Today was rather laid-back, being Sunday. After lunch I took a shower and went to the dry-lab to help Mr. Buckley run all of the usual tests over the melted ice-samples. On my laptop screen Bob had placed a piece of glossy paper with a satellite image of the ice thickness measured through microwaves. It had the silhouette of the northern part of Alaska, with the latitude and longitude running across it. A little dot signified Polar Sea's position, and a Happy Birthday message was right next to it. It read:
Happy Birthday Aaron!
From the Beakers and the Polar Sea crew.
You were here for the polar bear sightings, sun and ice
crunch.
Another
very nice effort made by the people on board Polar Sea, Bob Whritner being
behind the satellite imagery. I studied the image for a little while,
and noticed that our latitude was definitely north of Barrow. Yesterday
I had a lot of "firsts." I saw the first polar bears on the cruise, it
was the first time I had a birthday on board an ice-breaker, and it was
the first day I reached the northern-most latitude ever. Not bad, if you
ask me...
I then helped Mr. Buckley run all of the tests. That pretty much wrapped up my day...