Skidoo ride. Photo by Sonya AntonovaDuring the last week polar day finally came to stay till the autumn. The feeling is unusual, even though I spend few summers in St Petersburg. Your brain just can't realize that it's time to sleep, because it's so bright outside. But then it costs you bad waking up : ) (at least, for me, personally).

 

Meantime, our colleague Tonya (from Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute) came to the station to join our team. She is hydro-chemist and she is planning to take water samples from the lakes and Lena channels. She is partly using the new station's equipment to analyze the content of major and trace chemical elements and nutrients in the water. It is important for the long term monitoring of Lena Delta, and especially, in winter period.

So, once I joined Tonya and Katya in water sampling. We took skidoo (next time I will tell you about our drivers) and went to the nearest lake, not so far from station.

 

Making an ice-hole in the 2.5m thick ice is not so easy task, especially if you need not just a narrow ice-hole, but wide enough for the 50 liters bucket (Katya needs this for the plankton analysis). So, there are set of different tools, from a wooden thick pole to a motor drill : ).

 

 

Plankton sampling. Photo by Sonya Antonova

Photo by Samoylov research station staff