Goodbye Thomas.

We're anchored here until late Wednesday, and it's peaceful and quiet on the ship with the engine off. Well, peaceful and quiet except when deck work is in full swing.

Grinding and chipping and banging and painting... yes, even the painting is noisy. Not so much the painting itself, but all the swearing at the clouds of mosquitoes that have found the ship. Considering the scarcity of warm-blooded life in this area, we must look like a floating all you can eat buffet.

The spot we're in is a good compromise location with easy access by helicopter to both the Helheim glacier and Kulusuk international airport.

As scheduled, Steve Morgan, who has taken most of the photos so far, departed yesterday. He's replaced by Nick Cobbing, another UK photographer (who I worked with on the Rainbow Warrior a couple years ago).

Gordon and Leigh, the University of Maine glaciologists, left this morning. Sad to see them go, but glad that they got as much done as they did. In fact, they seemed very happy with the amount of research they were able to accomplish, and the dramatic discoveries of these past days. Best wishes to you both, and many thanks for answering my myriad questions.

And last but not least, we saw off Millie, our Greenlandic translator, and Thomas - a volunteer deckhand from Norway. Both will also be missed. In addition, to translating, Millie was invaluable for her advice as a Greenlander.

Thomas we picked up in Iceland. He had been sent by the Greenpeace Nordic office to help with work there, but put in so much hard labor that he was asked to stay for part of the Greenland tour as well. So on basically no notice whatsoever, he put the rest of his life on hold just to make a little bit of difference. It was great having you on board, Thomas, and Phil says to say that you'll be missed on deck.

If you don't have a month or more to spare to volunteer full time on environmental issues there are still plenty of other ways you can pitch in. Here's one - just turn off your TVs, computers, DVD players and the like when you aren't using them, rather that leaving them on standby. This alone can save hundreds of kilowatt-hours per year.

If you live in the U.S. you should also sign up for our Thin Ice Contest. Take action, win prizes, and help the U.S. go from being part of the problem to being part of the solution.

- Andrew