ARKHANGLELSK, November 28. /TASS/. The Mikhail Somov icebreaker returned to Arkhangelsk from an expedition to Chukotka. The research vessel delivered cargoes to the polar stations, located from the Barents to the East Siberian Seas, Deputy Head of the hydro-meteorology service’s Northern Division Alexei Barakov told TASS.
"The Mikhail Somov went to stations of the Northern, Chukotka and Yakutia Branches, and the easternmost destination was the Wrangel Island," he said. "The voyage continued for 80 days. The crew and helicopter pilots worked very professionally, the icebreaker moved as scheduled."
The icebreaker stopped at 43 destinations in five seas: the White, Barents, Kara, East Siberian and Laptev, where 32 stops were at polar stations. The vessel delivered almost 500 tonnes of cargoes: fuel, food, equipment for aerology studies, and construction materials. Specialists made necessary upgrade of the meteorology equipment, as well as equipment for communication and energy supplies, work of automatic meteorology stations was resumed on the Russkiy Island and on the Zhelaniye Cape on the Novaya Zemlya’s Severny Island. During the voyage, the Mikhail Somov delivered new shifts to the stations and took onboard technicians and the staff, going to the mainland for holidays.
Bears, owls and people
From the Fyodorov meteorology station on the Vaygach Island, the icebreaker took a group of volunteers, who installed special fencing from polar bears. They worked there since July. It was a joint project by the hydro-meteorology service and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
"Earlier, a video system was installed at the station, and windows were protected with bars, and now we have finalized the entire protection system," he continued. "The Vaygach is a place to where polar bears come often, and this protection system will secure the meteorology station’s staff."
The expedition’s photographer Andrey Parshin told TASS the voyage participants had seen polar bears mostly on the Wrangel Island. "The Wrangel Island is polar bears’ ‘maternity house’," he said. "Once, we saw on the Wrangel six bears at a time."
Off that island, six polar owls flew to the Mikhail Somov and stayed onboard as regular passengers. "We come out to the stern and see two owls sitting on a helicopter and another four were on the heli pad," the photographer said. "Later on, four of them flew away to the bow. They had joined us in the evening and stayed with us till next morning."
However, he continued, the most breathtaking pictures were of the crew and pilots. "The work conditions were very harsh, it was cold, the helicopter continues flying as it unloads bars to the shore, and in strong ice storms. They had to land onboard the ship in storms, I have a few pictures of that. The work of pilots and the crew was always very smooth."
The expedition on that late Arctic voyage was lucky to have mostly favorable weather and ice conditions, the Northern Branch’s deputy director said. "We permanently controlled the situation; the vessel has special ice enforcement and it is designed for independent sailing in the Arctic seas in such a season," he said. "But in complicated ice conditions it needed power, weight and speed. Since on the return route it sailed "empty," it was more complicated to make way through the ice."
Scientific research
During the voyage, the Mikhail Somov took onboard members of expeditions from the Karpinsky Geology Studies Institute near the Mikhailov Peninsula, and from the ocean studies institute [S. Gramberg All-Russia Scientific Research Institute for Geology and Mineral Resources of the Ocean], who had conducted research on the Severnaya Zemlya and the New Siberian Islands.
For the Mikhail Somov icebreaker it was a final expedition in 2019, and next voyages are due in the spring-summer navigation in 2020.