a link to introductions of the scientists onboard the ship
Seeing Arctic sea ice in 3D
a Blog on the Greenpeace website by our expedition leader Frida Brengtsson
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21/07/2012
How to get Stuck part II
In our frantic quest for (initially) ice floes and (afterwards) the AUV we had half unwittingly drifted further and further west, into increasingly thick and dense ice. Without helicopter we had no means to realize that we were getting stuck between two gigantic floes (>50 km^2) that were slowly converging on us. We had been beset (that's the official term, I think) for 30h when, on Wednesday after lunch, the ship started listing (tilting to one side). I had been napping in my bunk (what else to do when you're frozen into the ice?) and was woken up by Henning Mankell falling off the shelf, right onto my nose. There were shouts, people running in the corridors, and I was very confused. When I got out onto deck the ship was listing portside about 15 degrees, increasing. The pressure by the surrounding ice had grown so strong that it was squashing the ship. Fortunately, the Arctic Sunrise is half an icebreaker and was thus built to rise above the ice when the pressure becomes too large (like Nansen's 'Fram') rather than being pulverized by the converging floes (like Shackelton's 'Endurance'). The list increased to about 20 degrees, then stopped. After a while the pressure let off a little and the Captain was able to move the ship a few meters into a safer position. Towards the evening, after 40h of complete immobility the wind direction changed and we found a little space to navigate. In the following 12h we made about 2 miles progress through the pack (whilst still drifting west at 0.3 m/h). Thursday ze good germans came to our assistance - the Alfred-Wegener-Institut sent an aircraft that scouted leads and a way out of the heavy ice for us. In the early hours of Friday, after more than 3 days of stuckedness, we escaped the ice and arrived earlier today (Saturday morning) in the safe harbour of Longyearbyen. We lost a third of our science time and the AUV to the ice, but right now everybody seems to be rather happy to be back here.
How to get Stuck in Eternal Ice
It has been a race against the clock from the very start. Our time on the Arctic Sunrise was limited to a total of 12 days - subtracting 36 hours on each side for transit leaves you with a grand total of 9 days to perform a scientific operation that is usually done on a 40 day cruise.
This meant working pretty much 24/7 (facilitated by daylight day and night). You still try and keep a semi-regular routine, getting up for breakfast, having fixed lunch and dinner times, but working shifts 0-4am, then 4-8am the next night and so on makes things really confusing after a while.
We were powering along with surprising success, had already scanned top and bottom of 3 floes and ventured further into the pack, mooring to a 4th. Weather was clear, but the wind had picked up and the currents were strong. On ice work was going swimmingly, Joseph and Will scanning away and we were drilling hole after hole. The ice started to close in slowly, but the currents seemed to calm down a bit so the AUV went in the water. But what we had been seeing on the ship was deceptive and the currents at 20m depth were stronger than ever - and before anyone could react the beloved Fish was swept 200m downstream and soon enough stopped talking to us. A hectic 24 hours of search operations followed, but these were increasingly impeded by the closing ice. And then, on Tuesday morning, nothing was moving no more.
This meant working pretty much 24/7 (facilitated by daylight day and night). You still try and keep a semi-regular routine, getting up for breakfast, having fixed lunch and dinner times, but working shifts 0-4am, then 4-8am the next night and so on makes things really confusing after a while.
We were powering along with surprising success, had already scanned top and bottom of 3 floes and ventured further into the pack, mooring to a 4th. Weather was clear, but the wind had picked up and the currents were strong. On ice work was going swimmingly, Joseph and Will scanning away and we were drilling hole after hole. The ice started to close in slowly, but the currents seemed to calm down a bit so the AUV went in the water. But what we had been seeing on the ship was deceptive and the currents at 20m depth were stronger than ever - and before anyone could react the beloved Fish was swept 200m downstream and soon enough stopped talking to us. A hectic 24 hours of search operations followed, but these were increasingly impeded by the closing ice. And then, on Tuesday morning, nothing was moving no more.