The French research crew had endured a long, difficult winter at their station on a tiny cluster of islands just off the Antarctic coast, but relief was on the way. The French icebreaker L’Astrolabe was set to deliver supplies and a fresh batch of explorers to the Dumont d’Urville research station south of Australia, but on Nov. 15, France’s Polar Institute announced that the ship’s propeller had been damaged. “In the ice you have to take no risk with the security of the passengers and of the crew,” Capt. Last week, the Australian government pledged to dispatch an icebreaker to Dumont d’Urville and another French-Italian research base at Concordia. It wasn’t just people who wanted to get out of Antarctica that were held up; crew members eager to get to the remote research station celebrated Australia’s intervention as well.

Source: National Post November 27, 2019 15:09 UTC