Arctic Sunrise

Whitehills, Bluewater, Greenland

 [Eric Philips is an Australian polar explorer and adventurer, who brings his expertise on the ice to the Arctic Sunrise for our expedition to bear witness to the Arctic meltdown. Here he's having a look back at an adventure from a couple of weeks ago, and the resourcefulness needed to pull it off: kayaking down the melt stream of a glacier!- Dave]

 It's not often that I balk at an adventure, particularly if it involves ice or a kayak or both, but the suggestion that we paddle a river flowing on the surface of the Petermann Glacier brought my heart rate up a notch or two. "The surface is too rough to ski over so why don't we paddle the river with the radar?" suggested our resident glaciologist, Alun Hubbard. A lecturer in glaciology at Aberystwyth University, this swashbuckling Welshman was no stranger to adventure, with Antarctic sailing and mountaineering as two of his many outdoor pursuits. "A stretch of about 25km ends just upstream of The Whirlpool and should get us a really good fix on Petermann's basal topography."

 Crikey, this guy's nuts

 In 1995 I traversed Greenland using skis and kites and spent too much time pondering the consequences of falling into one of the many melt channels that drained via moulins into the ice. I'd also paddled an iceberg-laden Grade 3 river that spilled from the Greenland icesheet down to sea level and knew the numbing cold of ice-borne water. The water in Petermann River was just short of freezing and its volume could fill an Olympic swimming pool every sixty seconds. But after an aerial recce of the section in mind, I was in like Flynn.

 This was a mission that required some innovation and justified a healthy amount of fine scrutiny. Not only because we would be ferrying some expensive ice-penetrating radar kit but also because we didn't embark on this Greenland campaign with such a specialist adventure in mind. We had two double open sea kayaks and two single white-water boats on board, but all, including paddles and buoyancy vests, were of a recreational ilk. Fortunately the experience of our paddle team, and the resourcefulness of the Sunrise's crew, made up for any shortfall in equipment. And I could rely on Alun to prepare the expensive radar rig for river travel, including 80 metres of receiving and transmitting antennas, a couple of batteries, solar panel and laptop computer. The antennas, buoyed by small floats, would be tethered between the boats, the transmitter, large battery and solar panel housed in an unmanned kayak and Alun's laptop and kinematic GPS and radar receiving apparatus would perch at his feet where he could monitor the data. Perfect! What could go wrong?

 Paddling a small blue white-water boat I took up the pace-setting front position, and, having completed multiple helicopter scouts, I would navigate referencing a picture of the river scored into my brain. Twenty metres behind me, accompanying Alun in the command centre, was Scottish Oceans Institute geomorphologist Richard Bates. A sea kayaker, skier and climber, I reckoned he'd have a cool head in a crisis and he looked as fit as a fiddle. Sixty metres behind their red boat tracked the green transmitter kayak and taking up the rear twenty metres hence was Sunrise radio operator and long-time Greenpeace campaigner, Texas Constantine. Another all-round adventurer he'd be in a red double by himself, providing tension in the system and keeping the transmitter kayak out of trouble. Texas also outfitted each boat with a submersible two-way radio. Each paddler was similarly waterproofed in a dry-suit.

 Moments before our 9.30am launch, Alun added another dimension to our folly. ‘I should let you know that the battery gives off over 4000 volt pulses', he mentioned with a defiant grin. "Electricity doesn't bode well with water, but aah well!" Righto Alun. Any relation to Jack Sparrow?

 Under a still, blue sky we slid the 120m-long kayak train into the first of a string of small inter-connected lakes filled with the clearest waters on Earth. The surrounding hills, the shoreline and the lakebed were ice, all ice. Chosen as a proving ground, the lake system gave us opportunity to iron out our strategy and any questions about overheating, power supply, tension on the lines or data logging were quickly answered. It was time for fun and we traversed the last lake before spilling into a creek that ushered us into the main river. Once in the flow the familiar honeymoon cocktail of trepidation and thrill gave way to unadulterated rapture. The surreality of what we were doing is still unexplainable. The only analogy I can concoct is equally arcane yet supported by Nick Cobbing's otherworldly aerial photos of us on the river - that of riding a magic carpet through space. Our bliss would not last long.

