Save the whales for later
Today's report: Crew member airlift | High speed whale search
Crew member airlift
Producer Daniel Barry picks up the story as a Lance crewman is flown off by helicopter for health checks just when the ice whales are spotted. Once medical needs are no longer dominating the expedition's schedule, Lucy and Philippe are quickly back on the trail of elusive white belugas.
In order to see this content you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash installed. Visit BBC Webwise for full instructions
High speed whale search
Paul Rose describes a dramatic day
Today has been overcast, but thankfully the cloud is like a warm blanket. We're 79°9' north, 11°44' east and it's been an eventful day here on the boat.
We've had our crew out on beluga whale watch. These ice whales are not easy to find and we don't have the luxury of time here, we're on a tight schedule.
So when one of our crew spotted them from his small patrol boat, well, we thought, "This is it!". However at the same time we had a worrying development going on at the other end of the boat. A member of the boat crew was experiencing health problems.
You don't mess about with something like that. We immediately alerted the emergency medical service, the expedition went on hold, belugas had to wait and we all stood by and watched as the helicopter landed on the boat's helipad and whisked the crewman away.
As soon as the helicopter had left the boat, it was back to the whales. All the small boats got in the water and they were off. We had trouble keeping up with them in the main boat, but we made up the ground and the news was good. Our dive with belugas was going to be possible. An amazing and rare chance to study and film one of the Arctic's most beautiful species.
Delicious
Digg
reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon
