Newscasters: minute by minute drama playing out on the frozen high seas
A rescue mission to free a ship trapped by thick ice in Antartica is running into major trouble this morning
conditions just too rough to reach the stranded ship
It's been nearly 100 hours since the Russian vessel first ran into trouble
and now they're trapped. Caught in a deep freeze, a helicopter will fly most of the passengers
to the Australian ice-breaker at the edge of the sea ice
This was the helicopter that began the rescue of 52 people
trapped in the antarctic
The power of the thing was enormous. It's like the whole air was vibrating
It literally came over the top of our heads and suddenly the down draft was awe inspiring
We were bundled into the helicopter
As we flew I was able to see the ice and to me it was an amazing thing
to actually see the ice stretching into the distance
I was amazed just to see how vast this field of ice was that we were all embedded in
It was phenomenal, the ice that had come around us
That flight left me thinking, I don't know how Shokalskiy's gonna get out of this
Shokalskiy could become a permanent feature of Antarctica
As a scientist Antarctica is just one of the most exciting regions of the world to work
There's so much we still need to understand and how it fits into the global system
It's an extreme environment and the key thing is you just have to try and anticipate what might change
so we left Bluff in southern New Zealand on 8th December
And there was a real buzz and excitement cos' this was the big one
this was 4 weeks heading south
The process of getting to Antarctica
by ship is a really exciting one
because you see the land drop behind you and then you're all alone on the sea
and it's an alien environment for many people
but also you're getting used to your fellow passengers
so you're starting to form not only a relationship with the ocean
but you're starting to forms relationships with people who you're going to be travelling with
very often for several weeks.
Half the team were full-time scientists looking at the full range
of the natural and physical sciences
from bird observations all the way through to the inner workings of the southern ocean
Each day it gets a little colder and then half way across you come to this extraordinary
biological boundary which is the edge of the cold water
of Antarctica, the polar front.
Beyond which the water is suddenly cold, Antarctic cold
and it was cold enough to support icebergs, so there is somewhere you start to see these
behemoths of ice, floating around like small countries.
Chunks of Antarctica which have snapped off and floated away
There was such excitement across all of the passengers once we started to see the first
penguins on ice flows as we went past.
I've spent a lot of my life watching Penguins
and they're constantly fascinating
there are a sentient being which we can have some connection with
because they're charming and upright and walking around seemingly
at ease and busily going about their business
This is a Weddell Seal
they don't have any land predators so they're very relaxed
they're very chilled seals and you can see this guy's not bothered
by us at all.
So when the biopsy hits a Seal it can only go so far and then
pops back out again and you can see here at the edge
the little bit of blubber there. I use the fur to look at
stable isotopes, to look at diet and to look at how far the animals have ranged
and with the skin we do genetics.
So although we've just biopsied him he's now rolling over and about to go to sleep
so it mustn't be too traumatic
Shokalskiy started getting into trouble when we left the edge of the fast ice
in the polinear near the Hodgeman Islands
and the ice was closing quickly around us
and throughout that night the captain and the officers fought very hard to get the vessel
out into open water and they couldn't.
There was too much ice closing in on the ship like a big vice
you could feel the ship banging into huge towers and bashing and lurching
and it was quite dramatic
and so we woke up the following morning to find the ship completely surrounded by ice
and not able to move.
It was this chaotic scene of jumbled block of ice almost like a derelict city
As the ship started to be pushed over by the pressure of the ice
it started to heel a little bit
I realised that we were fully embedded in that ice
and something significant was going to have to happen for us to get out of there
I was a little nervous about the psychological cocktail that we'd been thrown into
There were some people who were very concerned
people were encouraged to ask questions of the expedition leaders
Yesterday we were on the edge of the fast ice near the Hodgeman Islands
and we've moved about a mile and a half over night
trying to fight our way out of the pack ice which came round the ship yesterday afternoon
and this morning at about 8 o'clock the captain decided just to sit and wait for a while
Our circumstances got each day, hour by hour more and more difficult
at first it was OK 'we're stuck for a while and we'll just wait and we'll get out'
but then it changed.
24 hours later icebergs had come into our world.
The chill went through me to be honest
particularly when they started to talk about the possibility of icebergs moving within
600 meters of the bow.
There was the potential for those icebergs to run into the ship
and at that point the captain pushed the distress button
after our distress button was pushed the rescue co-ordination centre called on every resource
that they could to come to our assistance
So the closest help that we knew was coming our was was the Chinese ice-breaker called
Xue Long or the Snow Dragon and that was travelling from Perth to the Ross Sea
and that agreed to divert to help break us out.
