Snow and Strong Winds Delay Rescue Attempt Off Antarctica Andrew Peacock, via Agence France-Presse - Getty Images This image taken by Andrew Peacock, a passenger on the Akademik Shokalskiy, shows the ship stuck in the Antarctic ice on Monday near Cape de la Motte. High winds and snow forced an Australian icebreaker to abandon an attempt to rescue an icebound research ship off Antarctica on Monday, leaving the ship's 70 passengers and crew members stranded for a sixth day, maritime safety officials said. The chartered Russian ship, the 233-foot Akademik Shokalskiy, became stuck in the ice last Tuesday when strong winds pushed loose pack ice up against it near Cape de la Motte, about 1,700 miles south of Hobart, Tasmania. The icebreaker, the Aurora Australis, reached the area early Monday, entered the pack ice and got within 12 miles of the Shokalskiy, according to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, which is coordinating the rescue operation. But the authority said in a statement that the snow and winds of up to 35 miles an hour "have resulted in poor visibility and made it difficult and unsafe for the Aurora Australis to continue today's attempt." The icebreaker turned back and is now in open water about 20 miles away, the authority said, adding that the ship may try again to reach the Shokalskiy if the weather improves. A Chinese vessel, the Xue Long, tried early Saturday but was stalled by the thick ice. The Xue Long, which has remained in the area, has a helicopter that could be used to ferry passengers and crew members from the Shokalskiy to safety. But the authority said the weather made such a rescue attempt unsafe at this time. In an earlier phone interview from the ship, Chris Turney, a leader of the research expedition and a professor of climate change at the University of New South Wales in Australia, said that all aboard were well and that morale was high. The ship has enough food and other necessities to last several weeks. The expedition is retracing some of the travels and replicating some of the studies of the Australian geologist Douglas Mawson, who first explored East Antarctica from 1911 to 1914. But as it began heading north, Dr. Turney said, it "ran afoul of very strong winds" that pushed the loose ice in its way. Even though it is summer in the Antarctic, waiting for the ice to break up on its own is not an option, Dr. Turney said, because of the risk that the ship could drift along with the ice and collide with one of several icebergs in the area. Dr. Turney said that some of the people aboard had gone onto the ice to study birds and to make other scientific observations, and that others had occupied themselves on board with ad hoc classes in subjects like knot tying. Now it is mostly comedies, although episodes of the hit series "Breaking Bad" have been popular too.