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   (L) KA-32 double-rotor helicopter with passenger capacity of 15. The Yamal carried two helicopters. (R)
   One of the ship's four zodiacs lashed next to spare propeller blades, each six feet high and weighing some
   seven tons. We were never able to use the zodiacs because there was too much ice around each of the
   islands we visited. (Below) One morning we awoke to an unaccustomed stillness and realized we were
   stopped. We peered excitedly out the window at our first sight of icy Franz Josef Land.
  It had taken us about 36 hours before the Yamal entered the pack. We were sitting in the lecture room down
  below the water line toward the front of the ship when we suddenly heard a loud and unfamiliar whooshing,
  unrecognizable at first. Then it dawned on us what it was, and as a group we all yelled "Ice!" From then on,
  through the Franz Josef archipelago, we were in a mixture of open water and broken pack ice of 3-5' thickness,
  virtually nothing to the 20-inch solid steel bow plates of our great 21,000-ton, 75,000-horsepower icebreaker.
  (Upper left) Nothing but sea ice around Cape Norway on Jackson
  Island. No zodiac landing. (Upper right) The edge of a glacier
  calving icebergs. (Lower left) Yamal from the helicopter en route
  to the island. (Lower right) Immediately after disembarking from
  the helicopter, we all had to kneel down in a tight huddle to avoid
  being blown away by the powerful downdraft from the helicopter's
  twin rotors. Second helicopter on landing approach.
  Over the next couple of days, we made helicopter landings on several different islands, including some sites of
  great historical significance, where Fridtjof Nansen wintered over in 1895-1896 after drifting across the Arctic
  Ocean in his wooden ship Fram and failing to reach the North Pole. We also visited two abandoned scientific
  research stations and a Russian radar and meteorological station, gaining an invaluable insight into what it must
  have been like to occupy such desolate places literally near the end of the earth.
   (Upper left) How comforting to see our great icebreaker Yamal sitting within sight and patiently waiting for us.
   (Upper right) These two pictures show the difference between a 28mm lens and a 300mm lens. (Below left)
   Helicopter returning from Cape Norway. (Below right) Gulls flock to a recent polar bear kill.
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