Position: 82° 36.76' N, 12° 50.8' W, temperature +2 °C, air pressure 1010 hPa, wind 2 knots from the SE. Ice drift 0.0 knot. White-out.

Position: 82° 38.23' N, 12° 53.3' W, temperature +3 °C, 1008 hPa, wind 5 knots from the NE. Ice drift 0.1 knot to the S. A glorious day. Audun continued sorting the food. Finished work in the engine bay and cleaned and checked the bilge pumps. Removed about 100 liter of water from the rear flotation tanks. The water is melt water leaking in from above. Pairs of Ivory gulls and Pomarine skuas are visiting the camp. Audun managed to photograph a tagged Pomarine skua. The tag was yellow with capital letters JN.

Position: 82° 40.64' N, 12° 51.2' W, temperature 0 °C, 1009 hPa, white-out, light rain turning into snow near midnight. No wind and no ice drift. Made a CTD cast down to 1000 meter. Continued work on the weather station issue - the problem was lack of disk space. Files were backed up and moved and the data could then be logged and displayed properly. Continued work cleaning up the sump below the engine in the engine bay. Audun reorganized some of the food.

Position: 82° 41.2' N, 12° 48' W, temperature 0 °C, wind 7 knots from the N. Ice drift 0.05 towards SE. White-out. Woke up to a sound outside. A somewhat scruffy bear was outside the hovercraft. We have been 42 weeks on the ice and this is the sight of a polar bear. The animal walked over to the food storage and started digging for one of the Zarges boxes. We started the hovercraft engine and the bear took off, and we have not seen it since. The AirMar weather station on the hovercraft went down. We consulted Bergen, but did not solve the problem.

Position: 82° 42.8' N, 12° 56' W, temperature -2 °C, air pressure 1012 hPa, wind 18 knots from the N. Ice drift 0.3 knot to the S. White-out conditions and light snow fall, 5 cm in total. Checked the radiation flux instrument - data logger battery is 11.65 Volt. Worked on the weekly report.

Position: 82° 48.5' N, 12° 59.1' W. Temperature -1 °C, air pressure 1021 hPa, wind 12 knot from the N. Ice drift 0.2 knot towards the S. White-out conditions. We are drifting on a course that brings us closer to the major shear zone along the coast, but still about 40 km away. Made a CTD cast to 1000 meter depth. Had the generator going all day to melt snow for drinking water - we need to replenish every two weeks.

Position: 82° 50.1' N, 12° 55.9' W, temperature 0 °C, pressure 1023 hPa, wind 14 knots from the N. Ice drift 0.2 knot towards the S. A beautiful day. The former lead with present ice thickness of 0.6 m about 35 meter from the front of the hovercraft closed and quietly formed a 2 meter high pressure ridge. The Syquest echo box in camp does not find the bottom reflection. Water depth is around 3000 meter. CMR consulted the Syquest company and adjustments were made to resolve the issue. Made a CTD cast down to 1000 meter depth.

Position: 82° 54.52' N, 12° 56.3' W, temperature - 3 °C, air pressure 1025 hPa, wind 12 knots from the N. Ice drift 0.15 knot towards S. A glorious day. Felt a shock at 0137 GMT and thought it may have been an earthquake from the Lena Trough below. However, both NORSAR, Univ. of Bergen and GEUS did not see any events recorded on the Svalbard stations or at St. Nord. The shock could have been related to the start of a pressure ridge about 35 meter in front of the hovercraft. Made CTD cast to 1000 m depth. Both ARGOS tracker buoys report good positions - batteries checked 12.4 and 11.9 volt.

Position: 83° 00.9' N, 13° 11' W, temperature - 1 °C, 1014 hPa, wind 18 knots from the W. Ice drift 0.35 knot to the SSE. White-out conditions. Checked the radiation flux instruments and the weather station. Made a CTD cast to 1000 m depth. Started to run a check of our ARGOS 96010 tracker buoys and coordinated with Chr. Michelsen Research, Bergen for reports. Audun transferred two drums of fuel to the hovercraft main tanks. Shipment of our storage container still at AWI, Bremerhaven is finally underway to Longyearbyen. Six Ivory gulls visited the camp at the same time.

Position: 83° 07.07' N, 13° 45.9' W, temperature 0 °C, 1009 hPa, wind 12 knots from the W. Ice drift 0.3 knot towards the SE. Light rain today. The crack behind the hovercraft has closed completely. Made CTD cast to 1000 m depth. Audun recovered the AWI mass balance buoy which had ceased to function three weeks after deployment 30 August last year. The snow shelter protecting our Zarges boxes with food collapsed in the mild weather and had to be restored.