Lonnie and Eric are traveling today from Moscow to New York, and were unable to post a message. Check back tomorrow for the latest news.
June 5, Moscow
"Dear friends," Alex VICAAR Agency's second in command begins. It is how he begins nearly every big announcement for us. "We leave in 20 minutes for Moscow."
After our long ordeal with sea ice and drift it was comforting to have Alex coordinating our movements and logistics through Russia again. We wondered if it was even remotely possible to do any of this on our own. On a positive note, we were able to get our old room at the one star hotel in Norilsk.
Today was spent mostly in transit. Leaving Norilsk early in the morning was hard to do. Two and a half years of our lives have been focused on the Arctic Ocean and saying goodbye to the last bit of Arctic tundra wasn't easy.
Of course, there is lots more adventuring to do for us. Just getting off the plane in Moscow was crazy. Everyone from our crowded flight shoved into two small buses for the short ride to the terminal. Then, off to exchange some money and schedule our return tickets.
Our schedule for tonight: hot showers and a nice meal sitting in a chair and eating at a table.
Please check the web site as we will be adding daily postings about our travels, upcoming press events and our future plans.
June 4
We stayed the night at Golomiannyi weather station near Sredniy airstrip, and not long after arriving, one of the local furry residents, (not one of the two station huskies) came to greet us. Oh my God! Not another polar bear...yes, so we had to scare that one away. We are really wondering if they are attracted to us, but no doubt we need a shower.
Polar bears have very a sensitive sense of smell which helps them find seal pups even in small caverns under the snow on the ice, so I'm sure we smell like a sausage factory to the bears.
As we were traveling from Sredny to Norilsk, out of the right side of the Mi-8MTV helicopter was a wide open sea and on the left side were vast flat areas of tundra and taiga "evergreen forest" which was about half snow and half exposed land. The tundra is starting to melt, a lot of rivers are starting to run. All the Arctic rivers are breaking up now--flew over 3 or 4 rivers, breaking up. Summer is coming on to the tundra fast and furious.
We were flying back inside the chopper completely loaded with fuel drums and boats and one of those balloons from the ballooning expedition. We spent 6 1/2 hours flying in the heli. We couldn't figure out if we felt sick from smelling diesel fumes or recovering from a hangover. Now we're waiting for the plane to Moscow at 9:30 am tomorrow.
The One World Expedition would like to thank the VICAAR Agency, Victor Boyarsky, director, for its outstanding work in providing Russian logistics and transport services to the expedition team. Victor and assistant director Alexander Sheremetyev carried out all the detailed planning necessary to get us to the edge of the Arctic Ocean without a hitch. And they came through again when we required an airlift from the ice on June 3. We are very fortunate to be working with this group of experienced professionals.
June 3, 81 53.76'N:94 12.54E
Eric and I were airlifted off the ice today, June 3. I want to share my reasoning for making the decision to end the expedition. There are vast areas of thin ice and slushy leads too thick to canoe across and too thin to cross by skis. This combined with the unusually deep snow has thwarted our efforts to go forward. In addition, the month-early breakup of the ocean sea ice caused multiple breaks in the ice and our backward drift early on in the expedition. I have concluded that summer has hit this region early, making travel extremely dangerous at best. There is also a fuel shortage for Russian helicopters to provide adequate search and rescue, as well as their inability to fly in fog.
Due to all these factors, I've decided that we need to be evacuated as soon as possible. I also believe the extreme weather changes happening here and in other parts of the Arctic are directly related to global warming. We hope that sharing our experiences through our Web site will spur people on to take action against global warming.
Information that I'd gotten for the area showed there should be a northwest drift from the Cape, and also fairly low precipitation. Since no one had ever attempted, of course, an expedition like this before, in May, there was very little information to go off of. Of course there is now that Eric and I have been out here. It probably snowed on 10 to 12 of the first 16 days we were out here. I believe even winter attempts to the North Pole from here will not be possible in the very near future because of the vast amounts of water off the coastline.
We first need to take time to assess what has happened out here and what we've seen, and see if global warming is affecting or altering the conditions elsewhere on the ocean's rim before we can really focus on another project. However, the information that Eric and I have learned out here will definitely spawn some thoughts of another ocean project.
I think we continue to voice our concerns about global warming and its effects on the Arctic, both through our Web site and through personal presentations at schools, corporations and nonprofits, so that's where were going from here. You know, we can try to bend Mother Nature into our own schedule and force our way forward, but I think to do so would end in disaster, and I think we need to respect that and just go back to the drawing board and see what we can do.
June 2
Eric followed the tracks of the polar bear that visited us yesterday. They led to one of those leads that have been so tough for us--ice too thick to swim through, too thin to walk on. It appeared that the bear just dove through the ice and swam under it to get to the other side. What incredible animals to be so adapted to this brutal environment.
Eric also found that the bear had followed our ski tracks to get to our tent yesterday. I guess we're both keeping an eye on each other out here.
June 1, no location sent
No written journal entry today, but listen to Eric's audio report on the electronic gadgetry that makes it possible to do these updates.
May 31
We had another furry visitor today--a curious polar bear approached our tent. It was about 30 feet from us when we scared it away by shooting off five flares. I'm sure our yelling didn't hurt, either. Photo courtesy Rolex Awards/Marc Latzel.
