Ann Daniels was born in Bradford, but now lives near Exeter. In this video recorded at TEDxExeter 2014 she explains how her first visit to Dartmoor led her from being a mother of triplets to becoming a leader of Polar exploration expeditions as well:

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According to the Tara Expeditions web site:

Tara is a legendary boat built for extreme conditions.

We last heard of her from Vincent Berthet, who along with Sébastian Roubinet unexpectedly boarded Tara in Pevek, Russia before sailing in her across the Chukchi Sea and then disembarking in Tuktoyaktuk, Canada. Tara then continued from Tuk, sailing along the southern route of the Northwest Passage. In the latest news from Tara this morning, the expedition web site announced:

More on Tara Reaches the Open Waters of Lancaster Sound

The two Arctic voyages we've been following closely this summer have both come to a premature conclusion. Discussions about that have spawned a debate about how much ice there actually is in the Northwest Passage through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago this year, and whether the passage is or will be navigable this year without the assistance of an icebreaker. The main route through the Parry Channel and McClure Strait certainly looks as though it will remain impassable, but what of the southern route? A few days ago I found myself engaged in a heated discussion on Facebook (now sadly consigned to the great memory hole in the sky) with someone who insisted there was lots of ice in Dease Strait because RadarSat showed it to be there! To start with today, here's how the AMSR2 sensor sees things from space at the moment, courtesy of the University of Hamburg:

More on The Northwest Passage in 2013

As we reported two days ago, the Russian diesel-electric icebreaker Admiral Makarov was heading north across the Central Arctic Basin to rescue Sébastian Roubinet and Vincent Berthet, the crew of the catamaran Babouchka, who said that they had been surprised by "a sudden change in conditions". That sudden change was captured from space by the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2 for short) aboard the Japanese SHIZUKU satellite. Here's an animation built from high resolution images derived from AMSR2 data, and provided by the University of Hamburg. It covers the period from August 21st to August 31st:

More on Admiral Makarov Meets Babouchka in the Central Arctic

Over the last few days both the Arctic expeditions we've been following since the beginning of July announced that they were abandoning their voyages before reaching their planned destinations. Although it doesn't seem to have been published on their web site yet,  Séb Roubinet and Vincent Berthet on Babouchka have just abandoned their "Quest Through The Pole". According to their "La voie du pôle" Facebook page (and translated from the original French):

More on Arctic Voyages 2013 – Update 2

If you recall, the Arctic Joule is a boat that is currently being rowed from Inuvik in northern Canada through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago to Pond Inlet on the north of Baffin Island by a team of four intrepid adventurers, including Kevin Vallely. Earlier this evening I had a long conversation with Kevin, courtesy of the wonders of a satellite telephone. Kevin was in the Arctic Joule's cabin with Frank Wolf, whilst Paul Gleeson and Denis Barnett were rowing. I was sat in an armchair in England!

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