For the latest, see this new story. and this opinion piece on why this is a fiasco
UPDATE: Turns out this “research” vessel was mostly a taxpayer funded junket for getting video stories to BBC in the UK and ABC in Australia, see update2 below.
It is summer in the southern hemisphere and yet there is still signifiicantly above normal amounts of sea ice present as the passengers and crew of one tour ship discovered. The icebreakers Xue Long and Aurora Australis, and a French research vessel Astrolabe are cruising towards the Akademik Shokalskiy at full throttle for rescue. Photos and maps follow.
PR from the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, Dec 25th, 2013:
Search and rescue of passenger vessel trapped in ice underway
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) is coordinating a search and rescue for a Russian passenger ship beset by ice approximately 1500 nautical miles south of Hobart.
AMSA’s Rescue Coordination Centre Australia (RCC Australia) was contacted by the Falmouth Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) in the United Kingdom on Christmas morning.
The Falmouth MRCC received a distress message via satellite from a Russian flagged vessel, MV Akademik Shokalskiy, with 74 people about 7.20am (AEDT).
The ship is in the Australian Search and Rescue region, 100 nautical miles east of the French base Dumont D’Urville.
RCC Australia assumed coordination of the incident and issued a broadcast to icebreaking vessels in the area.
Three ships with icebreaking capability have responded, including the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) vessel Aurora Australis, and are now en route to the area.
The closest vessels are at least two days sailing time away.
Further updates will be provided when more information is available.
###
Source: http://www.amsa.gov.au/media/documents/25122013AkademikShokalskiyUpdate1_Media_Release.pdf
===============================================================
This is apparently an image tweeted by somebody on-board the Akademik Shokalskiy, showing the ice around it:
AMSA is now coordinating the response to a ship beset by ice about 1500nm south of Hobart. http://t.co/P4zO9RUMth http://t.co/S5ST1wgwbN
— AMSA News (@AMSA_News) December 25, 2013
UPDATE:
The expedition is being led by Chris Turney, “climate scientist”, who has “set up a carbon refining company called Carbonscape which has developed technology to fix carbon from the atmosphere and make a host of green bi-products, helping reduce greenhouse gas levels.” The purpose of the expedition is “to discover and communicate the environmental changes taking place in the south.”
http://www.christurney.com/ (h/t to Sagebrush Gardener)
It seems they found out what the “environmental changes taking place in the south.” are.
From the WUWT sea ice page, Antarctic Sea Ice is more than 2 standard deviations above normal:
![S_timeseries[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/s_timeseries1.png?quality=75)
According to this sitrep report for one of the rescue vessels, the Aurora Australis the Akademik Shokalskiy is trapped in sea ice in the Commonwealth Bay region of Antarctica.
This is what the current sea ice coverage looks like at the south pole with the approximate ship location marked:
Image source: National Snow and Ice Data Center via the WUWT sea ice page.
Wikipedia says about the ship:
MV Akademik Shokalskiy (Russian: Академик Шокальский) is an Akademik Shuleykin-class ice-strengthened ship, built in Finland in 1982 and originally used for oceanographic research.[5] In 1998 it was fully refurbished to serve as a research ship for Arctic and Antarctic work.[3] It was named after the Russian oceanographer Yuly Shokalsky.[6] The ship has two [7] passenger decks, with dining rooms, a bar, a library, and a sauna, and accommodates 54 passengers.[3] It is currently operated by Aurora Expeditions, an Australian expedition cruise line.[3][8] In 2011, the Akademik Shokalskiy sailed cruises along the coast of Russia[9] and to East Antarctica.[10] Her sister ships are Akademik Shuleykin, Arnold Veymer, Akademik Gamburtsev, Professor Molchanov, Professor Multanovskiy, Geolog Dmitriy Nalivkin, Professor Polshkov, Professor Khromov.
UPDATE2:
WUWT reader “pat” writes at 2013/12/26 at 1:59 pm
seems this expedition was more a BBC/Guardian/ABC CAGW exercise!