We heard her on the VHF radio
"OK thank you"
We just got our first sight of the ship, it's about 9.5 miles away from us
that's a big moment because it means that
there's more of a psychological desire of the captain of the ship to get to us
once he can see us, we're not just a dot on a radar.
It was pushing through, coming towards and just thinking
oh my gosh, with any luck it could be here by the morning
which would be extraordinary, so people were very buoyant and very excited
(laughter)
I had a few hours sleep and woke about
6 and basically it was clear that the Xue Long hadn't really moved at all
Xue Long reached to within about six miles of us
and found the going very difficult and the captain has decided to turn around
that set the tone for the coming 5 days or so
every step of the way as that week unfolded
was in a sense a series of dissapointments
"The art class that we have scheduled is going on for 11 o'clock
in the dining room"
The mood became almost jovial
as we started to start things to find things to do and we set about to get a calendar
of events going which we all attended with enthusiasm
and if anything it became quite sort of surreal, it was quite boisterous considering
the situation we were in.
"The whole world is making a fuss, Big Brother House has nothing on us"
"the Guardian and the BBC are putting out news on you and me"
"It's a bloody great shame we're still stuck here"
Researchers and tourists rang in the New Year on frozen Antarctic Tundra
still stuck on a ship, locked in by thick ice.
To another rescue underway this evening, this one moving a bit more slowly.
When the ice first formed around the ship open water was just 2 miles away
We take this technology for granted ago but a couple of generations ago you would be deciding
which one to eat first!
In those days, our situation had deteriorated quite significantly
the Xue Long couldn't get to us and the captain of Xue Long decided that he would stay there
waiting within view of us until the Aurora Australis came into the picture
with the hope that the extra power of Aurora Australis would be able to cut us out
The Aurora Australis, which is the Australian Government ice-breaker came into the picture
from the very word go because they were tasked to come to our assistance
straight away but they were much further afield
Aurora Australis, Shokalskiy
"Shokalskiy, Aurora Australis go ahead"
after very hard effort from Aurora Australis the captain told us
that he wasn't able to get to our position. Once again
our world was flipped on its head because it meant
that decisions had to be made, whether to evacuate the ship or not
"we're readying people with the possibility of a quick exit but we'll stand by waiting
for results of this ice reconnaissance"
"OK, copy that, thank you"
This is the Milo powder that we are using to mark the helipad
so where the helicopter is supposed to land
we're just marking it basically a straight line around the perimeter
right there in the middle we also mark the 'H'
that's what they're aiming for, so we'll try to land as close to it as possible
right in the centre of that
There's a level of tension, some people are a bit concerned
I think one of the things is that you're going from the known to the unknown
There's a step which is a box up to a two step ladder
It was exciting, I found it personally exciting because I had to be on the ball
all the time
the pilot looked at me an gave me the thumbs up, you know
and then I went towards the helicopter and they started jumping out
and they threw out an incredible number of planks
wooden planks on to the snow and I thought, what the hell's going on here?
then I realised what they were going to do was to use those planks as the basis
for the proper helipad because when the helicopter landed
it actually sunk into the snow
"cozy, it's very cozy"
"this is fantastic!"
Going past the Xue Long and seeing her beset
as well made me feel sick
There's a mixture of feelings and emotions because
I was relieved that the operation had gone well
I wasn't relieved to be out of there because I loved being there
I'd be happy to still be there now, in a tent!
When we booked on this ship that I hadn't seen in 10 years, hadn't been on here for a long time
and the voyage leader Leanne grabbed me and held me and said 'welcome home
you're back' and she didn't even know me!
I just thought fuck how did you know me and she said
I remember your name I've seen your name on the lists and it's this sense of community
in place it's really special
Newscasters: Dozens of people trapped by ice at the bottom of the world are finally on their way home
...until about mid-January to get to the island of Tasmania from which they will finally fly home
...in the Australian port of Hobart they faced the cameras
and a barrage of questions on how their voyage went so terribly wrong
We certainly didn't go into that environment thinking there was a chance we might get caught
we don't look for those events, far from it we try to avoid those events
and it's just really unfortunate that we got caught by this extreme event
that basically trapped us.
I can rarely think of a summer season in Antarctica where everything has gone exactly as planned
there are always things that come up that are impossible to predict.
The Aurora Australis was delayed by 2 weeks in getting back to Hobart
and that will have consequences for the next voyages
It's very intimately linked; operations, logistics and science programmes
the ripple effect of any delay will magnify throughout the season
We were not in that situation irresponsibly, we were in that situation
wittingly, we have dealt with
that situation, extraordinarily well, with ship, crew, passengers sane and healthy
and on their way home
and with a group of people who have
had a life changing experience
and that's amazing