Saturday turned out to be a beautiful, sunny Arctic September day! We had enough time for a short ice station and stopped at an ice floe for a couple of hours.

Working on the ice. Photo: Jan-Ola Olofsson

The ice ridge team got some work done and an underwater noise measurement buoy was deployed in the water right next to the ice floe’s edge. The buoy recorded the underwater sounds from Oden during the afternoon’s ice management tests in the area nearby.

Deploying the underwater noise measurement buoy. Photo: Jan-Ola Olofsson

In the evening we returned to the ice floe to retrieve the buoy. When the equipment was safe on board again we could start the journey back to Longyearbyen.

Right now we’re positioned at 78°02’N, 01°06’W. We’ve left the ice behind us and are back in open water again. Before we arrive in Longyearbyen on Tuesday we will perform some open water manoeuvring tests. But that’s our last task during this expedition.

A view from the bridge. Photo: Jan-Ola Olofsson

Jan-Ola Olofsson, Swedish Polar Research Secretariat