Reaching the NorthPole on Sunday the 15th early morning, second helicopter flight on Thursday 12th

For the last couple of foggy and cloudy days, we have been steaming northwards during the nights and staying stationary during the day - with both ice stations and helicopter stations. Right now we are steaming over the night, currently at 89.2 degrees N to reach our last stop before our second big 24-h stop (B) at the North Pole - planned arrival would be Sunday 15th early morning. 

On the photo above you can see the whole plan of the cruise (pink dashed line) with the red dots as the 24-h stations. Three days ago we were located at the flower (green track shows our actual track) and right now we are even closer to the North Pole (second red dot). 

The days have been pretty similar for the last three days: On Wednesday the 11th, despite the fog, there was a helicopter station for testing fishing longlines and the beam net was active for 16 hours, and some were out on the ice doing water sampling. Due to the beam net, there were no CTDs planned until late in the evening, meaning that many of us had a more relaxed day. This gave us all time to practise our North Pole dance twice - one during the day and one practise in the evening. As I was planning the positions for the choreography - suddenly the list of participants increased from 7 dance couples to 14 couples, which means that 28 out of 76 people will be joining for dancing Lindy Hop on the North Pole! This is amazing! We are not only researchers and scientists, but also people from the crew and Polar joins - this is just awesome - seeing them all so eager and happy to learn Lindy Hop and dance with us. Living on an icebreaker so close to each other makes special bounding between people - and it all gets even more emphasised now during a pandemic - as we on the ship can live normal without any corona obstacles for a physical, normal social life. Some of the dance couples have also during the last days agreed on meeting up for practising - even outside the scheduled times - it makes me so happy to see them so happy! I truly hope we have good weather and can be dancing on the ice on Sunday. I cant wait to reach our next bigger destination - NORTHPOLE! As what it comes for our work this Wednesday, we did some over ship gas flux measurements and prepared weather balloons for other researchers to launch - both 18 and 00 UTC. They could all send a greeting to the atmosphere by writing a note on the balloon. 

As going north we are not going with the same speed as before due to the thicker ice - this makes a lot of noise of course - but after long working days you will despite the noise sleep like a baby!

Helicopter station Thursday 12th

Thursday the 12th I got waken up by a ringing phone after only 4-5h of sleep (as I was awake late due to the midnight weather balloon) - John called me and asked me if I want to fly helicopter in the morning and do some gas fishing on the ice in about 1.5h? —> YES of course! I was super sleepy at first but the word helicopter flight got me totally awake and I quickly made myself ready, got some breakfast and we packed all our gear together, ready for a 2-3 h helicopter station. Even though it was not my first flight, this was still super exciting and I was enjoying the flight as we were flying around in circles doing polar bear surveys and finally landed only 150 m from the ship. The spot was perfect for our measurements - meltpond for water samples, ice surface for ice flux measurements and the edge of a lead for more gas flux measurements and water sampling. It was just amazing! And we also saw a seal that came to say hi! This was my third time out on the ice - and second time by the helicopter! I think the expression on our faces explains our excitement!

        Photo: John

On the photos above you can see how close we were to Oden. Also, as our work requires a lot of waiting between the measurements - I decided to lie down on the ice and relax for a bit. Why not? :)  In the evening we also had time to squeeze in some gas flux measurements over the ship and the day ended with a lovely sauna and, of course, the midnight weather balloon. 

Sunny Friday the 13th

Friday morning I woke up and got so happy when I stepped out of the door - THE SUN is back! Finally one day without fog! The helicopter was already out on the ice (see photo below) and the CTDs were running - this time all following the schedule. We did not get any ice stations for today - a bit pity on a beautiful day like today. But we might fly out tomorrow if the weather allows! I truly hope so, that would be less than 24h before reaching the Northpole - so one could almost say that I flew the helicopter on the Northpole! Again, today was a pretty relaxed day for our team - launching weather balloons and maintaining instruments. There were no good spots for over ship gas flux measurements, so today was mainly balloons, relaxing, napping and data processing and analysing. Some of us that had 15 min free after lunch met for dancing on the helipad today in the sun, where we practised the North Pole Lindy Hop dance choreography - dancing with winter boots. It went pretty well I would say! Later in the evening we had a 1.5h practise as well - I am so proud of them all! Cant wait to film it and show the video to you all who are reading my blog. The weather changes quickly today - from sunny to cloudy and light snow in the evening, and to beautiful sunshine and mist at 2 am in the night. 

Tomorrow (Saturday the 14th) we will stop for some CTDs and a helicopter station (for us!!) in the afternoon, after which we will steam until we reach the North Pole early Sunday morning. As this will be the second 24h- station, there will be lot of CTDs and ice work planned, but also some fun activities during the day, such as BBQ, dancing and group photo on the ice. Fingers crossed the weather is on our side!

Saturday morning - update

Today morning at 10 am when I woke up and saw that the helicopter was already out - I could see John fishing gases over the edge of the lead and the pilot bear watching - I was a bit sad of not being there with them, as I was told that we should go together today and was so excited about it. As we have experienced already during this expedition, plans can and will change, sometimes rapidly and spontaneously - as it did today. They got allowance to fly - in 20 min advance - at 8.15 in the morning. As I was asleep and John was awake from 5 am due to the morning balloon - he decided to take the flight and leave, which was the correct way, of course. But I would have wanted to go with them! However, it seems like we are getting many helicopter flights during this expedition, so it will not be the last flight for us - there will be many more and then I will definitely go! Instead of being out on the ice this morning, I gave a Lindy Hop basics - dance class, which was fun and gave me some energy and happiness. Right now the deep CTD is on its way down to the ocean bottom, going down to about 4km depth. Lowering the CTD down and up to that depth takes about 4 hours - I guess after that we have one more deep CTD, so another 4 hours, and then we are done and heading to the next stop - North Pole.