An update on a previous post — in August, we posted about Pen Hadow’s latest expedition to the Arctic. Hadow is best known for being the only person to walk solo to the North Pole and back without being resupplied. With the ever decreasing Arctic ice pack, walking to the pole is no longer an option.  Instead, Hadow set out in one of two steel ice-strengthened sailboats to sail to the pole. They didn’t get too close. The two sailboats were stopped by ice north of 8o degrees north latitude. The two steel yachts then turned around and returned safely to Nome, Alaska in September. Nevertheless, the two yachts are the first vessels in history to sail into the Central Arctic Ocean without icebreaker assistance. 

Speaking from his yacht, the Bagheera, Pen Hadow told The Independent: “I believe sooner rather than later a yacht will sail to 90 degrees north. We’ve hit the buffers now, we’ve hit the main body of the sea ice, but we have been sailing in open waters quite happily. The Central Arctic Ocean … is officially an unexplored ocean because it’s been inaccessible to vessels until very recently.” 

Hadow went on to say, “I hope this project helps to make people realize that there’s a whole resource up here which is about to be plundered by the few, very much to the detriment of the global community, unless we do something about it. Every nation owns it, we all own it, everybody.”