lofoten Islands!
Day Six: Rognan to Svolvær; a photo set on Flickr.
Day Six: The Final Push
It’s what we’ve all been waiting for - the ultimate day of the challenge. As with every other day we heft our bags down to the boats - no planes, no cars, just water and fresh air. We set off from Sandnessjeon, puffins following us for some of the way, darting in and around our RIB. We weave in and out of fjords, spotting islands and rocks topped with lighthouses and, after a few hours, we see the base of a silver globe.
We approach and as we close in on the island housing this random steel structure we note on our navigation systems that this is it. We have entered the Arctic Circle! Everyone jumps out onto the rocks and heads up for a closer look. After five days the realisation of how close we really are dawns on all of the crew. We all take a moment and a wee dram of excellent whiskey to mark the occasion.
Into the sea again we head directly towards our final destination, both RIBs coming together for the last stretch. Out of nowhere we have outriders! We feel like royalty (all be it very wet, tired and common royalty) as two huge RIBs with local guys wave us in towards the harbour of Svolvaer.
We are all ecstatic and punch the air. In no way do I feel over the top in this, just genuinely proud and grateful to be part of something so wonderful as the GORE-TEX® Arctic Challenge. We get to the pontoon to a smattering of applause from locals and all hug and congratulate each other. Then everyone jumps into the sea again - even Hugo who, unfortunately for him, is not wearing his dry suit!
Seven men, one woman, two RIBs and close to 1,000 miles of arctic seas and stunning scenery - what have we proved? That whatever your background, sex or interests, getting out on the water and into nature is a truly wonderful opportunity that more people should make the most of.
So my challenge to you is to go out this weekend, walk, swim, canoe, RIB, sail, ski, run, anything! But do it outside in the fresh air and enjoy what nature has to offer.
- Ed Gould
We’ve made it! After six days and 1,000 miles on the water we’ve reached our final destination!
We’re making the final leg of our journey today - a 150 mile, eight hour trip into the Arctic Circle.
As we had little internet connection last night we’ll be doing a double whammy over tonight and tomorrow morning, when you’ll get to see all our photos, videos and blogs from days five and six. Wish us luck and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter for all the latest updates!”
Day five.
View other days’ video on our youtube channel.
