It just doesn’t get any better than this.
(CNN) — Seventy-four passengers trapped aboard an expedition vessel in the Antarctic for nearly a week will have to wait even longer as a rescue ship slowly makes its way through thick ice and snow.
The Australian icebreaker ship Aurora Australis was 11 nautical miles away from the Russian-flagged Akademik Shokalskiy early Monday, according to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority.
“It’s hard to tell if it makes it through,” said Lisa Martin, a spokeswoman for AMSA. “There are snow showers in the area that are causing bad visibility; conditions are deteriorating.”
Visibility was only about 200 meters (656 feet), not enough to assess whether the ice breaker can cut through.
“It’s a wait-and-see operation. It’s a very complex situation,” Martin said.
Keep in mind that it is summer in the Southern Hemisphere.
This attempt by the Aurora Australis follows one by the Chinese icebreaker Xue Long, or Snow Dragon, which was just six nautical miles away from the trapped vessel when it couldn’t get any closer due to unusually thick ice.
The Snow Dragon went back to open water but remains in the area to provide support, said Andrea Hayward-Maher, another spokeswoman for the AMSA. The Chinese ship has a helicopter on board that could assist in evacuation.
So what they are saying is that icebreakers can’t get through the ice, in the summer, to rescue this ship stuck in the ice.
What this story doesn’t say is that this was a global warming expedition. Dontcha just love it?
Its Bush’s fault!
Decicated to the bearded aged hippie strandees:
O Schaudenfreude, O Schaudenfreude
Your Liberal eco-nut distress has
taught me something:
Your idiotic hopelessness and despair
Provide a good laugh and warm glow
all the time.
O Schaudenfreude, O Schaudenfreude,
That’s what your moronic Antarctic antics bring to
me.
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL HERE FROM TOEJAM!!!!
It is too bad the Gorecal is not on the cruise …..maybe he would be able to tell the differance between real icebergs & the styrofoam ones in his movie.
He tried to go but was deemed to feckin fat for the boat to float.
I almost forgot ….just got done running my snow blower “gotta keep on top of the white variety global warming”. We had a global warming reminder here in Erie by some of our local activists….really!
As some of you know , I recently posted here in Erie our snowfall total was approaching 50″ for the winter & we were the current snowfall leader in the entire country. Well we are now approaching 70″ with Snow forecast for the next 4 to 5 days.
Our official all time record is 149. 6 “…..maybe we will break the record this winter.
The expedition seems to be the brain-child (!) of an Aust. academic (Prof Chris Turley) who decided it was one way to promote the fight against global-warming.
Now it seems that the people on the stranded ship will be evacuated by helicopter to another ship. Think of the time, resources and fuel being used by that mob!
An interesting aspect is the reaction from greeny types to anyone who takes any glee from this predicament – do a web search for Andrew Bolt’s blog for some of the comments.
Hope the ice gets thicker and the visibility stays minimal.
There is a film strip showing the Bay was ice free in about 100 yrs ago!
If only Al. Was on this ship!
Lucky for them that fossil fuels are on the way to rescue their sorry asses.