WWF

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.

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.

Silent Sound has spent the last few days dodging ice along the coast of Victoria Island. The Arctic may be warming up rapidly but there’s still enough ice to make the captain of a fibreglass boat very nervous. We have spent a lot of time sailing through 20 to 30 percent ice cover since leaving Holman.

We’re cruising now through the Kara Seas, a really arctic region which freezes completely each winter. Between Novaya Zemlya and the Yamal Peninsula, where we are now, the water temperature has dropped to 5.4 degrees and the air temperature is noticeably cooler. The weather is calm, the sea flat, and the slight breeze from NNW (which doesn’t help sailing!). No boats on the radar or radio, and few birds: a family or two of curious arctic skuas, and a lone bearded seal we passed earlier today. A seemingly empty place.

After approaching the south end of Veygach Island we anchored at 3am outside one of the very rare villages in the Russian arctic, Varnak, and slept. This is Nenets territory: the samoyeds of historical legend, an indigenous people of the region between Archangelsk and Yamal peninsula. In the morning we landed, and met with the community leader and what seemed like the entire village: visitors are exceedingly uncommon, so we (especially dressed in our bright blue goretex ‘smurf suits’) were quite a novelty.

After 3 days travelling across the south eastern Barents Sea in completely calm and windless conditions we have finally arrived at land, the island of Veygatch. Its about 200km long and is situated between the huge mass of Novaya Zemlya to the north, and Russia to the south. The passage between the 2 islands is known as the Kara Gate, as this is the main entrance to the Kara Sea.

When you go on an expedition such as this, many people ask you why you want to put up with such discomfort and hardship, a complete removal from the certainty of every day life, and even perhaps danger. For me the answer is simple: to see what is happening to the environment in this almost (to the western world) region, and to communicate this to the world.

It’s 2.18am local time and I’m on my first watch after leaving Murmansk. Latitude 69 degrees 28.6 north, longitude 34 degrees 16 east. Air temperature is about 10 degrees, water temperature is 9 degrees. Sea is slight, wind about 5 metres per second. A few Russian trawlers show up on the radar and occasionally emerge from the fog which casts a gray haze over our progress. We have just turned to head east, with a straight run now for about 500 nautical miles to the entry to the Kara sea at the southern tip of Novaya Zemlya. That’s about 3 days sailing. 6 more watches for me before we see land again.

Finally, after days of waiting, filling in forms, shopping for everything we could think of, and being the beneficiaries of seemingly endless Russian hospitality, we are away! A final press conference aboard the old ice breaker ‘Lenin’ revealed the challenge we face in turning around climate change, with several of the captains of the Russian ice breaker fleet expressing opinions that the Earth is in fact cooling. Nobody mentioned that we have loss almost half the area of summer sea ice since the 1980s, or that this voyage is only remotely possible due to the changes now conclusively the result of human action.