UPDATE: kayakers already “stuck” in ice at 80.52397 degrees N
I had this post up for all of an hour before this news rolled in from PolarDefense. Hat tips to Tom Nelson, who’s report is presented below, and to Brian Koochel in comments. – Anthony
“We’re stuck”
I have slept poorly. The floating ice, while thin, is so prevalent that, throughout the night, it grinds noisily against the side of the boat in a slightly alarming fashion – imagine someone scraping their nails across an old-fashioned blackboard.The then begins earlier than normal and, unusually, I am not woken by Robbie bounding into my room. Instead the ship’s engine roars to life earlier than normal – at around 5.30 – and the MV ‘Havsel’ begins to judder ominously. I clamber out of bed and scramble up to the bridge – all the ship’s crew are there, and they look serious. I look outside and I can see why. The sea is almost entirely congested with ice floes – I would estimate 80% plus of the sea is covered by them. There is a real risk that we could get stuck up here. We have drifted in the night into a much icier area than where we stopped last night. I wake up the team, and everyone groggily makes their way to the bridge. There’s a mixed reaction in the team to the prospect of getting stuck up here.
See the location on Google Maps, 80.52397, 12.21224
After awaking to find their vessel frozen in ice the team are steaming around looking for a path that’s navigable by kayak.
No paddling today.
At about 69 miles per degree of latitude, it would seem that they’re still 600+ miles from the North Pole.
My original post follows:
Place your bets now folks. If only Robert Peary could have had CNN tag along. – Anthony
Entries from Sam Branson’s Arctic diary – In the mirror.co.uk
My split feelings about this news remind me of another paradox of my expedition up here – the fact that I am spending my days paddling in ice-cold water, with a frozen, painful backside, trying to bring to the attention of the world and its leaders the necessity of stopping the world heating up.
[Sept 1:] Travel this morning was tough. The temperature has dropped dramatically and each time the guys get in the water in is a notch harder. We are starting to see larger chunks of ice, which instead of weaving through, they have to paddle around. The occasional chunk hits the bow of the ship sending small pieces out to the side into the route of travel for our paddlers. One nearly knocked Lewis of his kayak. The water is now below zero and a spill could be quite painful. The moving water by the feet of the guys has started to freeze and this could take a toll on their much needed warmth. I know that Robbie has been struggling with his toes.
…
[Aug 31:] The ship is noticeably colder and we are all wearing an extra layer. I have been on deck loading the kayaks and boats back onto the ship. The water soaked ropes seep moisture into your gloves and it saps the heat from my hands fast. I can only imagine what it is like for Lewis and Robbie holding on to a cold paddle with waves crashing over them. The first thing Lewis said when he got back in was ‘I can’t feel my backside!’
…
[Aug 28:] Some may know this place from the book ‘The northern lights’ by Phillip Pullman, where he calls it, ‘The land of the ice bears’. From what I’ve heard, this name could not be closer to the truth. The boat we are on has just returned from a trip in the ice and along the way they encountered eighty eight bears.
Gosh, that’s a lot of bears.
Just in case you might be thinking the two kayakers are doing this all alone, on a shoe-string budget, with only strength and determination….
Here is the support vessel: 300-ton fossil-fueled MV Havsel
Polar Defense writes: The support boat we loaded our kit onto is not the QE2. She is an old fishing boat called MV ‘Havsel’ – this means ‘ocean seal’ in Norwegian. She is a tough, grubby, working boat with a strengthened hull and a big engine for a boat of her size – she will perform very well up in the pack ice.
Thanks to Tom Nelson for references in this story
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sorry – meant to say: thread !
I wonder if they might encounter anything like this that far north.
http://www.thomaspeschak.com/storage/white-shark-kayakTpeschak.jpg
Revkin’s post actually answers my question…the Cryosphere pictures need interpretation like everything else, and can be very misleading
thank you deepslope!
Thanks “deepslope” interesting article. From remarks of the Kayakers seems unlikely it will happen anyway
10 to 1 they end up shooting a polar bear.
good point
This impending Darwin incident demos once agin: It’s all modern medical science’s fault!!!!
The genepool is not being effectively purged. And they’re wasting our oxygen! h/t Russ S.
It looks like they have progressed about 250 miles in about 4 days. But more than half of it was the first day. Since they’ve gotten into the ice field progress has been less than 20 miles per day, and not directly toward the North Pole. They have about 660 miles (straight line) to go. At 20, very generous, miles per day that’s 33 days. In 33 days the north pole will be in darkness all day. I hope nobody gets hurt.
Some people just don’t realize that in order to promote a cause with credibility you should try to live it. I propose a new way of life for the enviro-alarmist community: Go green, stay home.
Here is an interesting story which you won’t be reading about at the BBC. Freeze up at the North Pole arrived more than three weeks earlier this year than it did in 2003.
