"The pleasure of walking on the ice. In this white, quiet, pure nature, never all our senses have been so lively. For example, it's amazing to feel how different is the sound of our steps on the ice, depending on its appearance and on the snow fallen. It can be a creak or on the contrary a rustling. In fact, sensations change every day and this is the same for all the other senses. At the moment, the weather is calm and before decreasing again, temperatures have been surprisingly high (+2°C), even bringing some raindrop. Every other days, we move away from the boat walking for some hundreds meters in order to do some ice measurements. Arrived to an exact point, we make a hole with an ice drill, to measure the ice thickness and the snow one. We follow a line on witch there is five holes each 50 meters. Then, data are sent to the Polar Institute in Tromso. What a satisfaction to mix work with pleasure!" Amélie

"A festival of light. Just imagine: the snow sparkling on the ground, a clear starry sky, the crescent moon and all around us a red and green curtain of light moving, changing forms. Polar lights are one of the most beautiful sight giving by the nature. They come from solar eruptions and those particles in the form of dust soaks by the Hallen's shield witch is the magnetic shield of the earth. This is a amazing sight that you can admire without never tiring. We are lucky because it's unusual to see this phenomena when the moon appears and we had it during three days! We don't hesitate to go outside during the night to make pictures or just for pleasure. We enjoy walking on the ice floe lighted up and since few days we take more measurements of ice. Inside, Nael has begun to put in Christmas decorations he made himself. It's a feast for the eyes everywhere!" Amélie

"Blinding blizzard. During four days we have looked around for our usual landmarks: nothing! The tent and dogs kennels had disappeared. There was only a gale-force wind swirling the snow in a deafening noise. This blizzard burns the face and it's difficult to keep eyes opened. We had to stop the windmill because of a force 8 gale. In that case, we go ashore only to feed dogs and to check that there is no problem with the tent. We are from a small Atlantic island, so we know well about storms, and in a way we can say they exhilarate us. Here, the difference is the lost of visual landmarks. But however destabilizing it is, this force of the nature is really bewitching. Even if we don't know how many days that will go on and that the ice floe could be broken by this storm, we feel secure on board Vagabond still immobilized in its frozen setting." Amélie and Hervé