The Polar Ocean Challenge is taking a two month
journey that will see them go from Bristol, Alaska, to Norway, then to Russia through the North East passage, back to Alaska through the North West passage, to Greenland and then ultimately back to Bristol. Their
objective, as laid out by their website, was to demonstrate “that the Arctic sea ice coverage shrinks back so far now in the summer months that sea that was permanently locked up now can allow passage through.”
There has been one small hiccup thus-far though: they are currently stuck in
Murmansk, Russia because there is too much ice blocking the North East passage the team said didn’t exist in summer months, according to
Real Climate Science.