An ice-cube with a mass of 18 giga tons left Petermann Gletscher in the summer of 2012 and thus became PII-2012 for Petermann Ice Island 2012. The CCGS Henry Larsen visited and surveyed the waters, bottom, and ice of the fjord that same year. Since then PII-2012 traveled 300 km southward, grounded in shallow water, but continued its voyage south a month or so again. Last thursday it was visited by a 47′ sail boat called “Vagabond.” I just discovered the report by its Master Eric Brossier, that is, “Thu, 29 Aug 2013, We walked on the ice island!”
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- Vagabond near Greenland [Copyright Eric Brossier]
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- Vagabond and her crew near Grise Fjord [Copyright Eric Brossier]
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- Vagabond and her crew in icy seas [Copyright Eric Brossier]
Eric Brossier overwintered with his young French family in Arctic waters nearby while conducting ice and ocean research near one of the northern-most communities in Canada: Grise Fjord. You can imagine that there are lots and lots of stories and pictures of “Vagabond’s” adventures in icy waters that far north, and there are, but I am still reading them myself and thus cannot yet report on it yet, but here are some teasers to go and check out what is happening with the “Vagabond” yourself here 😉
ADDENDUM: I just discovered that CNN ran a beautiful story of the people of this sailing ship in February 1nd, 2013.
Icy Seas 
Andreas
Thanks for the heads up re. Vagabond. I’d been following their adventures but they hadn’t posted their PII-2012 meetup last I’d checked.
Our island has become at least three today. I’m assuming that it snagged the bottom and at the speed it was going fractured. Haven’t checked bathymetry in the region yet but can’t think of any other force capable of splitting such a thick cube.
Terry
There is a thinner central melt-channel where this ice cube appears to have split, but the jolt of running into the bottom is the most likely way to split this large ice cube apart. I am downloading and processing MODIS imagery right now to place the island (islands now) onto a map with bathymetry.