The first week after our arrival in the ice floe on September 13 was spent preparing the laboratories, testing the equipment and protocols, and completing safety drills. During the second week, we took advantage of the good weather and stable ice conditions to start deploying ice-tethered instruments and installing the ice camp. The team then completed a first two-week station, including sampling of new ice, but with a limited number of protocols. We took the following week to finish mounting the ice camp and troubleshooting equipment. We are now ready to resume our stations on Monday and will try to include all protocols. There are still some issues to fix on a few sensors on the CTD-Rosette, the in-line system, and for the atmospheric program, but we will continue working on these in parallel with our sampling schedule.

The ice conditions have been far better than expected, and our large floe of 13 nmi resisted a storm with gusts >55 kts. The ice around the floe has now consolidated and we have access to both new ice (now 24 cm thick) and older ice within a 500 m radius from the Station. Our drift direction is wind-driven, and after drifting south for 10 days we started going north again. The Station is still far east, north of the East Siberian Sea over the Makarov Basin, but SE winds are forecasted for next week, which should bring us toward the Transpolar Drift. Spirits are high onboard despite the few hours of sunlight left. We will see our last sunrise this Monday before it sets for at least 4 months, and northern lights in the middle of the afternoon are now our new normal. Temperatures have been varying between -4˚C and -25˚C, but so far we have no issue spending 4 hours in a row working outside, thanks to the warm wardrobe provided by the Foundation. The atmosphere is convivial and the ship is always very comfortable after coming back from the ice.