The Swedish icebreaker Oden made it into McMurdo yesterday after almost a week of breaking ice. After the broken ice blows out to sea, the penguins and the rest of the food chain should follow as well as the cargo ship that carries all the supplies in for the next year and removes the waste from the previous year.
You could hear the ice at the coast groan when the icebreaker would break the ice even that far out. You could also hear the echo of the breaking ice off of a nearby hill, and sounds much like you would expect 5 foot thick ice to sound when it gets broken.
The icebreaker makes use of ballast tanks to ride the bow up onto the ice and then use the weight of the ship to break through it. It must make for an unpleasant ride on the ship. The going is pretty slow as it frequently has to back up to pick up speed and pump ballast water to various tanks.
I couldn't figure out why it was flying both the American and Swedish flags.
You can see the channel of broken ice in this shot.
You could hear the ice at the coast groan when the icebreaker would break the ice even that far out. You could also hear the echo of the breaking ice off of a nearby hill, and sounds much like you would expect 5 foot thick ice to sound when it gets broken.
The icebreaker makes use of ballast tanks to ride the bow up onto the ice and then use the weight of the ship to break through it. It must make for an unpleasant ride on the ship. The going is pretty slow as it frequently has to back up to pick up speed and pump ballast water to various tanks.
I couldn't figure out why it was flying both the American and Swedish flags.
You can see the channel of broken ice in this shot.
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