(Jan 7-8, 2026)
Once the sea ice began to thin, our progress improved dramatically. The ice breaks into pancake-like floes with open water between them, making a deeply satisfying thud as the ship nudges them aside. We’re entering the polynya—an area of relatively open water surrounded by sea ice—near Pine Island and Thwaites Glaciers.
These features are often biologically productive, and many of us pass the time on deck watching for seals and whales. A WhatsApp group has emerged to share photos among the scientists. So far, the helicopter pilots seem to be producing the best shots—either a testament to their photographic enthusiasm or structural boredom. I’ve managed to spot a few minke whales surfacing and plenty of seals lounging on the ice. Surprisingly few penguins so far, despite their status as universal crowd favorites. Odds are we’ll see plenty of them soon enough.
We made our final push toward the ice tongue of Thwaites Glacier—a place few, if any, vessels have ever reached. So imagine our surprise when a fishing vessel appeared off the port side. At first, I was oddly excited by the first sign of human activity beyond our floating bubble. A few minutes later, that excitement curdled into confusion. How the hell did they get here? The boat was clearly not built for icebreaking, yet there it was, fishing off the Antarctic coast. A small aside: Fishing in these waters, while often legal, can be ethically contentious. The fisheries near Antarctica are ecologically sensitive and governed by treaties with uneven enforcement. If you choose to buy “Chilean sea bass”, ensure it is responsibly sourced. Anyway, it appears we chose the hard route in. I should probably mention that to the captain—I’m sure he’d appreciate the feedback.
The Araon soon entered the channel that has formed down the middle of the Thwaites ice tongue, and light icebreaking resumed. Thwaites is one of the largest glaciers on Earth, covering an area roughly the size of Florida and containing ice more than a mile thick. On most maps, our position doesn’t even appear as ocean—it’s shown as a continuous ice shelf, massive floating extensions of marine-terminating glaciers. We are, quite literally, in uncharted waters. I can say with near certainty that no vessel has been here before, and we’ll be the first to collect data on the local seafloor. It’s visually impressive and scientifically unsettling—a place navigable only because the climate is changing rapidly.
The KOPRI and British Antarctic Survey teams are gearing up for one of the most ambitious projects of the expedition: drilling through the ice near the Thwaites grounding line, where the glacier transitions from resting on bedrock to floating in the sea. The Araon’s captain and crew have skillfully maneuvered this ship to a position about 26 km (16 miles, in freedom units) from the primary target. There’s a palpable—and justified—sense of excitement. This team has been trying to reach this location for at least six years, and now they’re finally knocking on the door.
That said, I remain a seasoned realist. Years of fieldwork and time in the outdoors have tempered my expectations, as they have for many others. This project is complicated. The plan is to establish a temporary camp on the ice, where ten scientists and engineers will live for several weeks while drilling. Step one is finding a safe site—no small task in terrain riddled with crevasses large enough to swallow a commercial jet.
Step two, a few things need to get onto the ice. By “a few things,” I mean roughly 15–20 tons of equipment, food, fuel, and people that must be sling-loaded onto the ice by helicopter. They’ve brought everything except tea and the kitchen sink (yes, the British team forgot tea). This has not gone unnoticed. There’s been a fair amount of schadenfreude watching them carefully ration and/or reuse their limited supply of tea bags. Occasionally I get cheeky and remind them about that incident in Boston Harbor.
All told, sling-loading the camp will require 45-ish helicopter round trips. We have two A-stars and two pilots onboard, and under ideal conditions the operation should take about two full days. Unfortunately, Thwaites is notorious for having some of the most fickle weather on the continent. This region is relatively warm and wet by Antarctic standards, and helicopters are intolerant of clouds and precipitation. Once airborne over the ice, everything looks uniformly white and flat, making visual navigation especially difficult. Even a thin veil of high clouds or surface fog can erase a pilot’s visual cues entirely.
The weather was fair upon arrival, but those high, thin clouds have the pilots uneasy. The forecast suggested a promising window over the next few days, so the decision was made to wait to retract the helicopter hangar and prepare for launch. Much of our work depends on helicopter operations as well, so for now I’m keeping my fingers crossed and my eyes on the sky.
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