"Shayne" wrote in message
...
well what did they expect to encounter ?!

Solid ice with flat areas and pressure ridges. The ice had melted even more
than they expected, and they ended up trying to swim to the pole!

They are not the only ones caught out by melting ice this year. Ann Daniels
had similar problems and she was lifted off, but she blamed the Russian
bureaucracy. The same thing happened to the "Last Degree Expedition" See;
http://www.members.shaw.ca/polarchallenge/
They say "As for other Arctic travellers this year, as I write, no other teams
have completed an entire last degree to the Pole on foot or ski." That seems
to have been prophetic.

In August (much later in the melt season) 1958 the American submarine USS
Nautilus was the first to cross the Arctic. They could find nowhere to
surface at the pole because the ice was so thick, much to their
disappointment.
August five years ago it was reported that the pole was ice free.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/888235.stm
The Arctic ice is melting rapidly, and no amount of sneering at the reports
will
prevent it getting very much worse.

Cheers, Alastair.