Ice station E (26-27/8) & F (28-29/8) heading southwest towards Greenland Shelf - a region where nobody has been before!

I got up on Thursday 26th - first day of Ice station E - around 10am to meet John for fika - the usual fika time. The helicopter was already out to deploy longlines and fishing cameras etc, and the beam net for fishing was already working since 6 am. I could sleep for 7 hours, which was much more than 5 hours as I am used to sleep when getting up for the morning balloon. The weather was absolutely magical - the sun was shining though the thin upper level ice cloud layer, it was a bit cold - finally felt like Arctic weather. My fear of not being able to sleep out the next days was saved - we were allowed to go out on the ice after lunch for four hours already today! This means that we do not have to go out on the ice tomorrow early morning for working on ice. I was soo happy! This day was the best weather wise and gas flux wise for working on the ice. We prepared our equipments and were ready to be lifted on the ice at 1 pm for a four hour work session on the ice. We went to a natural lead in front of the ship and measured gas exchange between the lead surface and the atmosphere with our high-tech gas flux chamber, did water samples and measured the gas exchange between the surface and the atmosphere - our usual thing what we do on the ice. The thin upper level ice clouds were slightly covering the sky and the sun rays hit the ice particles in the suitable angle to create optical phenomena - halos around Oden. I was the most happiest person to be out on the ice working in this scenery! We could also fit in a 10 minute meditation on the ice together with John. Also, we brought emergency energy chocolate to the ice and brought the speaker for some motivating music. 

    John and I working at the ice edge. Photo: Anna

Halos over Oden

Polar bear watch Sven!

Ice chamber

26/8 Ice station E - ice work - day 1

The CTDs started to operate in the late evening of Thursday and reaching over the night until next day 1 pm. The SAS ice coring team went out early in the Friday morning to work on the ice. John told me that the sky was magical at 5.30am as he was launching the weather balloon - looked like the ice was merging with the sky due to the fog layer at the horizon, and with blue sky. I wish I would have been awake to see that - at 10 am the fog was dense and the sky was again cloud covered. Due to the weather, the first group was evacuated back on ship at 10am as we were supposed to go on the ice again. We had to wait for 30 minutes until they decided to let us go out anyways. We went back to the lead but it had frozen a bit compared to yesterday. This time we wanted to do some vertical profile analysis and took water samples from eve 50cm depth until 250 cm as we yesterday saw some indications of methane fluxes, something we did not see until now during the trip. The sun came slightly through the fog layer and again, the scenery was absolutely magical! We were out for a few hours and then we were asked to return to the ship by 1 pm. 

Ice coring station

Fogsampler with frost

Temperature sensor with frostformation opposite the wind direction 

Polar cod - one of the three fishes we caught during the expedition!

27/8 ice station E - day 2

Later in the afternoon on Friday 27th during transit the fog had disappeared and the sun was shining, reflecting lovely on the leads and ice surfaces as we were heading to our next station. The temperature had also dropped below zero degrees, giving rise to freezing surfaces and the moisture of the fog were freezing into ice crystals in the direction of the wind. Absolutely wonderful!

 In the afternoon I had allowed myself to relax a bit and watched movies in the lounge before dinner time. As we were skipping the mid-station and were immediately heading to the next long ice station F, I knew that tomorrow would be as physically requiring as the last two days - having three ice station within one week! 

We arrived at station F at 4 am in the morning and the beam net was operating as usual from 6am and the helicopter was again out to set out the equipments for the fishing gears. We aimed to be able to go out in the afternoon as in Station D, but they only allowed 2 people to go out on the ice today (Saturday 28th) - this ment a more relaxing day for me and John and actually, I slept (after my midnight balloon) from 2 am to 11 am next day! It is important to sleep whenever you have the time for it, and it was well needed! Tomorrow we aim to go out on the ice at 9 am, the CTDs will start after dinner today and continue until lunchtime tomorrow. Maybe we have time to give some dance classes tomorrow eve during the transit to our next destination - which to be honest, nobody knows yet. It will (again) be a surprise announced at the 7 pm after dinner meeting. So many ice stations in a short time, but despite all the work it has been amazing - we have found a routine how to prepare and conduct the work on ice, and working in a weather like the last days - I really do not complain!

We have about 3 weeks left for our expedition, planned to be at the ice edge by 11th of September and at Svalbard the 13th.

Right now it is time for Saturday dinner - where we are supposed to be prettier dressed. So time to get changed - and not being killed by a carrot on the way… (we have a carrot murdered game on ship, starting today 1 pm, everyone playing has a person they need to kill with a carrot and the last one standing is the winner). Better watch out! 

NOTE! I will update about the adventures that occurred after Saturday as the sending of this posting failed and I am retrying to send it now. So stay tuned and to be continued….. Ps, the carrot game is still on, with only 4 survivors - all women!