18 Dec: Guardian: The Guardian lays claim to Antarctica – in pictures Journalists Alok Jha and Laurence Topham have landed in Antarctica with the 2013 Australasian Antarctic Expedition Documentary filmmaker Laurence Topham lines up a shot from the bows. Photograph: Alok Jha/Guardian…
http://www.theguardian.com/science/antarctica-live/gallery/2013/dec/18/guardian-antarctica-pictures
Guardian: Laurence Topham, documentary filmmaker
In 2007 he worked for Current TV, where he edited over 50 short-form documentaries for terrestrial broadcast…
http://www.theguardian.com/open-weekend/laurence-topham
Guardian: Science: Antarctica live (MASSIVE COVERAGE, NO HINT ABOUT THE SHIP’S CURRENT PREDICAMENT!)
http://www.theguardian.com/science/antarctica-live
26 Dec: BBC: Andrew Luck-Baker: Science continues for trapped Australasian Antarctic expedition Science reporter Andrew Luck-Baker is on board the Russian research vessel Shokalskiy, covering the Australasian Antarctic Expedition 2013 for the BBC World Service programme Discovery…
Tantalisingly, a low band of grey sky to the Northeast suggests clear water lies not so many kilometres away. The grey colour is light reflected from open water. The early Antarctic explorers named this colour phenomenon “water sky” and used it to navigate their route through the treacherous pack ice…
In addition to the Russian crew of 22, the expedition team consists of 18 professional scientists from Australia and New Zealand, and 22 volunteer science assistants. They are members of the public, ranging in age from their 20s to their 70s. They paid to join the scientific adventure…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25519059
25 Nov: ABC Lateline: $1.5 million Australian expedition to Antarctica Professor Chris Turney from the University of NSW is mounting the largest Australian science expeditions to the Antarctic with an 85-person team to try to answer questions about how climate change in the frozen continent might be already shifting weather patterns in Australia.
ABC’s MARGOT O’NEILL: The research stakes are high. Antarctica is one of the great engines driving the world’s oceans, winds and weather, especially in Australia. But there’s ominous signs of climate change.
CHRIS TURNEY: The Southern Hemisphere westerly winds encircle Antarctica, and over the last 20 or 30 years or so, they’ve been pushing further south. Now – so actually in a way it’s almost like Antarctica’s withdrawing itself from the rest of the world…
EMMA ALBERICI: And tomorrow night, in the second part of this special report, could the British Antarctic explorer Robert Scott have lived? We look at how Professor Turney discovered that choosing the right team can be a matter of life and death.
Ice breakers normally carry explosives, in case the pressure of the ice on the hull becomes too great. But i don’t think the PR value of blowing up penguins would go down too well……
Hopefully cannibalism doesn’t take place cause that would prove the cannibalism deniers wrong.
I’m not sure that the Aurora Australis will be able to help them in the current ice conditions. Its paltry 10MW is somewhat short of the power available on a true icebreaker. What they really need is a change of wind direction.
One of the problems that they may encounter is a fresh water shortage. The sea water suctions which feed the evaporators (or RO plant) can become blocked and inoperable in these sort of icing conditions and, as someone else has mentioned, the poo system will be soon full and will have to be pumped overboard. Fear not though – the manufacturers of marine shite plant usually claim that the “effluent” is clean enough to drink by the time it goes overboard. I’ve never seen anyone test that theory though….
I myself spent several drunken weeks “trapped” in the Weddell Sea on board RRS Bransfield, (which only had about 5000Hp), en-route to Halley. There was no internet or twitter feeds in those days and no BBC “journalists” on board, so no one was really bothered about us and we knew that the weather would open up a lead for us eventually.
“”The frustration is not knowing when we’re getting out of here, when we’re going to go home,” Ms Lawson told News Corp during a satellite phone interview.”
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/breaking-news/anxious-wait-for-ice-stranded-ship-rescue/story-fni0xqi3-1226791424201
this story should have been #1 all week on Australian MSM – yet there is virtually nothing on the homepages of our major media outlets. partly it’s because the intention of the trip was ALWAYS ABOUT CAGW, and the present situation does not fit the meme at all:
6 Dec: SMH: Nicky Phillips: Fairfax Media trip to Antarctica to see the effects of climate change
In Antarctica, the weather controls everything, and nothing is a certainty – projects get postponed, trips get cancelled, flights get delayed, boats get stuck in ice, people get injured.
