Ice station D (22-23/8) and transit to Station E, Pingpong tournament and Lindy Hop social dancing

In the past five days, our transect has been to leave the Lomonosov Ridge and heading into the Makarov Basin, where we started with our fourth 24-h ice station - Station D. We arrived at the station on the 22nd of August, and due to strong winds the CTDs and the proper ice station was moved to Monday the 23rd. WE got a lot of snow on the evening of the 22nd, and this snowy landscape and the winds made the ice station on Monday rather challenging: We started the work on ice early morning, but then the ship was drifting so much that we were un-attached from the ice edge and we had to abort the work on ice immediately. Me and John were supposed to go out on ice at lunch but were set on hold until 4 pm, when we finally got allowance to go out on the ice for 1.5 hours. For the SAS team, on the other hand, the crew on Oden felt it too dangerous to lift people by basket out on the ice from Oden. Therefore, the SAS ice station was continued in the afternoon by helicopter and later in the evening until midnight, also being transported by the helicopter. This was a challenging and tiring day for most of us - apart from the Ice work, CTDs were performed during the day as usual and morning helicopter flight for retrieval of fishing equipments. This time, no fish were caught, except for shrimps and jellyfish. Another nice thing on Oden is birthdays - if you happen into have birthday during the expedition, you will get cake for fika - and there is enough for everyone to enjoy it. We have had a few birthdays already and there are still a few to come. On Sunday eve, we celebrated the birthday of Emma with some nice dancing - also Lindy Hop but mixed with other dances, such as salsa.

23/8 ice station D in windy conditions 

Tuesday the 24th was a rest day for most of us - we had only one CTD during the day after the night transit, followed by another 10 hour transit time to our next SAS station (reached around 2am in the night of Wednesday 25th). The weather was changing during the day - the snowfall and windy conditions changed to sunny and calm conditions, lasting until the next day. The SAS station on Wednesday the 25th meant night shifts for CTD water samplers and filtering, as well as daytime CTDs and ice coring (by helicopter) - until dinner time. After dinner we started our transit to the next 24-h Ice station E. 

For me and John, these two days were rather calm and we had time to rest and gather energy for the two close-in time ice stations to come. We wanted to do some overside sampling (“fishing for gases over the ship”), but due to the ice conditions, we could not find any open water around the ship to do it. We continued doing the weather balloons - I was still responsible for the morning ones (launch at 5.30 am), whereas John took care of the midnight one. I had some time to watch movies, enjoy the beautiful landscape, go to the sauna, do meditation, yoga, boxing and other sports and having some extra time for myself. Work-wise, we could fix small tasks together with John, and do some data analysis and programming.

 For some of us, these days were perfect for some ping-pong tournaments. There is a ping-pong table on Oden and we are currently having a tournament, 40 people are joining! Rather astonishing how many! I am not joining, but I will not miss the finals! Maybe I will also do some pingpong playing once I get the feeling for it. 

Apart from pingpong, on Tuesday evening we organised a Lindy Hop social dance evening, where we started with a short class and then played swing music for 1.5 hours. The people on Oden are really good already and we felt like instead of giving a class, we could dance together. It was really lovely and I enjoyed dancing with everyone - as a leader and a follower. As I thought this would be a time that would suit many - as we did not have that much to do - lot of us were actually busy in the evening planning for the next ice stations - as the plans were (again) changed and the schedule were tightened, so that many had to work and filter samples for the coming days, and thus were not able to join for dancing. Later in the evening, we sat in the bar and played cards - until past midnight. It was late again for me, and getting up early next morning for the early weather balloon and had to take a nap right after the launching. 

Scenery for the 24/8 transit

We decided to change the weather balloon launching schedule on Wednesday - I did both morning and midnight and for the rest of the week I would take the midnight one and John would take care of the early morning ones. The idea was that I could sleep out for some days when not having to get up so early, and then change back to mornings as they suit me much better. However…. The plans CHANGED again, and there was two ice stations planned for consecutive days: arrival at Station E on Thursday 26th early morning, performing ice work on Friday 27th 6am (!!) to 1 pm and then do the transit on Friday to arrive at Station F in the night at 4 am on Saturday the 28th morning. Then doing the ice work for the ice station F again on Sunday early morning 6-13. The new times instead of 9-18 is due to the fact that we need to save some time in order to reach the Greenland Shelf in time and catch up lost time due to thicker ice conditions as expected. However, due to climate change, the ice towards the Greenland Shelf is supposed to be much thinner now compared to several years ago, when they tried to reach it but failed due to the thick ice. So this time, we might have a chance to arrive at regions on the Greenland Shelf where nobody has been before. Also, they expect a lot of fish to be captured there, so it is of high importance that we make it all the way to our planned stations - sacrificing our resting days and demanding us to work even harder and more effective. Time is ticking...

25/8 SAS station - CTDs and SAS coring ice station.