(by till -
79.5N 0.2E)
Having
heroically rescued Polargirl we had a lovely calm 20h transit to the ice edge
and enter the (not so) eternal white in magical conditions - the water is
glassy, the midnight sun beams down on us, seals are popping up their heads
nearby and dolphins are shyly showing their fins in the distance. But we're not
here to enjoy the scenery and a hectic, anxious search kicks in for the first
survey-able floe.
The criteria
that our floe has to satisfy are multifold: it has to be strong enough to not
break up and disintegrate over the time we measure it, it needs to feature a
pressure ridge and an adjacent part of level ice, there has to be a large area
of open water to deploy the AUV and finally, it needs to be safe to work on.
So odds are
against us, but miraculously we get lucky after just a few hours of searching.
An almost perfect floe is found, covered in surprising amounts of snow, with
lots of ridges and enough level ice. Everyone goes to work with utter determination,
the conditions are still good, even though fog starts to creep in from the
west. But before nightfall (which doesn't exist up here) the floe is laser
scanned, cored and drilled - just the AUV survey is lacking. The AUV is steered
by echo-sounding - like an underwater bat. And it works under the assumption
that the world doesn't move very much whilst it is under the ice. But the
region we find ourselves in features strong currents and our floe is rotating
like a spinning top. And alas, the AUV gets all dizzy on its mission, loses the
orientation a little and surfaces like a drunken turtle - but fortunately it
pops to the surface in open water and not under some huge pressure ridge. And
who would have thought - in all its dizziness it passed actually underneath the
whole floe and completed its survey. Cheers and happy smiles all round!
We pack up
and are off on our way to the next piece of floating ice. But the arctic gods apparently
feel like they were bit generous the last two days. Thick fog sets in, the ice
compactifies, the old Arctic Sunrise labours her way slowly through the sparse
openings she finds. The ice around us consists of huge floes of treacherously
thin, rotting first year ice and nobody is all too keen to set foot on these
pieces. For 15 hours the search continues, the visibility is bad and the
general mood on steady decline. In a bridge meeting full of tired faces it is
decided that we'll change our course to South-West and abandon the idea of
heading further North.
5 minutes later
there is a shout from the crow's nest and a huge lump appears on the horizon,
its highest point reaching up to the bow of the ship and most astonishingly, it
is covered in black-brown dirt - a completely different sight to all the flat
cakes that one usually gets in these regions. It is quickly agreed that this
mount has to be surveyed, whatever it is. And Peter Wadhams explains that there
are essentially two options: it might be a small iceberg that broke off Franz
Josef Land a while ago or it might indeed be a Stamukha. Stamukhi are large
pressure ridges that are grounded for years off the cost of Siberia and are
flooded by river water during the summer melt. The river water carries large
amounts of sediments which might explain the dirt we find on our pressure
ridge. The next morning the sun is shining in her full glory (she actually
defeated the fog sometime around 2am - the whole 24h sun shine thing still
really confuses me). Everyone is settling into their work rhythm, Joseph and
Will are scanning away, Hanu and his team are preparing for the AUV mission and
the Cambridge POP team starts taking cores to assess the salinity and structure
of the ice (to get an answer to what we're dealing with).
I'm just on
the gangway, heading back out onto the ice when there's a sudden shout from the
look-out deck - and the peaceful, sun-kissed arctic scenery transforms into the
great white hostile desert that it sometimes is: two polar bears are no 100 m
away and there is no doubt they are heading straight for the yummy team of
scientists hopping around on the ice. For the first time in my arctic
experience there is no time to collect the equipment and leisurely stroll back
to safety of the ship. Everyone is running for the gangway (apart from Will,
who is running for his scanner) and no sooner is the team back on board and the
pilot door shut when the mother bear is next to the (very expensive) survey
station which was installed on the peak of the berg. To all our regrets the
safety guard has to shoot a couple of banger warning shots into the air and the
mother and her cub get a bit scared after all and run off - although, I should
add, not in panic but more like a casual jog, resembling a shrug and a slight
shake of the furry head: 'shame they are so noisy, they surely smell
delicious'.
Anyway, we finished the potentially first ever 3d scan of a
stamukha from both top and bottom at 3am in the morning - still in glaring
sunlight - and have set sail again
to find the next piece of exciting frozenness and whatever other surprises the
arctic is holding in store for us.