 Beneath us a couple of yawning caverns sped by eliciting a feeling akin to swimming over the edge of a submarine cliff. My 1995 Greenland ponderings returned. Moments later we were almost wrapped around a grounded iceberg in mid-stream. My flat-bottomed boat was made for moving water but the double sea kayaks lacked the maneuverability in the current and Alun and Richard only just managed to coax their boat into the port-side channel. Texas behind could see the impending trap and hugged the left bank to keep both himself and the transmitter boat out of trouble. In future we would allow some slack in the lines before effecting ferry-glides or break-outs.

 The icescape changed with every bend – babbling creeks, idyllic eddies, ice canyons, distant cliffs – and the hours swept by like the crystal water below. A leisurely lunch on shore gave opportunity to stretch limbs, scoff sandwiches and coffee and bolster our team with ice-sheet climatologist Jason Box joining Texas' boat. An associate professor with Byrd Polar Research Center, Jason earned recognition from the scientific community for calculating the mass balance of the Greenland ice sheet. The mass balance is the difference between the input of snow that falls on Greenland's ice sheet, compared to the loss of ice from melting and calving from glaciers. At the moment, this balance is in deficit; more snow may be falling on the ice sheet, but yet more is melting.

 The signature coming through on Alun's computer was really crisp and it seemed as though today's sortie would only add to scientists' understanding of glacial reaction to air and ocean warming.

 With the peak melt on the glacier at around 4pm, a couple of hours after the sun's 2pm zenith, the water was noticeably faster and higher as we re-entered the flow. Visions of The Whirlpool in flood just one kilometer below our exit put some urgency into my paddle strokes and we picked up the pace to a zippy 9km/h. As if on cue, the riverbanks steepened and we entered a dramatic frozen canyonland. I likened it to the spout of a funnel. Soon enough I saw the marker flag we'd pre-positioned on a bend before our exit and I talked the team through the break-out procedure via radio. A small ice-island and eddy on the inside of a tight right-hand bend made for a bomber exit, so long as we positioned ourselves well – slack in the lines, nose into the up-stream margin of the eddy, paddle hard, break out. As backup I had previously sunk a steel rod into the ice bank and placed a couple of helpers with ropes on stand-by. As backup to the backup another rod lay in wait at a drop-dead exit 200m upstream of the Whirlpool, but we weren't going there.

 Eight hours after sliding into that lake we gathered on an icy bank overlooking the exit, our mood as buoyant as the bergy bits that peppered the channel. We'd completed a pretty audacious paddle, driven by a scientific premise that would add a piece to Alun's glaciological puzzle. ""This novel adventure revealed a 27km longitudinal snapshot of Petermann's floating ice tongue which when compared with previous data, indicates that its base is melting away at incredible rates by warm fjord currents, accelerating the shelf's demise and inevitable breakup."

 - Eric

 Photo: Nick Cobbing/Greenpeace

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[We may not have seen Petermann Glacier for a while, but we're still lying in wait as more of it fractures every day. Meanwhile, the crew are still compiling their memories of the glacier. Here's a some impressions of Petermann Glacier by the 3rd mate on the Arctic Sunrise; Bob, from the Netherlands].
 
While doing the bridge watch, we on the ship's bridge always keep in close contact with out helicopter pilot, Martin. One morning, flying back along the immense glacial ice tongue, he called in asking me (as 3rd mate), if I would be interested in a seat during the afternoon flight.
 
What can you say to that? Pete, the captain, heard the request coming in by radio and straight away told me, "Bob, if you wanna go, you go".
 
At Martin's next call in, I confirmed that I'd be joining. This was really exciting. Thoughts were already running through my brain. What should I bring? What should I expect on the middle of a Greenland glacier? Would it be cold? Would it be wet, windy, slippery, blinding to the eye? No clue! Camera batteries well charged? You don't want to miss a thing in this once in a lifetime event!
 
Slowly coming off the helideck. Strange feeling as if you're being lifted into the air while sitting on your seat (which is exactly true!). Friends on deck quickly diminishing... it feels weird in my lower tummy.
 
Martin and the scientists are talking into the headsets, communicating to each other, not at all disturbed by the noise of the engine. Through my headset I hear the communication going on, but I can hardly speak a word. My eyes are rolling over the revealing scenery. I try to grasp it all as we gain height. Quickly the Sunrise gets smaller and before I realize we're hanging in mid air 'sliding' away from the ice edge and entering a big unknown white world. My seat is still strangely tilted forward.
 
