by Floro Mercene
In 2013, the Russian vessel, the Akademik Shokalskiy, was used by Australasian Antarctic Expedition to repeat the route travelled by Australian explorer Sir Douglas Mawson and his team a century ago, between 1911 and 1914.
On Christmas day 2013, just over two weeks into what should have been a month-long expedition after leaving New Zealand, the Shokalskiy was trapped by thick sheets of ice driven by strong winds, about 1,500 nautical miles south of Hobart, the capital of Tasmania. There were 52 tourists, scientists, and crew on board stranding them for more than a week over Christmas and New Year’s Eve until they were rescued. Despite being trapped, the scientists continued their experiments, measuring temperature and salinity through cracks in the surrounding ice. One of the aims was to track how quickly the Antarctica’s sea ice was disappearing. The ship had plenty of stocks and was never in danger.
China’s Xue Long and Australia’s Aurora Australis, icebreakers, both were within miles of the stranded ship but had to turn back due to thick ice and poor weather. Antarctica is the coldest and windiest place on Earth, and extreme blizzards can arise out of nowhere. Such a storm prevented the Chinese, Australian, and French icebreakers from getting any closer to the stranded ship.
Several attempts to break through to the ship by sea – by the Xue Long, Aurora Australis and French-flagged L’Astrolabe – failed because of the thickness of the ice. Two days later, with no icebreaker able to smash its way through, a Chinese helicopter, Xue Ying, or “Snow Eagle”, rose into the air for the first of five flights to ferry passengers from the stricken ship to the Aurora Australis. Its 22 core crew remained behind to sail the vessel home once conditions allowed. Later, the large icebreaker Xue Long itself was trapped, though there was no danger.
