9 July 2014

Early this morning Oden entered the sea ice at approx. 79N/65E north of Novaya Zemlya, at the southern entrance of the St Anna Trough. In the early morning, we spotted many large footprints on the snow. By mid-morning, a large polar bear was walking through the fragmented icescape of the border between Barents Sea and Kara Sea. What a welcome!

Much equipment, instruments and methods have been trimmed in by now. Air and surface water are continuously being probed and we are apprehensively approaching our first high-intensity study region in the SE Amundsen Basin. Oops, we almost ran over another big polar bear that was resting in desolate solitude on a big ice floe. Boy, was he surprised about the Oden chopping up his ice floe... he thought he was the biggest thing around. Must be a strange way to be woken up by... Good atmosphere onboard.