Forty people remain trapped after more than two full days on board a Canadian ferry locked in massive, pressurized ice floes in the ocean between Nova Scotia and the mainland. The coastguard has so far failed to break through to the vessel.



The Canadian coastguard has been working for the past 48 hours to free the MV Blue Puttees, said Darrell Mercer, a spokesman for Marine Atlantic, the company that runs ferries to the peninsula. But the fleet’s largest icebreaker, the Louis S St Laurent, has so far failed to free the Puttees from the dense ice.

“The ice conditions that we’re facing this year are among the worst that we’ve seen in 30 years,” Mercer told the Guardian on Friday, adding that in bad years “the thickness of the ice is up to 25 feet”.

But Mercer said the coastguard has hopes that the wind will shift on Friday evening and loosen the ice’s frigid grip. “When the winds shift we start to get what they call a raft rink, and it layers the ice and gets thicker and thicker. We’re hoping we’ll get some better winds today,” he said.

“The positive news is they’re making some headway this afternoon,” he said, “and hopefully they’ll be into the port in the next few hours.”

The Canadians on board, who have spent the past two days stuck on a ship that is itself stuck in a barren field of thick ice between Cape Breton and Newfoundland, are handling their time in purgatory well, Mercer said.

“We’ve been in constant contact with the vessel, and everybody’s in good spirits,” he said. “There’s plenty of food and supplies on board, we have been providing amenities, and they recognize the situation that they’re at sea a lot longer than we had planned.”

Passengers are spending the time as best they can, he said, playing cards and eating well.

Elle oh elle. @MAferries was sent this gem of a photo of a passenger aboard the Blue Puttees. pic.twitter.com/bXSrbLcbxM — Jeremy Eaton (@Jeremy_Eaton) March 20, 2015

Wayne Elliott, a truck driver and passenger on the Puttees, told CBC he was content: “They are feeding us for free, so we’re good.”

Every winter, crews traveling northern climes ready their vessels for ice conditions that could entomb a ship, but a few inevitably must wait for the coastguard to free them. On Tuesday another Marine Atlantic ferry, the MV Highlanders, became trapped in the ice with 190 people on board. The Louis S St Laurent was able to help it free after several hours.

