quick update.
So we've been back in the ice for three days now, and the Arctic has not exactly been forthcoming. We've been fogged in almost constantly - and whenever the fog teases us by opening up a little bit it starts raining, and lately snowing quite heavily. Yesterday a big solitary bear circled the ship for a bit and then seemed to settle just at the edge of the fog line, as if to say, you might not always see me - but I'm here!
Nick and I just gave an interview to the Greenpeace video man, in basically a blizzard - so I'm hopeful we'll look pretty hard. The southafrican media team has been really unobtrusive and pleasant to work with.
Apart from fog-inhibited aerial imagery we've been able to do some good work - Will's been busily scanning, yesterday I managed to collect over 1000 survey points, the result is pictured here.
Nick extracted some impressive samples with the corer and the crew has continued drilling like pros.
So, all is good here, tonight we'll be heading back to Longyearbyen to pick up Sun and Time Magazine representatives... should be an interesting next leg...
bye for now and somebody please send us up some sunshine - or at least a fairly powerful fog dispeller.
oh, and there should be a fairly big piece in the independent on sea ice (maybe mentioning us) tomorrow