Not only can I see the white world in front of me, it also rolls away underneath my feet.
 
It feels like we are being sent out to space or to some strange unknown planet. In no time at all we are looking at the immense landscape of Petermann Glacier underneath us. Beautiful white shapes, nothing seems to be flat anymore, all is rounded by shape. The white is undulating, full of hills big and small, all round and softly 'streaming' from one into another. The sunlight strikes along the ice making shades and contours look even prettier. This view is something never to forget. I could never have imagined anything like this! This landscape is so unreal, so unexpected and so unimaginable that my brain goes in a total overload. Handling all of this instant input, understanding these views, grasping it all, it simply cannot be done by unprepared brains! They need to get this picture fed several times in order to settle a bit and to make a kind of blueprint of it. This is just too much!
 
And we are not there yet. Soon my eyes catch hold of an overly bright blue curly shape in the white landscape. Not only a curl, lots of small blue lagoons or ponds seem to be scattered all over this white world.
 
"What's this all about these blue lakes down there", I ask Martin through the headset.
 
He smiles a bit, noticing my astonishment.
 
"These are all freshwater melt lakes, or ponds", he replies in my headphones.
 
But how come they're so overly blue? Not the right time for this question now, we are on our way to one of the scientific measuring locations and the focus needs to be on more important matters now.
 
I don't know how they manage the team finds their way in this landscape, but I guess that seeing enough of it will make you feel at home; that doesn't happen to me yet. Martin earlier explained that his magnetic compass is completely off track here. I know, because onboard we face the same issue. The magnetic north now is now behind us in Northern Canada, while the Geographical North obviously can be found above us at the North Pole.
 
I look around, nothing I can do but to shake my head in disbelief.
 
How can it be, a completely white world covered in sparkly bright blue ponds and blue streams and rivers? These colors do not come naturally... or do they?
 
Clearly, in this world they do... But this blue is so blue, and doesn't look like anything from our 'normal' world!
 
And at the same time the white blanket doesn't look like anything from our world either. Nothing from here does!.
 
Martin carefully puts his 1000kg) Eurocopter on the ground. Jason and Richard jump out to get their tools from of the storage compartment in the back of the heli. I am still sitting kind of flabbergasted. Martin smiles and says something like, "I knew you would be liking this!"
 
Yet, part of my brain must have been alert. My camera was getting red hot this first ride through the air.
 
Carefully I test my grip on the white ground. How will my hiking boots like this white floor? It looks hard and rough. Yes, it is...
 
Carefully, I walk around the chopper while its rotors make their last turns. Rucksacks, steel poles, big battery drill, shiny one-metre-long ice augers, a very familiar looking bucket from the ship filled with loads of orange colored rope and the stainless steel cylinder – the CDT (conductivity, density, temperature) that we have been dropping off the ship's inflatables into the deep ocean so often in the past days. All that looks familiar. We carry the lot over the white world walking down one of the many rounded slopes.
 
Again I'm struck by astonishment. New views keep opening up step after step. And all of a sudden, a blue ink-filled stream pops into sight. Steep straight white icy walls contouring two of these overly blue rivers that seem to come together in a kind of whirlpool! Am I dreaming or is this real? These walls are so weirdly shaped, probably by the years of water running past them, this is unreal.
 
So even at ground level this water still looks blue. The bigger flow coming from the left seems to carry slightly darker blue ink than the smaller one from the right. Surely one can use this 'water' to write a letter home. My god, what a stunning sight!
 
Meanwhile the guys have made their way down to a plateau on the side of the big river. Richard is waiting for the gear I am carrying on my shoulders. They look at me with a bit of a laugh on their faces as if to say: yeah, we know, we have been there too in this state of disbelief. But mind you, you will get used to it.
 
The shiny drill sinks rapidly down into the ice. Over a metre deep. And another one. Steel poles slide into the holes. They'll work as ice anchors. Richard gears up the climbing rope, one end fixed to the poles, the other end goes through a karabiner on his climbing harness. He ties the orange rope to the cylinder, and then lowers himself to the water's with the CDT cylinder under his arm.
 
