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Video Journal: Day 20

Day 20, Friday July 6, 2007

We are still at our mooring here in St Helena, the RMS (Royal Mail Ship) St Helena sits off our stern, also at anchor. She is this small community's link with the outside world. Everything that is here has come from only this ship for the last 17 years. Plates and birthday cards, car parts and every other thing that goes into making a first-world life for the people of St Helena. Once again its late, about 12:30. We had a busy day and it was tough to say goodbye to the very kind people here. I would like to think that I have made longtime friends with some, particularly Mike and Bernice Olssen. They made everything happen here for us, and also helped to make our stay a very special one. We are, in true ship fashion, going to wake up in a few hours, while it is still dark, slip our mooring, and be off into the big blue. That sits well with me now. I think we got a lot of information and I feel much more grounded in my project. When I say that, I mean that one of the whole points of this adventure was to discover rare things, meet people working on the forefront of science, and see amazing places and share them with the world. I hope I have achieved at least half of that. Today I had a radio interview with Mike. It was live, which was something I only did as a DJ at my college radio station. I decided today during the interview that a good goal is to have 1 million hits on our site before the end of the trip. In this 1700 mile leg to Fernando, I will put my thinking cap on try to find some way to get as many people as possible to view the project so they may also join the adventure and learn from some of the scientists that we have worked with in the past few days. I am not sure if I said this in an earlier entry, but islands are so important in understanding what is happening to our planet, as we warm it, change it and remove many of the carbon sinks, like the Congo and Amazon rain-forests. Islands have coped with huge environmental changes as they were overrun and changed by humans, and their adaptations or the lack of them have much to teach us about our planet. 600 people came out to plant trees for the Millennium Forest project with Dr. Cairnswicks here on St Helena. This may be a small a number but its one in six people living on the island. Imagine if one in six humans living on the planet were moved enough by environmental changes to plant a tree. That's one billion extra trees.

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