Wow, that´s intense. Getting on your shift at midnight. Working 3 hours nonstop without one minute standing still, then a very welcome “lunch” break. I have a new routine to save a bowl of porridge oats in the fridge from breakfast to avoid a never ending stream of self-made sandwiches. Even though the bread is lovely and always freshly baked – it gets tiring. The three systems are running continuously and there is a small backlog building up and being worked down over the days. At the moment it’s the third very intense day in a row. This transect in the East Siberian Sea are all valuable samples to us, and the only thing saving us a bit is that the distances are rather far apart I guess. I am also helping out with Julia and Henrys GOFLO-bottles. You never know in advance at what stations these will be taken since you need to first see if there is enough methane to make an age determination of it, therefore we always wait for the quick analysis to see if its worth it. We had some stations with FOUR goflo-casts in one go. Heavy. Fun.

Still – I am thoroughly enjoying myself, AND I had a really great Sunday.

I woke up from my 4 hours sleep and there was bright sunshine again, just as we were approaching the ice edge. Oden quakes and starts roaring from crushing the first ice and there is an instant chill coming on. Turquoise puddles and white refrozen chunks of ice powdered in white snow piling up in vast areas around us. We are in the ice!

From the open water there were small lonely “islands” of ice floating by, getting larger as time passed. I was out on deck for the first flake we ran into, or ran over maybe is more apt. Great feeling. Have been up talking to the first mate Mårten on the bridge and asked him how you actually choose where to go through the ice. It is really an acquired skill. He put aside quite a few minutes to explain some basics to me, and said that he still has lots to learn himself about icebreaking. Our captain and the other first mate are apparently more experienced. The ice we are in now looks really thick. We have some tough days in front of us as he put it.

Apart from the great sunshine that kept on for almost a whole full day (anything above a half hour is really a luxury up here) and hitting the beautiful ice there was another treat for me. Bennet Island. I have read many times or seen in films the great feeling people seem to get when they spot land. You know what? It is real! It is very very special to see land again. Peculiar almost. Of course this island has very little on it… a magnificent ice cap glimmering in the sun. A dark coastline towering out of the horizon and very few visitors. The island was apparently discovered by an American expedition that was heading for Wrangel Island, but lost their ship to the ice and had to walk by foot and found this island. They named it after the sponsor of the expedition; Bennet. Dramatic story.

Why did I say a treat for “me” though? Well, because someone alerted me up on the bridge to come up and look at something that would bring out the sun on Sunday – thanks R, I sure think that brought the sun out actually. Bennet Island has four capes that are named four women´s names. Guess what. One cape is called Cape Emma! And on top of this, my full name is Emma Sofia Karlsson. A second cape is called Cape Sofia! That is so cool. Many smiles showed up when I kept telling people this unlikely coincidence. Both my first names. The first mate zoomed in on the map to let me take a picture. He said: Why not call it Karlsson Island directly.