Work in windy conditions









Today was a long day, as the other days on ship: we worked basically the whole day, finished by 21 tonight. The wind became stronger (even though coming from the back), working on the 7th deck we definitely could feel the 1-2 m waves swinging the boat. It felt like you were a bit drunk, walking was slow but you still managed to keep yourself upright and work. We got the radio sounding station set up (the mast and sensors on the rooftop of the yellow container) with its GPS system, and we also succeeded in pre-processing the sounding on the ground station, so that it would be ready to be attached to a balloon filled with helium and then being launched on the helipad. On the photos you can see the white styrox-box with a metal sensor - this is the radio sounding. On the background of that photo you can see the helium tanks. These soundings are actually made in Finland by Vaisala, so really proud of that :)

We were so pleased to get the sounding station all set up today - since that will be one of our main task each day (launching it four times a day). We will try to launch a few weather balloons prior to us reaching our starting point at the ice edge in order to try out the balloons and the whole launching procedure  - Fingers crossed it will all work out well!

It got foggier towards the afternoon and the visibility dropped to less than 300 m I would say - felt like we were traveling in the fog. Also, while traveling up north I can feel the drop in the temperature - from 30 degrees on day 1 to 15 degrees today. Tomorrow it will be even colder and stronger winds - I think up to 15 meter per second! As long as the wind is with us, it will be pretty okayish, but when the wind is coming from the side or front, 2-3 m waves will definitely be noticed by us!

Wish us luck!





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