But global warming is an important story, and the trip will give Fairfax Media a rare opportunity to visit the continent most acutely affected by global warming. Antarctica is climate change ground zero. The data that scientists gather will play a crucial role in future climate models.
We will be down south over Christmas, New Year’s and the station’s annual resupply, a huge logistical challenge…
Colin Cosier:
The highlight of our trip will be visiting the ice core drilling project at Aurora Basin North. Located “deep field”, about 550 kilometres inland from Casey, the site is about 2700 metres above sea level but the air pressure will make it feel more like 3000 metres…
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/blogs/66-degrees-south/fairfax-media-trip-to-antarctica-to-see-the-effects-of-climate-change-20131206-2ywfj.html
15 Dec: Guardian Teacher Network: Emily Drabble: Antarctica – news and teaching resources round up
The Guardian’s expedition to the Antarctic is a fantastic opportunity to investigate one of the last unexplored regions on Earth. Here are the teaching resources you need to do it in style
The Antarctic is a unique place to monitor the health of our planet and the data collected from Mawson’s trip is some of the science community’s most precious, especially for those studying the extent of global warming. There are opportunities for you and your class to talk to scientists and journalists involved in the expedition, so do follow @alokjha, @loztopham, @GdnAntarctica and @guardianscience on Twitter…
http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2013/dec/15/antarctica-teaching-resources
did these media companies put up some of the $1.5m funding for the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, i wonder?
such a joke MSM worldwide has emphasised the Mawson angle!
this video, less than a minute, has Nicky Phillips (Fairfax) being filmed on Christmas Day by Colin Cosier (Fairfax/ABC). they are on the Aurora Australis ice-breaker, not the Akademik Shokalskiy, which isn’t named in this video, but which the ice-breaker is off to rescue. Nicky says unfortunately they won’t get to wherever they planned to go to study ice cores, which is one of the main reasons she and Cosier have been in the Antarctic for 3 weeks:
Christmas on an icebreaker (00:52)
Nicky Phillips and Colin Cosier’s Christmas day in Antarctica changed from a planned flight to a deep field camp into a rescue voyage in the sea ice. Credits CAMERA/EDIT: Colin Cosier
http://media.watoday.com.au/news/national-news/christmas-in-antarctica-5037954.html
u will not find this bland AAP report (which is precisely how this story has been reported all along in Australia) on Fairfax homepages. :
29 Dec: SMH: AAP: Steve Lillebuen: Anxious wait for ice-stranded ship rescue
Stranded passengers onboard a ship wedged in Antarctic sea ice are hours away from knowing if a second rescue attempt will fail like the first one…
A group of scientists, explorers and tourists has been stuck on the Russian research ship MV Akademik Shokalskiy, about 1500 nautical miles south of Hobart, for the past five days.
Two icebreakers have already given up on efforts to push through the thick and dangerous ice floes near Antarctica to try to free the trapped research vessel.
A third icebreaker, Australia’s Aurora Australis, is on its way to the stranded ship and is due to arrive about 11pm (AEDT) on Sunday.
It is the last ship in the area that will be able to help…
Retired teacher Kayleen Lawson, of Brisbane, is onboard the stricken vessel after paying thousands to join the expedition as a tourist.
“The frustration is not knowing when we’re getting out of here, when we’re going to go home,” Ms Lawson told News Corp during a satellite phone interview.
“It was meant to be the trip of a lifetime, and it still is … but it’s turning out a little differently to what I expected…
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/anxious-wait-for-icestranded-ship-rescue-20131229-301ay.html
u will not find this on Fairfax homepages either:
29 Dec: Age: Nicky Phillips: Australian ice-breaker closes in on trapped Russian ship
Aurora captain Murray Doyle said it was always possible the ice would be too thick for the Xue Long.
”We were always option B,” he said. ”We were always going to be sent on until the end.”
Reports from the Chinese ice-breaker and the Akademik Shokalskiy say pack ice in the area is 10/10ths, which means the vessel is surrounded, and some ice floes are between three and four metres thick.
The Aurora could comfortably slice through ice up to 1.35 metres thick, and crash through thicker slabs by reversing and ramming.