A bit more rope-knotting and off goes the cylinder into the deep blue icy melt waters right in the middle of this big white expanse. He tells me that this crack (river) goes all the way down through the ice tongue. Later onboard, when the data has been downloaded and processed, he'll be able to see when exactly the conductivity measurements go up in relation to the water depth. This exact point is where the seawater begins and where the ice ends. The measurements he's done up to now show a thickness of about 55 to 60 metres in this area.
 
And yet, the cylinder will make all its way down to the end of the rope at 180 metres or until it touches bottom - although the fjord is supposed to be over 500 metres deep here.
 
Lowering the cylinder takes time; I know that from dropping it from the inflatable out in the open fjord. That gives me the time to explore the world that we have dropped into. We are surrounded by soft rolling white hills with lots of very small and bigger blue lagoons on them. Amazing. The small pools are perfectly round, some shallow, and some more than half a metre deep. The crystal clear water in the pools acts as a lens and on the bottom of each and every pool, there is brownish gravel to be seen. No exception. Looking at the ground, it feels like load of blue eyes with wide, dark pupils are looking at us from the ice world beneath us. I realise that this small pebbly stuff on the pond bottoms must be the reason for the existence of the pools. Would it be so that the sun heats up the brown gravel more than the ice, so the gravel 'sinks' into the ice and ultimately forms a small round pool?
 
Later Jason confirms these thoughts. This brown 'stuff' (cryoconite) is simply dirt blown from the high rocky walls, mixed with cosmic dust from space, and carbon pollution created by burning fossil fuels, that drops down from the atmosphere, and it all collects on the ice.
 
Coming back to Richard, Jason and Martin, I see them standing below me besides the blue river. Martin smoking his pipe, Jason & Richard discussing their work. It is time to bring up the big heavy sensor. This time not by arm power, but by walking the rope over the ice. The sensor will follow. Clever.
 
Two of us walking off, one on middle height to communicate between the parties and the last one keeping an eye on where the line dips into the water.
 
Hoisting is so much easier so! It's a heavy thing, over 25kg.
 
When all is done, signals are exchanged over the 175 or so metres. On the waterfront, Richard pulls out an electrical device from the cylinder to inform the device that the end of its measuring session has come. We walk back and the orange rope goes back into the big bucket. The steel poles are pulled up from the ice, we get all the stuff and say goodbye to this magical place we have named Whirlpool One. If one was to design a swimming pool in one's imagination, this might be an idea.
The heli is packed again and the blue eyes in the white tablecloth quickly get smaller again. In the headset I hear the guys talking about their next stop. Martin pushes the handles and foot peddles to keep his green firefly 'afloat' and to move in the right direction.
 
We fly over even larger cracks, one so wide that it has turned into a wide dark river cutting the ice tongue in half, or so it seems.
 
"Isn't that incredible", I ask the guys through my headset.
 
Jason responds, "yeah, this is one of the cracks that is widening up and which will cause the glacier to break up. Similar thing happened last year when a part, the size of Manhattan got cut off and got separated of the main ice field. It left Hall Bay and a year later, one third of that particular ice field still moves along the South East coast of Canada".
 
We are witnessing unprecedented changes in the Arctic, Petermann is just one dramatic example. It certainly is something to worry about, that's why we are here.
 
Last stop we make is high on the edge of the cliffs. One would never guess that the cliffs are 1000 metres or more, I'm probably (mis)led by the enormity of the sizes here and lack of detail that causes me to make big mistakes in judging distances and heights.
 
Once the heli lands on the cliff, I make my way to the edge. It is high. Again I would never believe it's a thousand metres though.
 
Jason is busy on the cliff edge with the camera that he rigged up two weeks ago. The stills camera is taking minute-by-minute photo shots of the floating ice tongue below to bear witness any changes occurring. In combination with the GPS units on various places on the ice and cameras on the walls of the fjord, all movements of the larger parts of the glacier are monitored. Some of this data is actually instantly sent out and received by the scientists on board the ship Thus while here in the area, we can keep a close eye on the movement of the Petermann Glacier.
 
Again the views are stunning. Deep down below, we can see a tiny little green boat glued between the dark blue sea and the shiny white ice It is seven at night, sun high up in the sky sending heat rays down to us. It will not settle these summer days. We lie on the warm rock floor looking down into the fjord while Jason does his work to the camera.
 
