A Southern Christmas 2001 - Day 18 (icebreaking)

 Wednesday 2nd January 2002

at sea (66.30 deg S, 78.40 deg E)

En route to Polar Bird…

After the excitement of New Year and our encounter with the Japanese whalers, the past 24 hours or so have been most frustrating as Aurora inches her way through ice and snow.  While some of us worry about families coping with the extreme heat and bushfire dangers in parts of Australia and wonder how the Aussies are doing at the Sydney Cricket Ground, Aurora Australis is showing us that icebreaking, particularly ice which is covered by up to a metre of snow, is no simple task.

It is now 1600 hours and in the 16 hours and four watches since midnight Aurora has travelled a total distance of 18 nautical miles, and we are no closer to Polar Bird. The competition for the first sighting of Polar Bird looks like going to whomever of us is the least optimistic.

Chief Mate Scott reminded me this morning that we’re an icebreaker, not a snow breaker. The mere presence of a few inches of snow slows the ship’s ice-breaking capabilities and makes it more like trying to force our way through solid porridge. To compound matters, in these conditions the clumps cling to the side of the ship as we go along increasing our drag and slowing us down even more.

The process is an art form, not a science as Skipper Tony Hansen says. 

"Look for little channels in the rafted ice floes and aim for a grey sky on the horizon, rather than a white one. The grey indicates possible water, the white is more snow and ice." 

This can be misleading at times, so it's important to maintain forward momentum and not chase false leads. All day it has been a case of making a hundred metres or so of forward progress watching as the ship slowly grinds and growls to a standstill when a particularly stubborn clump of snow covered ice refuses to yield, and then backing up 20 or 30 metres into our clear wake and taking another run at it, gaining more speed and momentum to break through and create enough inertia to sustain another run until the next huge clumps forces us to start the process all over again. Newton’s Laws of Motion certainly takes a pounding when you’re trying to push your way through this stuff.

Through all this, the scenery never ceases to capture our attention. Just think for a moment of every picture you have ever seen of the moon – huge rocky emptiness in every direction – then imagine it painted the purest white, with blue shading and you are close to the picture that we have been looking at today. And the wildlife persists - different species of seals (leopard, Weddell, crabeaters), sea birds and the wonderful emperor penguins. At one point, in the thickest of ice, in a tiny pool of water two minke whales surfaced for a quick breath before disappearing back under the ice again.

I am again reminded of the need to keep this area clean and unspoiled. We have done a one or two satellite phone interviews with Australian and French journalists and yesterday I was interviewed by a Chinese journalist. Among other things she wanted to know was why we thought it was so important to clean up waste in Antarctica when the continent is so large, and the part affected by human occupation and exploitation is so small. The point I made then, and one which gives a lot of cause for thought is that it is true that the part of Antarctica which is partially ice free in summer and which has been affected by humans is less than one percent of the continental land. However, it is because this region is comparatively ice-free and warmer, that it is so abundant in wildlife. That is of course abundant by Antarctic standards, where a couple of millimetres of moss growing on a rock is considered an absolute rain forest. And because of this abundance of flora and fauna, over 90% of the continent’s birds and animals use these regions to live and most importantly to breed. So we have the situation where less than one per cent of the continent supports over 90% of the wildlife, and this is the very spot where we have been making such an impact for the past hundred years.

So it is critical that these regions are dealt with sensitively. Current research at Thala Valley is already showing indications of reduced marine life in the region of the run-off from the tip. As we have said several times previously, Thala Valley represents less than a tenth of the potential problem at Wilkes, and the problems at some of the other bases, particularly the Russian Bases are probably as bad, if not much worse.

Finally at 1830 hours, after more than 24 hours of trying to push our way through what was becoming more and more like quick-drying cement full of lumps each the size of a small truck, Captain Tony Hansen decided to call it a day. The real risk to us is that if the weather should change for the worse, we could finish up in the same situation as Polar Bird and instead of being a rescuer we could well become in need of help ourselves.

We are very close to helicopter range of Davis Station (about 120 miles) and with clear weather a helicopter will do a much better job of directing us through the ice and helping us to find the most snow-free route. At present, although the log says we are in 9 tenths thick sea ice, I would describe it as 99 one hundredths. So we’re heading north-west instead of south-west to stay in helicopter range, but we need to find some free ice, from which to make our next attempt.

It’s going to be a long haul.