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After days of fog and poor visibility, the sun came out late yesterday afternoon, the wind dropped and the clear sky took on a Mediterranean hue. Alas, it wasn’t to last as at 0400, at the end of Ivan’s watch, I came up to see that we were in thick fog once again, the air temperature had dropped to zero and that of the sea to one degree Celsius. What’s worse, the radar was showing a large area of ice concentration right ahead of us. Soon we were dodging small bits of ice, then larger ones, and finally mini-icebergs the size of Aventura. Slowly the visibility improved, and we found it easier to slalom between them, passing close to one with a bearded seal looking quizzically at Ivan, and his much less impressive beard. As the sun came up, it started burning off the fog and visibility became gradually better.
With less ice to worry about, we prepared the second oceanographic buoy to be launched, as requested by Meteo France, close to 61 degrees north and at some distance off the West Greenland coast. Ivan suggested to dedicate his silent cabin mate to his niece Nera and nephew Dan, and wrote their names on the buoy. After all, it was they who inspired the Blue Planet Odyssey and thus are the reason why we are here.
Mission accomplished!