We chat, we gaze, and we feel happy. Richard shows us plant-deriving fossils in the limestone rock we're sitting on. Once all this rock body was ocean bedding he explains. It has taken millions of ocean years to make this rock into such a thick limestoney crust. And again it has taken millions of years for it to lift itself up after the massive ice pack on its back had melted. Now it gives shape to the white frozen world far below us still carrying traces of sea bottom of millions of years ago.
 
Amazing afternoon this was. Mind lifting.
 
- Bob

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[Captain Pete looks back at last's exit from Petermann Glacier]
 
Wednesday, 15 July
The helicopter gets off the deck at 0800. The ship's main engine starts 20 minutes later. We are headed south at 0900, and the engine needs a while to warm up. The helicopter gets delayed, but at 0901, Eric has cast off our line, and we are underway.
 
The Arctic Ocean pack ice has invaded Nares Strait. It is old (called multi-year) sea ice, and averages six meters thick. This is way thicker than anything we can break with Arctic Sunrise. So before it can trap us in Hall Basin, we escape south. The crew all walks around telling each other that this is good, as we are all bored with Petermann.
 
This is, of course, a big joke. All of us feel incredibly fortunate to have spent the last two and a half weeks here. It has felt like being on a high mountaintop I imagine. You spend weeks climbing, and minutes on the top. We have been able to spend weeks here, and it's been a real treat.
 
The sea ice is chasing us into the bay of large icebergs. The east side of Kane Basin is the Humboldt Glacier. Being a grounded glacier, the pieces that break off are huge. As a result, Kane Basin is littered with icebergs. There are maybe 70 that we can see from here. It's a real contrast to Petermann, where the glacier is floating. From a distance the glacier ice breaking off from Petermann does not seem very different from the sea ice that forms over the winter. But these icebergs from Humboldt are ten to twenty meters high.
 
The helicopter gets delayed a couple times on its mission. We don't need to wait, as they are... quite a bit faster than we are. Ten times faster. When they land, Jason comes up to the bridge to show us pictures of the pod of narwhals they flew over on he way back. Narwhals are attributed to starting the unicorn legend. The males (mostly, not exclusively) have a long tusk coming out of their forehead. Nobody is sure why. Maybe it's just to look cool.
 
We are trying to get to the far northeast corner of Kane Basin. The further northeast we can go, the closer we will be to Petermann. Every five days or so for the next two to three weeks, we will have to service our cameras at Petermann. The closer we can get, the easier the flight.
 
On the way in we pass our first group of walrus. As I am looking up the ice for a lead, I notice a large brown mass. Too large and brown to be seals. When one lifts up his head, and I see to tusks sticking out the front of his face, I know it is walrus. Melanie says walrus have tusks to hold their heads off the ice so that they do not drown in their own shit, which they lay around in. I think she is being tough on walrus, but then she has seen about a thousand more than I have.
 
 
For the first time in this trip we do some real icebreaking. The ice is mostly first-year sea ice, sprinkled with pieces of glacier ice, which is much harder. It does not look very thick, and seem to be 50% melt pools, some of which go right through. At first, it is pretty easy going. With 90% power on, we are just able to break through the 50cm ice. Then we have to stop, back up one ship length, and charge at it again. And again. And again. As we cut alongside a large ‘berg, I understand Arne's explanation of ice under pressure. Here is ebb tide is pushing the floating sea ice against the grounded berg. The ice stops cracking ahead of us. We have to back up every boat length, and ram it again.
 
This explains Arne's first rule of icebreaking. Avoid it. Always look for a lead or a way to get around it. Icebreaking is time consuming and sucks down tons of fuel.
 
"Hey Arne, look out for the rock", I say. Normally this would not be necessary, and would refer to a rock on the chart below the water. In this case a pretty large boulder has rolled down the nearby cliff, and during the winter, rolled a quarter mile out onto the ice. And in this case, the warning is a joke, which we all laugh over. Our passage sends the rock down to the bottom.
 
