September 10 The magic of the Arctic

Defining the horizon is a challenge

It is -4.5C and we will pass 84 degrees north soon. Outside the ship the ice is a blinding white expanse broken here and there by polynyas or cracks and it is these that the captain is following where he can. It is an exciting untainted world - except for a rare bear scat, a smudge of diatoms, a wee string of seaweed looking quite out of place. From where I stand on the observation deck, the Arctic Ocean is a vast ocean but in fact it is the world's smallest ocean - about 14 million sq km (about 1.5 times as big as the USA). It is very deep - up to 4km, except where we passed over what was once the land bridge between Europe and America and also near the northern extents of the land masses of the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates.  Horizons are often blurred but where the 'sky' shows a white gleam you know the sea has a covering of ice. Sailors learned to read the clouds around the horizon - white meant ice and blue grey open water. It is a fascinating world we venture into to explore. But ice is an enigma to me. Obviously it obeys our defined rules of physics but the variations in the newly forming ice that we have passed, are a puzzle to me – circular, geometric, cracks that seem random but obviously are not. I look out over an almost indistinguishable horizon and wonder.

Tiny pancakes of ice between larger chunks

Tiny fragments of older ice frozen into new ice

Shards of new ice sliding under other ice dotted with 'nonpareils'

The surface is not flat! The contours are formed by colliding ice floes, wind and ocean currents.

This is our 6th expedition to the Arctic regions and I know that some people wonder why the polar regions continue to attract us. This quote from Jean Batiste Charcot sums it up for me.

"Why do we feel this strange attraction for these polar regions, a feeling so powerful and lasting. That when we return home we forget the mental and physical hardships, and want nothing more than to return to them?

“Why are we so susceptible to the charm of these landscapes when they are so empty and terrifying?

“It is the pleasure of the unknown, the exhilaration of the struggle and the effort to achieve it and live there, the pride of trying and doing what others don't. The beauty of being far away from pettiness.

“A bit of all that, but something else too.

The man who has been able to enter this place feels his soul rising"

Jean Baptiste Charcot

Jean Baptiste Charcot

Put in very simple terms by Fritdjof Nansen "It is better to go skiing and think of God than to sit in church and think of skiing"

Fritdjof Nansen