But Mr Doyle was unsure how the ice-breaker would handle ice thicker than three metres. ”It’s not what we’re built for,” he said…
The Aurora is due to arrive near the pack ice that surrounds the Shokalskiy about 10pm on Sunday. ”Then it’s up to the rescue co-ordination centre in Canberra and what they want us to do,” Mr Doyle said. ”They might want us to go in or just stand by and wait.”
But it would be a waste of time trying to ram ice that was too thick. ”It’s like driving your car into a brick wall,” he said…
Mr Doyle said he would be wary of driving too far into the pack ice in order to avoid the Aurora also getting trapped.
During the past few days, the Shokalskiy was blasted by south-easterly winds, which applied more pressure to the pack ice around the ship. This would made the rescue operation harder still.
”But by the time we get there the weather could change,” Mr Doyle said. A westerly wind would ease the pressure on the ice and help break it up, he said.
The Xue Long and French ice-breaker L’Astrolabe will remain in the area should the Shokalskiy’s crew and passengers need to be evacuated.
http://www.theage.com.au/travel/travel-news/australian-icebreaker-closes-in-on-trapped-russian-ship-20131228-300pa.html
i only found this latest Phillips’ report by clicking on this link on the Age homepage & finding a link underneat the video:
29 Dec: VIDEO 51 secs: Age: Spirits high despite rescue snag in Antarctica
http://media.theage.com.au/national/selections/spirits-high-despite-rescue-snag-in-antarctica-5040480.html
29 Dec: Guardian: Alok Jha: Antarctic expedition: still icebound – what happens next is anyone’s guess
Like explorer Douglas Mawson 100 years ago, Alok Jha and the expedition he joined face a long wait to be rescued
Since then we have been stuck in pack ice. The Chinese icebreaker Xue Long has given up its attempt to rescue us as ice sheets continue to spread and thicken…
We were only two nautical miles from the ocean before Christmas, but that distance has now swelled to around 20 nautical miles as the blizzards and winds have continued. If the joint efforts of the Aurora Australis and Xue Long don’t work, the only other option will be to evacuate the ship by air, though this would be the absolute worst case scenario…
We – a group of scientists and paying members of the public acting as science assistants – plan to repeat many of Mawson’s scientific measurements in order to understand how this pristine landscape has changed over the past 100 years…
We arrived at Commonwealth Bay more than a week ago, dropping anchor at the edge of a glistening sheet of fast ice – so called because it is stuck fast to the edge of the land mass of Antarctica. In front of us was an alien landscape of pure, flat white. The expedition’s scientists began their work. Marine ecologist Tracey Rogers took biopsies and fur from several Weddell seals, material that will help her build a picture of what these animals have been eating for the past few years. Changes in food would be a signal that the Antarctic environment is irrevocably changing. (pat – HUH?)…
What happens to us now is anyone’s guess. If we hadn’t got stuck in ice last week, we would have visited Macquarie Island, an ecological jewel between Antarctica and New Zealand. There, scientists had ambitious plans to study penguin colonies and take geological samples to help reconstruct past climates. However, as we wait to be freed, it is probably a mistake to think about the future: because if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my brief time in this desolate, still and intriguing continent, it is that, in Antarctica, you can’t make plans. Here you can only have intentions. And a lot of hope.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/antarctica-live/2013/dec/29/antarctica-expedition-ice-wait-rescue
for the record, this is the company who allegedly booked tourists on the Akademik Shokalskiy:
25 Dec: ExpeditionsOnline: M/V Akademik Shokalskiy stuck in ice
NOTE TO NEWS REPORTERS: Expeditions Online is NOT the operator for this vessel but is an independent polar booking agent for this vessel and many other expedition ships.
http://expeditionsonline.com/more-information/news/mv-akademik-shokalskiy-stuck-ice/
ExpeditionsOnline: Spirit of Mawson Expedition
As a passenger you will be invited to act as a field assistant to help the scientists complete their ambitious programs. Your involvement will of course be voluntary and it may vary throughout the journey; dictated in part by the prevailing weather, conditions and some permit restrictions. It is an exciting concept that has not been tested in the Southern Ocean before…
The cost for participating starts from US$ 15,150. Further details may be found here.
http://expeditionsonline.com/more-information/news/join-spirit-mawson-expedition/
Pat
Thanks. Good stuff. Did you see/hear this video at 32 seconds?
http://media.theage.com.au/national/selections/spirits-high-despite-rescue-snag-in-antarctica-5040480.html
Nearly fell off my chair. Too funny. The tourists paid $15,000 USD and are learning how to tie knots. ☺☺ They should be working on first aid for hypothermia and frostbite next. I sincerely wish no harm to anyone, but would not be disappointed if there was some financial and physical hardship before this is over. The premises of this CAGW mission is absurd.
