AN ADVENTUROUS young woman is planning to join a once-in-a-lifetime polar expedition on a sailing ship.

Born and bred in Tavistock, Polly Craig, 26, has passed the secret training for the Ocean Warrior expedition and is looking forward to sailing for the Arctic this summer to help with climate change investigations.

Polly is one of the many extraordinary people from ordinary backgrounds who are so-called citizen scientists, amateurs who are trained to support scientists and who have trained in the challenging environment of Dartmoor and learned how to work as teams.

Their key tasks, once they have qualified as ship’s crew, will be to join scientists on board the SV Linden schooner, when it sails from Plymouth in June to gather data from ocean measurements on carbon, temperature and salinity, to get a current picture of global warming affecting the world.

Holly said: ‘I’m really excited about this. I’ve been on an expedition before, to the Antarctic and seen whales, seals and penguins. The scientists on the crew gave us talks and we learned how the animal mating changed due to the melting ice and the warmer winters. Many penguin chicks died when the harsher weather came in because they hadn’t adapted to the warmer climate due to global warming.’

She has also helped out as a volunteer at animal sanctuaries in Malyasia and Australia: ‘I shared bunk beds on a rotational basis and worked and lived with strangers in close proximity. So, that helps with Ocean Warrior where it’ll be similar, but on a boat. It’s going to be really worthwhile, to help scientists and influential people understand the changes to what everyone thinks are unspoiled areas and prepare to try and avoid a catastrophe.’

She first came across Ocean Warrior when she saw a van with the project’s branding in a car park and made contact with organiser Jim McNeill: ‘Jim is keen that people like him, coming from an ordinary inner city background, take part, but they have to be the right kind of person. I now have to be assigned to one of the expedition legs.’

Jim, a renowned environmental scientific explorer, says evidence gathered by Polly and colleagues will be sent to bodies like NASA to build a better understanding of the polar regions and in more instant way than via scientific papers. Politicians will therefore have more of an early warning of major environmental changes and can act on a longer term. Anyone interested in joining Ocean Warrior 2024 can visit the project website: http://www.warrior-ocean.com/