I woke up suddenly this morning, I thought I heard steps on the deck, but it was only ice cracking, echoing against the hull. The polar bear we met last night, who stopped us while setting up a new scientific instrument (IMB), was still present in our minds! As well as the big fight between our 3 dogs that occurred few moments before.

It has been as very nice weather for one week (blue sky, temperatures between -15 and -30, no wind). Light is now enough at midnight not to need a headlight any more, and we will have to wait for the end of September to have enough darkness to watch northern lights again. Within few days, sea ice was back in front of Inglefield Bay, and we could start again our usual measurements (CTD, electromagnetic icemeter) after the bad weather. Amazing to be at about 10km from the coast, above 100m water, driving a snowmobile on 30 to 40 cm of very flat ice, when it was all open water on 15th of March. Busy days this week, enjoying one of the best time of the year: scientific jobs, ski tours, climbing icebergs, setting up a new wind generator... Sebastian and Trond, from the Norwegian Polar Institute, spent 2 days with us to set up 3 spectrometers on the weather mast. These sensors will measure for about 2 months the intensity of the light received, reflected and transmitted by the pac k ice. We were happy to share their experience, and to get a new, simple, clever system to measure ice thickness.