I see ice
| It’s been six days since we entered the ice. I haven’t felt the sun on my face since we left Barrow. The breaking od waves on the the waves on the bow of the ship – which sounds like whales from down below – has now turned into rumbling. Days go by and routine has taking over. They are paced by meals and pervaded by the constant sound pulses of the multi-beam sonar. The monotonous and repetitive and I don’t feel the passing of time. On the other hand, it seems that I got fairly good at guessing the depth of the water just by listening to the cadence of the sound pulses of the multibeam. Coring operations are going on. Sampling and a range of different analyses on marine sediments are made every waking hour. Our first day of coring began in the company of a bird, which found shelter from the cold wind on the ship – a specimen of Calidris minutus as one our Russian colleagues said. Some say this little friend is still wandering around the deck.  It is very cold and lonely out there, a desert of white and blue. We cannot stop to appreciate the vastness of the Arctic, a remote, unexplored, and desolate place as far as eye can see. Last nightwe were set up the platform from which to cast the gravity corer in deep waters. As yet, nothing out of the ordinary, just another evening out in the cold, struggling with cranes and wires. Nevertheless, something unexpected happened. The clouded sky cleared up long enough to enjoy what was our first sunset to date. Out of the blue, I must say. For a brief moment the aft deck went silent. People caught their breath and looked at the setting sun in the horizon. Finally, the Arctic gave us a long-overdue spectacle.
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| by Francesco Muschitiello |
