Let me begin with this: The weather is really fine. It’s cold, but not so windy, and it’s sunny. Now to the rest: We had planned for the traverse to depart today; but our depth sounder radar, which is capable of mapping details of the entire ice thickness has a server problem. We were not able to solve the problem today; but we are in touch with people who will be able to help us. We’ll see how tomorrow plays out. As the radar mapping is an important component of the traverse, the traverse will wait another day. We have been enjoying a nice weekend, but for our two radar guys it has been a bit of a mixed bag. Of course, they feel a pressure from the rest of the crew; but we try to tell them that it is not their fault. It could be anything else that had issues, like for instance the generator yesterday. And we fixed that one. So we keep hopeful for a solution.
What we did over the weekend:
- Finalized traverse route including stops for drilling.
- Solved the problem on the diesel generator.
- Assembled traverse train.
- Fuel bladder for traverse tested. No leaks.
- Checked cookers from emergency boxes.
- Test run on deep sounder radar. There are issues with the data server.
- Sunday departure of traverse postponed.
Weekend weather: Mostly sunny and clear. Tempearatures from −28°C to −18°C. Wind: 10 kt from SW, in the evening weak. Visibility: Good.
FL, J.P. Steffensen
