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This summer, WWF is helping support two expeditions that will take on some of the world’s most difficult waters, to see first-hand the effects of Arctic climate change. One expedition is sailing across the top of Russia, a journey of 6000 nautical miles through the Northeast Passage, while another is attempting a west to east […]

Well, what an utterly incredible day. Having just written a blog about why there have been no polar bear sightings today I saw five, all in a small area.

Last night we celebrated our successful passage past Cape Chelyuskin and the Taimyr peninsula with a wonderful dinner of reindeer, from the leg that we bought from the Nenets herders on Weygach Island. It has been hanging outside for the past few days aging perfectly and simply melted in the mouth. Culinary bliss on an expedition is a rare thing, but it does happen!

I guess we weren’t as lucky as I thought we might be. We spent all of yesterday negotiating our way through heavy drifting pack ice that had moved south from Severnaya Zemlya, trying every lead to see if any opened up. At one stage we moored to an ice floe and drifted for an hour to see exactly how fast the ice was moving, in which direction. I never doubted that we would make it through, but you do start making mental plans about what you will do if you do get stuck.

Since about 6am we have been negotiating increasingly present drifting fragments of sea ice with a recent snow cover of about 20cm. The ice has all the forms of the last stages of melt but makes navigation difficult. Ola then Hannibal then Per Magnus take turns standing on the middle cross trees of the mast, about 15m above the deck, to see as far as possible and find a path to open water.

Being firmly in the most difficult part of the expedition with regard to sea ice, we have been spending considerable time discussing which route to take now. We receive daily updates of images derived from passive microwave radar (thanks to Georg at the University of Bremen, and DAMOCLES!) plus radio reports and imagery from a couple of Russian icebreakers in the region whenever we want them. Not that they are necessary at the moment, the sea we are travelling through has less than 10% ice cover, so it barely slows us down and just makes vigilance on our watches more important.

We have been sitting waiting for the wind to change for 36 hours now, securely anchored in a bay at Tyrtova Island. Apart from our usual activities, there has been ample time to talk about many issues including the reason I’m here in the first place: Climate Change.

Yesterday we arrived at Tyrtova Island in the Nordenskjold archipelago and found a sheltered anchorage on the western side, out of danger of drifting ice. The water temperature is about minus 1, the air a bit cooler. A strong breeze blows constantly to create a wind chill that makes it feel significantly cold.

We have experienced our first encounter with drifting sea ice, at last, almost 2 weeks after leaving Murmansk.

After lunch today we reached one of the most isolated, northernmost settlements in the world: Dixon, latitude 73 degrees 30 minutes North, 80 degrees 30 minutes East, the town at the mouth of the mighty Yenesai river. Once a town of 5000, the recent depopulation of the Russian north has left only 500 people to brave the harsh winter and decaying infrastructure. To my knowledge we are the first yacht to visit Dixon since 2002.