Adrift in the Arctic ice

The former Seamaster, renamed Tara, on a preliminary visit to the Artic. The vessel is now trapping itself in the ice on a mission to research climate change. Picture / Don Robertson

It's summer and it's already -5C. The sky is grey and it's snowing. Already the Tara has had its first Arctic gale. It was only a small storm, says New Zealand expedition leader Grant Redvers, but the ice split in two and sent the crew scurrying. Vital research equipment was bobbing in the freezing cold sea between broken lumps of ice. They spent three days recovering it.

Redvers is a boy from Masterton and is on quite an adventure. In this era of dramatic climate change, the 33-year-old scientist is involved in a mission to help save the planet.

He is on board a familiar looking vessel. It is silver and made of aluminium and was built to chop through polar ice. It is the former Seamaster, Sir Peter Blake's old boat, the boat on which Blake was killed, while on the Amazon River in Brazil.

Redvers says although he had only spoken to Blake on the phone, sometimes in the lonely Arctic he feels the late seafarer's presence, watching over them.

There are dogs on board, too, huskies, Zagreb and Tiksi, a source of canine comfort to the crew of eight - French and Russians and Redvers - in the looming and dark winter ahead.

The dogs will also serve as an efficient early warning system against polar bears. On its hind legs, waving its front legs in the air, a polar bear is an intimidating sight. They can easily kill. There are flares to scare them off, and rifles, too, just in case.

Here in their Arctic habitat polar bears are under threat from global warming and may soon be extinct.

Redvers estimates it will take two years for the Tara to drift in the ice from their present position towards the North Pole and eventually reach open water in the Fram Strait between Greenland and Spitsbergen. It could take longer. No boat has succeeded this far before but given new research on the ice melt, who knows what they will find.

During this time they will be undertaking a number of experiments for project Damocles (Developing Arctic Modelling and Observing Capabilities for long-term Environmental Studies).

This European research programme is focused on investigating climate change in the Arctic. Experiments will include a CTD (Conductivity, Temperature Depth) test. Oceanographic soundings, which measure to a depth of 4000m, will be made. A meteorological station will be set up and sensors will measure radiation and ice mass. Surface ozone sampling and ice tiltmeter (which measures the slope of the Earth's surface) and atmospheric tests will also be undertaken.

Damocles is part of the International Polar Year next year - the fourth such year in 125 years and this one comes not a moment too soon.

Evidence shows ice is melting much faster than anticipated and scientists are calling for an urgent intensification in the international effort to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions.

If global sea levels rise as feared, low-lying chunks of the world will disappear under water - from the Pacific Islands to parts of Egypt to London. The Arctic ice cover has melted so much dramatic openings could allow a ship to sail through what is normally pack-ice to reach the North Pole.

Redvers and I tried talking via the satellite phone on Tara but it cut out. It was still pretty windy outside. However, modern technology did the trick and email from the Arctic made it to New Zealand.

He has worked at Scott Base and has a Bsc in Physical Geography and an MSc in Environmental Science. He joined Tara two years ago in Ushuaia, Argentina, and before this trip spent two summers on board in the south - Antarctica, South Georgia and Patagonia - for scientific research and natural history documentaries.

Yes, admits Redvers, there is something of the explorer in him.

"For me the duration and isolation is a big motivation. I have participated in a number of expeditions in the southern high latitudes that usually last for a maximum of a few months."

Redvers has always been fascinated by the expeditions of early polar explorers. They were often of no-fixed duration because they simply could not predict how long it would take, or even if they would return.

"Although we are a long way from the hardships and uncertainty of these expeditions of the heroic age of polar exploration, I am drawn to the parallels between our expedition and the adventures of a bygone era."

In particular, he is motivated by a link with the story of Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen who in the late 1800s set out to do what the Tara hopes to do, drift on the ice from one side of the Arctic Circle to the other, passing right by the North Pole.

In Nansen's day, explorers believed there was a lost continent in the northern regions. But there is no land at the North Pole.

What looks like land is floating ice, frozen ocean. Nansen had a hunch a current may exist which would transport his ship the Fram across the ice on a journey to the North Pole. He thought this because the remains of a wrecked ship had been found off the coast of Greenland although the ship had been destroyed thousands of kilometres away off the New Siberia Archipelago. Nansen wasn't successful, eventually abandoning the Fram and carrying on by foot. But he had proved the Arctic current was real.

The storm last week was a harsh reminder the Tara is still on an ocean, Redvers says: "I mean, we had a 2m swell coming through the ice pack."

The Arctic Drift, he says, is the movement of the icecap in a clockwise direction around the Pole, driven by the wind generated trans-Arctic current. As a drifting base the Tara will provide essential logistics support for scientists and others who will come and go during the two years.

The Tara is not completely iced in but as it gets colder it will become trapped, probably within the next few weeks.

Already it is surrounded by consolidated pack ice. In every direction, all the crew can see outside is snow and uneven, deformed pressure ridges of ice up to 3m high.

The sky is usually overcast, Redvers says, but with the changing light the landscape is surprisingly variable, from flat muted tones to vivid black and white contrast and endless shades of grey.

With his background in environmental science he knows the mission will help advance knowledge in the field of climate change. Equally important, he says, is communicating global environmental issues to the public.

And although the crew will have long, dull days their work should keep them busy. For now, they are recovering from the storm which raged for 36 hours. Luckily, they retrieved almost all their research tools and are preparing for the months of darkness. The only light will be from the moon and the stars, if the sky is clear.

The northern lights (Aurora Borealis) - a spectacular light show - is something they are looking forward to.

The crew are all too aware of the psychological and physical effects of the long polar nights - depression, lethargy - and to counter this they will keep a steady work routine.

In their downtime they all have their own interests, such as music, learning languages - Redvers could be trilingual before he gets home - carving, baking, reading, watching films and writing. And for the boy from Masterton, something unexpected. He is an avid knitter and "I hope to crank out a jumper or two."

Blakexpeditions lives on

"It's mind-boggling," says Don Robertson. An amazing adventure befitting a boat once synonymous with Sir Peter Blake. Robertson was on board when Blake was shot in the Amazon, and when Blakexpeditions could no longer survive, he had to sell the Seamaster.

In a way, the boat has gone home. It was built in France for a French doctor and explorer, Jean-Louis Etienne. Now, it again flies the French flag. Etienne Bourgois, a French fashion magnate, owns it and has named her Tara, a family name. Blakexpeditions has become Taraexpeditions.

Robertson travelled to the Arctic on board Tara 18 months ago. He took breath-taking photographs and got a sense of what the crew will experience, including isolation.

"That is the exciting part about it, you really are in a part of the world where nobody's going to come walking by and say hello to you, rescue you or anything else." says Robertson.