Ice

Tue
20 Jan
2015

We have been kee­ping an eye on the ice chart for days with quite some exci­ti­ment. What appears like some colourful squa­re cen­ti­me­t­res on paper is hundreds of miles of drift ice in real life, cove­ring much of the Ross Sea. Yel­low is not vit­amin-rich lemon, but half open water. Pur­ple is not blueber­ry, but a very den­se pack ice cover, toug­her than a cher­ry stone and abso­lut­e­ly ine­di­ble.

In the arc­tic, the sea ice is shrin­king rapidly. In the Ant­ar­c­tic, it is brea­king records. The­re is a lot of ice in the Ross Sea this year.

The ice is the focus of ever­y­bo­dies atten­ti­on here on Ort­eli­us. We are all regu­lar­ly exami­ning the ice­chart, fol­lo­wing the deve­lo­p­ment, dis­cus­sing what all the colours may mean for us. The degree of expe­ri­ence that goes into the­se dis­cus­sions is varia­ble, and so is the pati­ence that Shack­le­ton iden­ti­fied as a polar traveller’s most important qua­li­ty. The­se ice charts are always rough and some­ti­mes ama­zin­gly mis­lea­ding, and even the satel­li­tes don’t know what will hap­pen over the next days.

Tal­king about Shack­le­ton. It was on 20th Janu­ary 1914 that the Endu­rance got stuck in the ice of the Wed­dell Sea. That is 100 years ago today.

So we are eager­ly awai­ting the deve­lo­p­ment over the next days. The first ice floes are drif­ting around the ship. A beau­tiful view in the suns­hi­ne.