Blue skies and calm waters greet the team searching for the H.M.S Terror. The CCGS Sir Wilfrid Laurier sets out on its journey, carrying Parks Canada’s RV Investigator and the Canadian Hydrographic Service’s two launches, Gannet and Kinglett.

Thanks to favorable weather conditions and clear waters, underwater archaeologists recently got their best look yet of the H.M.S Erebus shipwreck since its discovery last year.

One of a pair of ships captained by fabled British explorer Sir John Franklin, the Erebushad been lost in the Arctic for more than 160 years. With the use of a remotely-operated underwater vehicle, a Parks Canada research team was able to locate the vessel, which was part of the 1845 voyage that took two ships and 129 men from Britain across the Atlantic in an attempt to navigate Canada's Northwest Passage.

This past summer, the research team returned to the Arctic to look inside the ship and further study its remains. , with the use of cameras inserted through holes in the ship's upper deck, they were able to see shattered remains of Franklin's cabin.

“Probably a good percentage of the contents of Franklin’s cabin is either entombed within the crushed cabin itself, or deposited on the sea floor,” said Jonathan Moore, senior underwater archaeologist.

More than through August and September resulted in hundreds of photographs mapping the wreck site and the recovery of dozens of artifacts, including a fraction of the ship's wheel and the hilt of a sword that belonged to an officer of the Royal Navy.

Sir John Franklin, circa 1830.

(Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

"Everything has a story to tell," said Moore, who along with other Parks Canada team members helped document artifacts ranging from dinner plates to a sailor's boot."We're looking at the big picture not only from the artifact assemblage, but also at the specific stories that each artifact can tell."

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The piece of wheel was discovered about 98 feet (30 meters) from the wreck, . The clear water and unexpectedly agreeable weather allowed archaeologists to spot the object from the water's surface. Its discovery served as a guide for the work to yet to come.

"It reinforces the suspicion that we had that we are going to have to do a very thorough examination all around the wreck to identify the extent of the debris field," said Ryan Harris, lead underwater archeologist.

No human remains were found in the wreck, leaving the fate of the crew a mystery. that after the expedition ships became trapped in the ice near King William Island in Canada's Nunavut region, it's likely that many of the crew died from starvation in an attempt to find food. " say the men, desperate for food, resorted to cannibalism before they died," BBC.com reported. Three of the members were in the 1980sin graves on BeechleyIsland.

“A lot of the things that could tell us about the fate of the Franklin expedition are trapped deep inside the bowels of the ship,” said Harris.“Before we go inside, we want to know how it’s holding together, and what reinforcement we need to do.”

Besides a heavily damaged stern, most of the ship remains intact. Archaeologists found some parts of the upper deck to be , with deck beams that have detached from the sides of the vessel. Further explorations are going to require surface-supplied diving equipment that provides divers with air and can extend the amount of time they stay underwater. After the documentation of the wreck performed so far, the next step is to , likely focusing on Franklin's cabin.

Since 2008, Canada has mounted five searches to find the Franklin Expedition ships, surveying more than 745 square miles of the Arctic seabed in the process.

They've used everything from the Canadian Space Agency RADARSAT-2 satellite imagery to "high resolution multi-beam and side-scan sonar, Parks Canada’s remotely operated underwater vehicle and autonomous underwater vehicle, and DRDC’s state-of-the-art autonomous underwater vehicle, Arctic Explorer," Parks Canada .

So what does this have to do with climate change, or a warming Earth? Without it, the expedition's successful discovery of Franklin's ship likely wouldn't have been possible. Until the past decade or so, the Northwest Passage has been too clogged with ice for ships to pass through.

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The has changed that in big ways, however, to the degree that cruise companies are scheduling that will charge up to $20,000 per person for voyages that begin in 2016.

The search continues for the H.M.S. Terror, the second vessel involved in Franklin's historic voyage. While exploration of the Erebus was underway, Harris and a small crew performed a search for the still-missing ship. Using , the team combed a target area more than 80 miles away. They searched the sea floor using sonar technology, but were unable to find anything. However, they remain optimistic.

This search could bring archaeologists closer to answers for the bigger questions, such as how Erebus wound up where it did after the ship and Terror were initially trapped in ice in 1846 and abandoned two years later.

It's too early for archaeologists to answer questions about . However, they are looking at various clues, such as a shoal near the Erebus wreck, and the fact that when it sank.

"Quite possibly they either were suddenly swept over a shoal and then were fighting to save the ship with what few hands remained, or perhaps they were nipped in a sudden freeze, as can happen with alarming speed," said Harris. "We can only speculate at some of these possibilities, but we're starting to amass the information that will eventually lead to these answers."

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Searching For Sir John Franklin

The H.M.S. Intrepid, trapped in pack ice in Baffin Bay, circa 1853. Captained by Sir Francis Leopold McClintock, the ship was on a mission to find the 1845 expedition of Sir John Franklin, which disappeared during a search for the Northwest Passage. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)