In an indoor pool in Dubai, three rowers battle artificial rain and simulated waves as they train for a trip to the Arctic that aims to highlight the dangers of marine pollution.
Their search takes the team from one extreme to the other.
The country is home to the United Arab Emirates, notorious for its scorching heat, especially in summer.
Their destination is one of the coldest areas on earth, although climate change is causing it to warm three times faster than the global average.
For leader Toby Gregory, it’s a chance to sound the alarm about the scourge of plastic waste in the world’s oceans. He set out on a mission after a 2023 rowing trip across the Atlantic Ocean where he saw “far more plastic than I ever imagined”.
According to the United Nations, 85 percent of all marine debris is plastic.
Last year, Gregory founded The Plastic Pledge, an initiative that aims to educate schoolchildren about throwing away plastic.
“We want to inspire a million students, not just in the UAE but around the world, to do things differently,” Gregory, a media adviser to UAE royal families, told AFP.
“Do you just put your trash out and hope it goes to the recycling? Well, can you do something and be more proactive?”
He added: “The greatest threat to our planet is that everyone is convinced that someone else will save it.”
– ‘Arctic Challenge’ –
The “Arctic Challenge” is an adventure for 46-year-old Gregory, his British compatriot Andrew Savill (39) and 30-year-old Irishwoman Orlagh Dempsey. They will embark on a 1,500-kilometre journey at the end of this month.
They depart from the city of Tromso in northern Norway and set course for Longyearbyen, the capital of the Norwegian archipelago of Spitsbergen.
They plan to row for about three weeks in an eight-metre boat flying the UAE flag, without a sail or engine.
By leaving in the summer, when the sun shines continuously in the polar regions, they can make optimal use of the solar panels to power navigation and communications equipment.
The mission, carried out in partnership with the UN Environment Programme’s Clean Seas initiative, will be a milestone. The group will be the first three-person team to row the Arctic Ocean, and Dempsey will be the first woman to do so.
During training in Dubai, where they had to stay indoors due to the summer heat, they were forced to be creative.
During a recent session at Dynamic Advanced Training, a center focused on aviation, they attempted to board a ship in raging waves, while man-made rain, thunder and lightning created stormy conditions.
But with temperatures in Dubai exceeding 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in recent days, Arctic weather is “very hard to match,” Savill said.
Savill said the mercury in the Arctic is expected to fluctuate between zero and ten degrees Celsius. To prepare for this, they hope to use whatever climate-controlled spaces they can find.
One option is Ski Dubai, an indoor resort where temperatures can drop to -2 degrees Celsius (28.4 degrees Fahrenheit).
“Hopefully we can get in there and train for a few hours. Just to give us the real cold temperature,” Savill said.
Dempsey is counting on her cold Irish upbringing to get her through.
“I spent the first 20 years of my life in cold conditions,” she says with a laugh.
“I think it’s something we’ll adapt to mentally and physically when we get there, and I don’t think it’ll be a problem for any of us.”
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