Last ice station (Station I 10-11/9) and evening visitor(s)

 On Friday, 10/9, we arrived around 9am at our last ice station during the SAS polar expedition in the Arctic. We were steaming for quite a while before stopping, since we were trying to look for fish but could not find any. In the end, we ended up stopping at the new box coring station, which then became our Station I-location for these two coming days. The weather was lovely: the high pressure gave rise to blue skies and sunshine, but also cold northerly winds (up to 10 m/s in the late afternoon) and temperatures around -5 degrees. The helicopter was out in the morning deploying trap-and longlines. Ice coring teams and project specific groups were out on the ice in the afternoon, simultaneously as the beam net was operating in the back of the ship trying to catch some fish. We saw lot of birds flying around - first ones in over a month! Me and John went out after lunch for our last work on ice - it was so sad knowing it to be the last time, enjoying every second of the time! We were standing on a thin ice floe, only 14 cm thick, for a couple of hours, fishing gases and also collecting water samples for the surface-microlayer. One of the photo is taken through binoculars, where you can see us working on the thin ice floe. Thank you Frank for this amazing photo! In the end our group was the last team to return to the ship around 4 pm. 


Right before dinner, less than an hour after we returned to the ship from the ice, we got a curious visitor: a polar bear! Everyone on the ship was informed and we were all gathered at the front of the ship with our cameras and drones ready - following the polar bear as it was walking around the ship, trying to climb up along the side of Oden, taking a nap, rolling around in the snow and checking the longline traps and red poles at the ice coring station. We might also have caught her with the GoPro that was attached to one of the poles that she decided to take a closer look at! 

After dinner we got another call: a walrus at the back of the ship! Later in the evening, after the exciting pingpong final tournament, the same polar bear returned to the ship, walking around the ship in the same footsteps she made earlier, sitting down looking at us and wandering around during the first sunset we have experienced in almost 2 months. 

It was a long but exciting day for many of us. I had been awake from 5am due to the balloon and also stayed up until 3 am the next night due to the midnight weather balloon. I was so glad John agreed on changing the schedule for the last days so that I could get some sleep in the mornings before the transit over the stormy Atlantic. In the night, some of us watched Mamma Mia in the TV room before going to bed, or going back to work for the CTDs and sampling, filtering or measuring. 







Photo: Frank




Note how close the ship she is!

Hello there! :)

Lets check out the ice coring station!

Magical evening sunset with the polar bear walking among the melt ponds on the sea ice


Walrus! Photo: Janina


Saturday (11/9) was our last day of research on Oden before the 9-day transit starts for going back to Sweden. The helicopter went out in the early morning to retrieve the fishing equipments in the cold and windy weather. The polar bear visiting us last night CAME BACK while they were out on the ice! As she was 500m away from them, they were continuing working, but as she came closer, they started to pack things in the helicopter and returned shortly back on Oden. What an exciting morning! This was the last helicopter flight during this expedition, as the rotors of the helicopter were taken away after they have returned back to Oden with the equipments. 


I woke up around 1 pm today after a 10h sleep - so necessary! Unfortunately I missed all the morning excitement but got to hear about it all once I got up and had my morning coffee and porridge at afternoon fika time. It was snowing outside, but the sun came out in the afternoon, saying goodbye to us with beautiful halos. The goodbye-CTD party was also happening once the last CTD was operated in the afternoon. We changed location from Station I to another stop for doing some box coring samples before final departure in the evening at 8pm. This was the time whereafter no samples were allowed to be taken. For our project work, we started to pack some of our stuff, ready for the transit. Today evening at midnight we were leaving the ice edge, at the time when I was launching the LAST midnight weather balloon. We decided with John to stop launching weather balloons on Sunday 12/9 at 18UTC, so only 3 balloons left. Makes me cry.




The ice starts to split into smaller floes, until....

... there is none left :/


More about out final hours in the ice and the transit coming soon!






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