2003 – First snow and freeze on September 7
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/essay_untersteiner3.html
2008 – First snow and -2C on August 16. Note the temperature in the upper left, and the fresh snow on the ground.
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/npole/2008/images/noaa1-2008-0816-222541.jpg
One more, -4.5C and the lens is covered with ice on August 20, 2008.
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/npole/2008/images/noaa1-2008-0820-060458.jpg
The end of their adventure?
http://www.moonbattery.com/cuddly-polar-bear.jpg
(Looks like moonbattery.com is an interesting, politically incorrect blog)
The trek in March last year to publicize arctic warming foundered on extreme cold and equipment failures.
Believing that it is warmer does not make it so.
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2007/03/12/bancrofttrip/
Among his list of team selection criteria:
“I am looking for integrity – I am trying to communicate to world leaders what is happening up here, and I want all my team to do that with total honesty and fidelity to the truth.”
He wouldn’t know the truth if it bit him you-know-where.
What a misguided AGW-addled fool. It would all make for a good SNL skit, however.
To be fair to these chaps they did say before embarking on their adventure that they hoped not to succeed.
They must be overjoyed to be failing so comprehensively.
“Here I am , protecting the arctic…”
So many elements of irony in this adventure are so beautiful! The ecoadventurers paddling forth to save the arctic from GHG. Sleeping on a diesel powered 300 ton ship, guarded every miniute in the water by Steinar in the zodiac riding shotgun to protect them from the evil arctic walrus and polar bear.
I wonder how many walruses and bears have been shot to protect the ecowarriors who see themselves as saviors?
I wonder if in the hours spent freezing their toes and dodging icebergs they think for a minute the origin of the kayak itself– the finest arctic hunting vessel known to man.
http://polardefenseproject.org/blog/?p=131
“Steinar steers our zodiac (the small boat) that we use to help us get the kayaks in and out of MS ‘Havsel’. He plays a critical role in ensuring that we are safe in the sea. He also keeps an eye out for polar bears and walruses, both of which are dangerous animals up here.”
[…] Adventures in Arctic Kayaking – Update: we’re stuck UPDATE: kayakers already “stuck” in ice at 80.52397 degrees N I had this post up for all of an hour before […] […]
I wonder if Pugh will win a “Darwin Award” this year.
“One thing that strikes me is the change in the sea ice when I compare it to my Arctic trip last year. Last year at this latitude (around 82°C North) I saw lots of three meter thick ice – multi-year ice. This year, out in the kayak, I am only paddling past single-year ice which is significantly thinner, about one metre in depth. It is no surprise to me this is a record-setting year for thinness of Arctic summer sea ice.”
Wow, poor propaganda!
Somebody bet on a September thaw aka 2007. And now he is trying to chip frozen egg off his face.
I’ve been sayin it! Trust bats! Not batty humans! All my bats are gone. This is WAY earlier than last year. They left in a hurry two weeks ago. I had no less than 5 bats find their way into my bedroom as they tried to fly out of the attic and on to their south migration. Because there were so few of them, the less intelligent (and just-weened teenage set) didn’t know the route out of the attic so they crawled through the floor joists and into my quarters! The near freezing, and now freezing, night time temperatures we have been experiencing here in NE Oregon is a clear sign that bitter cold is on its way. This dude in his little skinny rowboat must have a brain smaller than a bat.
Cuz he is rowing in the wrong direction!!!!!
M. White: Wow! Might we say that our beloved Dr. Hansen has now sided with Vigilante Ecology? Scary stuff!
Here’s an update from the fellas…
“We are still struggling to get beyond 81 degrees north. The MV ‘Havsel’ continues to push east in the hope of finding a break in the ice so that Robbie and I can paddle further north. So far, to no avail – we are right up against the edge of the ice wall. ”
Note the guy says that they are headed East? Makes me wonder if these guys even have maps. Since all of us know how to use a map and know their last location, we all know that they are headed into nothing but “ice wall”.
You know what these jokers remind me of? When Laurie David and Sheryl Crow went on that Global Warming bus tour across the US about the same time an unusual cold front hit the US. Then Sheryl Crow told us all to save the Earth by cutting down to one square of toilet paper.
What can I say, some people should just stick to their original goals of “having fun” and “Drinking beer before noon on a workday.”
“Here I am , protecting the arctic…”
Pamela maybe you can hire him to keep your bats from returning come spring.
“Here I am , protecting the attic…”
http://www.ecoenquirer.com/Frosty-Cove-Alaska.htm
Anthony,
You were right.
He’s getting ready to plant his flags. He’s packing it in and in less than a week.
No paddling today – we don’t find a break in the ice. However, we do come across a substantial ice floe, and I decide now is the time to plant the 192 flags I have brought from London.