After an hour we get through, and follow a lead up along the shore under the cliffs. A few minutes later we anchor in 75 meters of water. Our guys in Amsterdam added three more shots (one shot is 27.5m) to our starboard chain, giving us nine shots. Use the European formula for anchoring, the number of shots of chain needed is equal to the square root of the depth in meters, we put 8 shots on deck and call it a night.
 
Note to my friends from Castine. This anchoring formula is intelligent. I first learned it in Arne's (are you getting a picture yet?) bridge manual from 15 years ago on the MV Greenpeace. Notice that when you anchor in 64 meters of water, it gives you a scope of 3.4 to 1. When you anchor in 16 meters of water, it gives you 6.8 to 1. This is much smarter than just using a scope of 7 to 1 for all depths.
 
The other thing I did that you sailors might be interested in is use the Bowditch "Distance by Vertical Angle" tables to help figure out the height of the nearby cliff. I have very rarely used those tables, and never to determine elevation. But the surveys are so inaccurate up here that I think we got some useful data. According to Nobletec (our electronic chart), we anchored on top of the 500 metre hill top last night.
 
- Pete
 
Photo: The Arctic Sunrise working its way through sea ice. (c) Greenpeace/Nick Cobbing

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[Pete Willcox has sailing on Greenpeace ships for 28 years. He's currently our skipper on the Arctic Sunrise off the coast of Greenland. This is the first in a series of Captain's Blogs that we'll be publishing throughout our three-month expedition to bear witness to the Arctic Meltdown - Dave]
 
 
There is never a bad time to go out for a walk on the deck and enjoy the scenery. Because the sun is always up, there are some times that are better than others. And speaking of time, longitude up here in the Arctic, it ain't what it used to be. At the equator, where we were this winter sailing the Amazon, a degree of longitude was 60 nautical miles. Up here it is nine.
 
Around midnight, the sun is in line with Petermann's glacier wall, and behind us. This causes the sun to cast long shadows on the face of the canyon surrounding the glacier. The canyon walls are stratified limestone, with many colors and shades. They are connected by the undulating white glacier below them. The canyon walls are 1000 metres high, and the floor of Hall Basin (the sea bed) seems to be between 500 and 1000 meters, which means the whole canyon is... bloody big!
 
Looking at the glacier from our level on the bridge of the Sunrise, it does seem perfectly white. But even from the ship, when you look down at the near by melt pools, you can see black stuff on the bottom. In many places the back stuff heats up and melts further down into the glacier, sometimes in perfectly round circles. Most of the melt lakes that you see from the helicopter have black mud on a portion of them.
 
The black stuff is carbon from dust storms, wild fires, manmade pollution, and cosmic dust. I suspect that our scientists are having a bit of a laugh on us with the cosmic debris story, but at the moment they are sticking to it. Melanie, our fearless campaigner, went into one of the ponds the other day to collect some of the black mud. It will be sent to labs in Italy and the U.S. for analysis. I stuck my hand into one of the pools the other day. The stuff feels like sand, but is completely black.
 
The loss of "reflectivity" is one reason why the Arctic is changing so much faster than elsewhere. Obviously the sea ice reflects most of the warmth of the sun. The much dark ocean water does not. When the glaciers get turned to a color from cosmic dust or man made pollution, they melt much faster. Some of the black gunk is natural. Some is not. Our chemical testing of it will help us figure out how much is natural and how much is manmade.
 
The last week we have had a few days with temperatures up to 5C (40F). This has produced a number of waterfalls off the high cliffs along the glacier. I have been eyeing the clifftops for the last couple weeks. We have several cameras posted on them, and periodically they need servicing with the helicopter. My chance comes, and I jump at it. I like high places. Maybe it comes from working at a place – the ocean- where the biggest "mountain" is eight to ten meters. When I lived on Mallorca, one of my favorite things to do was to run up the hill behind the village. By the time I would get up to the ridgeline, I felt I was someplace special. I have the same feeling on the cliffs on the edge of the glacier, without the satisfaction of having gotten there on my own feet.
 
It's quiet. A gentle breeze is blowing. For the first time I realize that the part of the glacier where the ship is tied up to is sticking out much further than the parts touching the canyon walls. Jason named the open part on the southwest side Manhattan Bay. The piece we are tied to is of similar size: about the size of Manhattan. I imagine the lower tip of Manhattan with the old Twin Towers. They would stick roughly half way up the side of the canyon walls. Midtown Manhattan would stick up roughly a third. Manhattan is seven miles long. The floating part of Petermann Glacier is fifty miles long. If you laid down on the floating section of Petermann, Manhattan would represented by your head. Petermann Glacier is about to be decapitated.
 
