The Australasian Antarctic Expedition

"We've sung with the seals, danced with the birds, played around with the oceanographers. And now we wish you a happy New Year, BUT BLOODY GREAT SHAME WE ARE STILL STUCK HERE!"
"What do you expect us to do? It's cold out there: We're alone from everyone else -- we have to drink something."
New Year's ditty by passengers and crew of the MV Akademik Shokalskiy

What an adventure. What an expedition! What an opportunity to take part in an event of environmental concern and one that would, as it just happened, transfix the attention of the world at large on the perils of an Antarctic summer. Not just anyone gets to sing Auld Lang Syne at the South Pole. And do it in the presence of a veritable scientific community of researchers fixed on proving that Global Warming menaces the world's future as we know it.

Summer in Antarctica admittedly, is not like summer anywhere else on Earth. And the declining sea icepack makes the area navigable, because, of course, it's summer. Except for the fact that a most inconvenient blizzard entered the equation. And oh yes, thick sea ice trapping their vessel. And the Russian ship became trapped, stuck roughly 2,735 km south of Hobart Tasmania.

Their plight compelled three icebreaking vessels to set out to their rescue.

"We're stuck in our own experiment", stated the expedition team on FoxNews.com. "We came to Antarctica to study how one of the biggest icebergs in the world has altered the system by trapping ice. We ... are now ourselves trapped by ice surrounding our ship." The purpose: to revisit a century old expedition, to compare the ice-trend readings of one hundred years ago by Australian Antarctic geologist Douglas Mawson, to the present.

Who might imagine that a group of researchers intent on tracking global warming might end up getting stuck in sea ice they assumed was receding. The Australian Antarctic Division of the maritime safety authority dispatched its ship Aurora Australis to help the stranded revellers. Closer to the site was the Chinese icebreaker vessel Xue Long which had to abort several rescue attempts when it too got caught in the ice.

^{Passengers stamp out a helicopter landing site on the ice near the MV Akademik Shokalskiy (AFP/Getty Images)}
 
But which managed eventually to send out its helicopter to mount a rescue operation; a "complex operation involving a number of steps", dependent on weather. The scientists and volunteers (the latter helping to defray the costs of the venture by their $8,000 passage fee) 52 in number, were shuttled a dozen at a time for seven flights to the ship. Leaving the 22-person crew remaining on the stranded ship, while the rescued 52 were picked up by the Aurora Australis.

Rescue, what a sweet end to an exciting adventure in the vicissitudes of nature and the environment. The essence of exhilarating life; never a dull moment; expect the unexpected. And most certainly, Global Warming leads one to expect that the passage to Antarctica would be unopposed by Nature. And here she was, with her devilish sense of fun, planning to throw a spanner into the works by presenting the expedition with massive layers of sea ice.

^{Rescue workers make their way from a helicopter to the Russian ship Akademik Shokalskiy, which has been trapped in Antarctic ice since Christmas Eve (Andrew Peacock/AFP/Getty Images)}

But all is well that ends well. And now, unfortunately, the Chinese icebreaker Xue Long is itself well stuck, not too distant alongside the MV Akademik Shokalskiy in thick, unrelenting sea ice. Never mind, it's likely the more powerful American icebreaker still headed their way will solve that additional unanticipated trick of nature.