Ice, Ice Baby!

We've been prepping for the trip, looking at charts, getting the boat ready, trying to finish up some niggling work projects and entertaining ourselves by looking at the ice conditions around Newfoundland & Labrador. Some years there's a lot of ice, some not so much. Some years a lot of ice comes down the Straits of Belle Isle which separates Newfoundland & Labrador. Some years not much.   We're aiming to head up through the Straits first and go around Newfoundland clockwise so it's important how the ice is doing.

The Canadian Weather Service has done a terrific job with the ice reporting. I'd like to think they're doing it for us but mostly it's for the off shore oil rigs that dot the area.

Visit the website at Environment Canada and you can see 5 day animations of ice movement (click up near the top where it says view); satellite photos of different areas and you can learn about the Petermann Ice Island.  It broke off from the Arctic shelf last summer and is making its way south.  Currently moving at 9 nautical miles a day, it's at the end of Baffin Island.  The size of Greater Toronto, it'd be pretty stunning, and more than a little scary, to see.  Something that large would make its own weather system.  Also check out the Ice Tongue Development.  Evidently the ice has extended out further than is normal and gotten pretty close to some off-shore rigs.  

We've also been learning how to read "ice eggs".  It's a way of reporting ice conditions & types that's displayed in an oval.  If interested in the details this site is helpful:  Ice Chart Symbology

That's all for now . . . back to sorting, packing, and making lists!