Abel
Tasman
Logbook

The crew of the Northwest Passage Ocean Science Expedition are flying the Climate Stripes to share a powerful message - our planet is rapidly warming. The Climate Stripes represent increasing global temperatures from 1850-2023. Each red stripe warns of our warming world. The Arctic helps regulate global climate - but it is warming 3-4x faster than the rest of the world. We need to rapidly ACCELERATE ACTION ON CLIMATE to preserve the the world’s refrigerator.

With a strong gale approaching, the crew sought shelter in Lady Richardson Bay - a very remote but beautiful place on Victoria Island, and well protected from the incoming winds. They stayed anchored there for several days, with most of the crew exploring by foot and Kester and Sylvestre exploring from above.

'In the midnight sun, slaloming through icebergs' - brothers on perilous Arctic voyage. Read the article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1m0pxp13mpo

The crew spent several days moored in Cambridge Bay to get some respite from the challenging navigation through sea ice (see their second zigzag route near Victoria Island on the interactive map). They will need to be fully rejuvenated before the next long leg of the expedition, around Alaska. Whilst in Cambridge Bay, they met some of the wonderful local community, including a very generous couple - Jim and Rosalyn - who invited the whole crew to their cabin outside of town. The journey (via quad bike) gave the team a chance to take in some of the rugged beauty of the tundra landscape on the island.

The crew set sail for Cambridge Bay through Queen Maud Gulf. Just south of the Abel Tasman’s route was the Queen Maud Gulf Bird Sanctuary - home to the largest variety of geese in North America, and the second largest Ramsar Wetland in the world. As they sailed, the crew saw many geese flying over them in v-formation.

After heading East, they found a 200m patch of thick sea ice to anchor to, close to Erebus Bay. The crew spent the rest of the day exploring in the air, on the ice, and in the water. It was a very special experience for all of the crew, anchored on a small piece of sea ice in the middle of the open strait. Kester went flying with his paramotor. Cleo, Sebastian, and Sylvestre went diving in the cold waters (0.9C) and recorded the sounds of the ice with highly sensitive sound equipment. Others explored the ice, keeping their eyes open for any polar bears, and taking out their cameras to capture the beautiful scene of eerie low lying fog and the ever changing colours of a stunning Arctic sunset.

The Abel Tasman is following the route that the Erebus and Terror made on the infamous Franklin expedition in 1845-48. However with one stark difference - whilst Franklin’s crew was trying to avoid sea ice (and ultimately became stuck in it), the Abel Tasman’s crew are navigating through mostly open waters, and are actively searching for summer sea ice to document. They passed the location where the ships became stuck in ice, and where they later were abandoned 20 months later and eventually sank. The wrecks were only discovered recently, and there is ongoing exploration of them. The crew use the daily Canadian ice charts, which have colour codes indicating areas with certain thicknesses of sea ice. Although mostly open waters through their route, at times the crew had to play ‘ice-slalom’ and manoeuvre through dense ice (check out their zig-zag route on the live map) - with members of the crew ready to push pieces away from the boat with long poles.