I’ll be adding details below overnight, in part thanks to e-mails from Jon Bowermaster, a writer and filmmaker who can often be found kayaking in Antarctic waters but who this time was on the National Geographic Explorer, another ship, about 40 miles from the scene of the grounding. (he was an eyewitness to last year’s rescue.)
To get some impressions of the benefits and risks of polar travel, I called Geoff Green, the founder and executive director of an amazing program called Students on Ice, which has used a variety of ships — including the Ushuaia once — to take more than 1,000 students from three dozen countries to the Arctic and Antarctic. (Their next trip, celebrating the International Polar Year, was scheduled to be aboard the Ushuaia. Mr. Green said he was closely tracking the situation Thursday night.)
“I’m definitely a big believer that the polar regions are incredible platforms for education,” he said. “It makes issues like climate change real and personal and these kids have dome back and made a difference. But I also believe we have to do it in an way where we’re obviously not having any impact on the places we’re going. But there do need to be limits and more rules.”