Thanks for posting the updates Pat … and others.
CAS
Wait, surely the Australian Icebreaker has exceeded its allowable CO2 emissions for 2013.
So unless the tourists pay up, to buy extraordinary carbon tax credits, the Aurora will have to stand down until the new year.
Buffy Minton at 5:00p.m. makes some excellent observations. As I surf around the news today it appears the MSM and Wikipedia have confused the capabilities and numerous classifications of ships with ice breaking capability, like Aurora Australis (IA Super) and Xue Long (B1), and are routinely referring to them as “icebreaker.” It appears what the Akademik Shokalskiy could really use is the cavalry in the form of a polar capable true icebreaker, like the USCGC Polar Sea.
Would appreciate any mariner with Antarctic experience explaining why they think the Shokalskiy cut it so close on this cruise. Is the trapped ship in danger of staying right where it is for days or weeks?
I noticed they were not teaching the tying of the hangman’s noose.
Nice info Pat!
Good points Buffy. RO units are useless in cold water, so a flash or submerged tube distillation is probably making shipboard potable water. The ship is a quite old and therefore unlikely to contain a modern Gatex type CHT incinerator; ditto for any other waste treatment system.
Since the ship is within 12 miles of land and most nations ban the dumping of CHT; It would be interesting to know if the our intrepid explorers are dumping “dukie” water in the pristine Antarctic waters? Perhaps a seal tissue biopsy from next year’s expedition will confirm that CAGW has forced the poor seals to eat shi*!
Alternatively, it must suck to pay 15k for the privilege of taking a dump in a bag.
[Please clarify your abbreviations when writing for a non-naval/non-shipbuilding audience. Mod]
[For the rest of us:
[RO = Reverse Osmosis (one modern method of making fresh water on board ships, older ships use waste engine heat or steam heating or electricity)
[CHT = Chemical Holding Tank (“chemical” being raw sewage in this case)]
Clive –
i got a belly laugh from the knot-tying lessons.
wish we could get the CAGW side of this whole story in the MSM, but it appears the MSM is monolithic when it comes to CAGW. it is the only thing that would explain how they all represented this trip as following in Mawson’s footsteps, when so much is available online prior to the ship getting stuck showing it was all about CAGW.
naturally, i hope everyone gets out of this situation safely, but this is the most ironic stunt ever performed by CAGW zealots.
“Turns out this “research” vessel was mostly a taxpayer funded junket for getting video stories to BBC in the UK and ABC in Australia, see update2 below”
That’s a big claim. Where’s the evidence to show that this is “mostly a taxpayer funded junket”?
SE winds to continue for three more days; will reach gale force at time. More pack ice will increase the distance required to free the stranded ship. The link only covers a three-day forecast. If any heavy weather is forecasted a helo evacuation will likely be ordered.
commonwealth bay antarctica weather forecast
Er, from above, in update II.
Now, I am trying to get this CAGW priest’s (er, “scientist’s”) arithmetic right: The 25 Nov press release claim he has a “85-person team” but there are 18 “professional scientists” on board (all of whom we assume can count, even if they cannot find their way out of ice fields freezing around their only life support system) + 22 “volunteers (who paid the $15,000.00 per person fee ?) + 22 man crew. Maybe the missing are safe back at home? Maybe they are merely padding the budget with man-hours?
I can’t help but follow this story with intense interest, but wanted to add to posted sentiment that I hope nobody is harmed during this hapless expedition.
As Bill Murray famously said, “I have to laugh”.
@RA Cook 8:32, those are climatology numbers, a bit like Bistro-mathematics.
As with the IPCC and their 2500 experts, a slight piece of numerical dyslexia as it turned out to be 0052 climatologists.