Nineteen years ago I sat on the edge of the Grand Canyon, feet hanging into space, drinking a bottle of wine with some friends. The cliff was not as high as that above Petermann. Here you can look strait down 2600 feet or 760 meters. At the Grand Canyon we were looking down about a third of that. But if you fall, after the first 50 meters, what's the difference?
 
Here on Petermann, I do not walk up to the edge and sit down. I get on my belly and crawled until my nose was hanging in space. I grab a stone from near by and launch it. It goes down, and down, and down, and down, and down, and crashes and ricochets further. A second later I can hear the crack of the first bounce. I ease my way back from the edge, and realize I have had all the cheap thrills I will need for the rest of the week. Martin, our pilot, does not need any cheap trills of this nature, stands well back from the edge smoking his pipe and smiling away.
 
Being a helicopter pilot is not Martin's first career. Rumor has it on the ship that he was a welder. This sparked my interest, as I have not known many welders that went on to be helicopter pilots.
 
Turns out that while Martin knows how to weld, he was a tool and die maker with an invention to his credit. Calling a tool and die maker a welder is sort of like calling Formula One champion Michael Schumacher a taxi driver. Having come close to starting an apprenticeship in tool and die making, I have great respect for the trade. And it is no stretch of the imagination to imagine switching from one trade to the other.
 
We stop on the ice on the way back. If you are into contour lines, you could die happy here. In between the melt steams, lakes, ponds, and rivers, the glacier is constantly different. Though it looks like snow, it feels like a crust that you cannot break through. It would make a challenging golf course. Hard to hit the fairway, though.
 
Then I hear a noise. It's way too familiar. I look up and see the New York - Moscow express rumbling by on schedule (this is a joke, I really don't know where it going). But I am disappointed. This is the first of anybody other than my shipmates I have seen in over three weeks.
 
- Pete
 
Photo: Captain Pete Willcox looking at Petermann Glacier from the bridge of the Arctic Sunrise. (c) Greenpeace/Nick Cobbing

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We left Petermann Fjord on Wednesday morning at 9am. The Arctic Sunrise headed south from Petermann Fjord just in the nick of time. Satellite images of the area three hours before our departure showed the thick, multi-year sea ice that was formally part of the ice arch was a mere 20 nautical miles (23 miles/37km) from the ship.
 
It felt good to be underway, but odd to be leaving Petermann Fjord. I was downright melancholy about it the night before we left, thinking to myself, "I will never, ever be back here again in my life". I can imagine that sounds completely ridiculous, but I really did feel pretty down thinking about the fact that I'd never return. Maybe it's the remoteness of it, or the fact that we had such a slim chance of making it there in the first place, or the way Petermann felt so other-worldly, with polar bears meandering on the glacier and seals popping up out of cracks and whirlpools that cut through ice that took on the shape of huge sand dunes. Hey, what can I say, it feels weird and sad leaving it all behind, knowing that this less-than-once-in-a-lifetime experience is over and never to be had again.
 
The ship found shelter in the northwest side of Kane Basin, about 80nm (148km) as the crow flies from where the ship sat next to Petermann Glacier. We are now just a few miles from the front of the immense Humboldt Glacier, which, at 110km across, is the widest glacier in the northern hemisphere. Unlike Petermann, which floats on the sea, Humbolt is grounded, so it spits out icebergs which are scattered everywhere, some sharply angular and some sloping, and all incredibly beautiful. There's been no wind, so it feels like we are sitting in a giant pond, allowing for crisp, clear reflections in the water of the icebergs and the surrounding cliffs. I snap pictures with my little point and shoot but there are so many people on board with professional cameras and long lenses that after a few snaps I wind up putting it away and just gazing.
 
I like our new location in Kane Basin, but am still a bit sad that we had to hightail it out of our previous position where we were actually tied up to Petermann Glacier.
 
- Melanie
 
Photo: The Arctic Sunrise at Petermann Glacier. (c) Greenpeace/Nick Cobbing

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