Monday, 16 July 2012

At least for the next few weeks, and after a few days on the island, I feel a bit at home.

Samoylov Station 2012, photo: Max Heikenfeld, Alfred Wegener InstituteThe first hours and days, of course, are the most impressive. I don't know exactly where to start. InTiksi I thought I had already got used to the polar night. But here at Samoylov Island during the night, in the open countryside, watching the sunset it becomes clear, that it can be even more impressive than I had thought.
Even the helicopter flight from Tiksi to the island was a special experience for me and the other expedition newcomers. Especially because here they do not use those comparatively small helicopters you usually get to see in Germany. A whole truckload of our cargo disappeared in to the large tailgate of the Russian Mi-8, before we got to our seats by the front door. Although tight and loud, we could enjoy the stunning views of the Lena delta and the adjacent mountains, while we flew to our destination.
After landing, we dedicated ourselves to the clearing of cargo, and the outfitting of the station. After all, we had food for two months and wanted to find all kinds of equipment and materials for our research right a way.

Reading. Photo: Max HeikenfeldOn the island, it has been mostly sunny and summer temperatures between 15 to 20 degrees Celsius. For us these are pleasant temperatures, except that we share them with millions of mosquitoes. Especially when working outside, it can not prevented that a little skin is visible. A fact that the mosquitoes take advange of immediately. They even bite through T-shirts or thin clothes. The only thing that really helps is wearing a shirt with a mosquito net window in front of the face. Otherwise, a strong wind gives a little peace for working - without the ubiquitous hum of mosquitoes.

During the first few hours we took an overview of our permanent monitoring stations. Fortunately, almost all seemed to have the desired data reliably recorded over the past winter. Now we will begin to build our test projects for this summer. We report in more detail in the coming posts.
In addition to the blog, we will be writing weekly Reports about the expedition, which are traditionally written over the summer months by our team member Guenter Stoof. You should thus follow, in addition to our blog posts, the main source of information about the island (in German), the Homepage of the Samoylov station.

Regards,
Max

______________________________________
Main page of the English translation of the blog "Tundra Stories": http://page21.org/blogs/59-samoylov
Original blog in German: http://www.awi.de/de/go/Tundra-Stories