The 85 claimed -18 known is maths as done by these Post Normal Science gits,if audited they will be hidden in the deep as with the missing heat.
Or those missing 67 scientists must be off studying the plight of the 50? million missing climate change refugees.
Maybe they’re counting penguins as “Antarctic specialists”.
[Yes. Here are the specialists. — mod.]
It’s worce than we thought. Not only are they stuck with the Chinese icebreaker failing to release them, a French icebreaker also failed. The Australian icebreaker is onroute and going to try over the next day or two. How much diesel was burnt in this farce?
“Er, from above, in update II”
Once again – show me where the “taxpayer funded junket” is in any of that? Exactly how much taxpayer funding are you alleging?
“Techno says:
December 28, 2013 at 11:04 pm”
You have to do a bit of digging but the from the ABC link in Update II you find “CHRIS TURNEY, CLIMATE CHANGE RESEARCH CENTRE, UNSW”. The CCRC at UNSW is funded by the Australian research council’s National Competitive Grants Program. The UNSW itself is funded by taxpayers. This trip is costsing AU$1.5mil, according to the ABC article. In anyone’s English, that’s a taxpayer junket.
am hoping Anthony will start a new thread on this topic, with a link to this thread at the top so that people can follow the story to date:
Guardian’s Alok Jha & BBC’s Andrew Luck-Baker in the news again, but never allowing a passenger to have their say!
20 Dec: Guardian Antarctic Live: Alok Jha: Icebound Antarctic passengers face air rescue if ship cannot reach them soon
Passengers aboard the Akademik Shokalskiy, the ship stuck in ice off the coast of Antarctica since Christmas Day, were told on Sunday morning they would have to be evacuated by air if icebreaker ships could not get to them within 48 hours.
The Russian-operated ship has about 50 passengers – including scientists and paying members of the public – and 20 crew on board…
“What we’re depending on is the extra grunt of the Aurora Australis,” said Greg Mortimer, co-leader of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition (AAE), which has chartered the ship. “It’s a more traditional icebreaker hull, which is like a bathtub with a big engine inside it – it can push over the ice and lay down on top and work its way like that.”…
Those on board the Shokalskiy will know within 12 hours of the arrival of the Aurora Australis whether the icebreaking mission is likely to be successful. Mortimer said the decision to evacuate would be in the hands of the captains of the icebreakers…
“The pressure at this point in time is one of time – that artificial contrivance of, well, we must get out of this situation as quickly as we can. But we don’t have to, we’re OK.”
That would change, he said, if an iceberg began moving towards the ship. The closest icebergs are several nautical miles away at present. If one came close, the Shokalskiy would have a day or two’s notice to carry out any necessary evacuation…
The mood on board has remained calm, with expedition leaders regularly briefing the rest of the passengers about the various options to get them out of the ice.
Mortimer, a veteran of Antarctica with more than 100 visits to the continent under his belt, said he was not surprised by the difficulty the Shokalskiy has faced this week.
“The combination of elements is really unfortunate – a couple of blizzards and many, many days blowing in the wrong direction has piled heaps of trouble on our shoulders,” he said. “The power of the forces at work, that’s the constant reminder – how overwhelmingly powerful the natural forces are here. That’s the fearsome, gnarly-teeth side of Antarctica and its great beauty as well, its allure.”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/antarctica-live/2013/dec/29/trapped-antarctic-passengers-air-evacuation
29 Dec: Radio New Zealand: Helicopter flys over stranded ship
A helicopter from the Chinese ice-breaker, Xue Long (Snow Dragon), has flown over the Russian research ship, Akademik Shokalskiy, which remains stuck in Antarctic sea ice.
The helicopter did not land and it is thought the flight was a test run should it be needed to evacuate the 74 people onboard the research ship…
The BBC’s Andrew Luck-Baker is onboard the Akademik Shokalskiy and says conditions have improved over the past few hours.
“The pack ice seems to be opening up a little bit all the way around us, in fact there are big cracks appearing away towards the horizon, pools of water beginning to open up and we’re just wondering whether this is our lucky break.”…
The BBC reports that although trapped for the moment, the scientists are continuing their experiments. They have been measuring temperature and salinity through cracks in the surrounding ice…
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/world/232119/helicopter-flys-over-stranded-ship