Emotional Farewell to Shirase As She Heads Back To The Ice

Japan’s famous icebreaker Shirase, a frequent visitor to Fremantle, arrived in Fremantle from Antarctica on Sunday 23 February 2025, carrying members of its Antarctic research expedition.

Shirase is a powerful icebreaker ship operated by the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF), and plays a vital role in Japan’s research and support operations in the Antarctic region.

She has been moored at Victoria Quay since Sunday, to reload supplies and replace personnel before returning to Antarctica to conduct more research work. She departed Japan in November last year and has been operating in waters near Antarctica and at Syowa Station, Japan’s Antarctic research base. Today she departed for Antarctica again.

While here in Fremantle Shirase and crew have been educating local school students about Antarctica, as reported on NHK World Japan:

On Tuesday, local school students were invited on board the vessel to learn about the expedition’s findings. They touched ice specimens brought back from Antarctica. A female student said, ‘It was really cool touching the ice, because it’s really old and I never thought I would touch something that old before.’ The expedition team says the average temperature around Syowa Base in January, summer in Antarctica – is minus 0.8 degrees Celsius. But during this trip, the team says there were days when the temperature was close to 10 degrees Celsius with ice and snow around the base melting.

Shirase will soon conduct surveys off the Totten Glacier, which is one of Antarctica’s largest, but is increasingly melting. Harada Naomi, the leader of 66th Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition said, ‘If the glacier of Totten is melting, everything is melting, the sea level, the global sea level will rise about 4 meters. So, it’s very big impact for the people in the world’.

Here’s a pic that accompanied the TV story. And here’s a NHK TV clip here.

You’ll also find our story on the Freo College kids embarking Shirase here.

Crowds gathered on South Mole today with Japanese Drums and Japanese and Australian flags to see off Shirase. Two women wore bright orange Shirase tee shirts. As on earlier occasions, it was a moving farewell.

For some on shore it was exciting and for others heartbreaking. A new bride had flown in from Tokyo to be with her husband in Fremantle. She waved her flag and wept as the ship passed by. She won’t see her love now until April.

The ship’s crew dressed in white, lined the bow and decks and waved their hats in farewell as she passed by the crowds at South Mole.

Our friend Taiki, who has a researcher friend aboard Shirase as she returns to Antarctica, has explained to us that this is the first time Shirase has returned to Antarctica after a visit to Antarctica without first returning to Japan for painting and resupplying.

Taiki explains –

‘You can find the silver area in the bottom of the ship. This area is a sign of the ship is ice breaker because ice breaker break ice with it own weight and the paint of the bottom touched ice is peeled by the pressure.

‘Usually,the area was repainted to orange after coming back to Japan from Antarctica but in this the ship did not return to Japan from Antarctica and go back to Antarctica again from Fremantle so the area is still silver now.

‘It is a first time for Shirase to go to Antarctica again without going back to Japan. So this picture is symbolic for Shirase’s history.’

Taiki’s onboard friend kindly shared with Taiki these pics of the view from the icebreaker as she left Fremantle, and Taiki has in turn kindly shared them with Fremantle Shipping News.