28th August, 2016, Christina reports:

Okey..you want to know what happens on a normal day sailing up in the Arctic?! Let me tell you some bits and pieces. My alarm clock rings at 7.30 am, time to get up. I went to bed at 2.30 am after my night shift. Grr..not so easy to crawl out of the warm sleeping bag with 8 degree Celsius inside the boat. But I am not the only one struggling. I hear Noé complaining ” I am so cold!” Alegra: ” I can’t find my socks.” Dario ” Hurry up, eat breakfast, school starts soon.” Huddled close together we have breakfast outside with nice honey bread and something warm to drink. I enjoy the instant cappuccino, knowing we’re running out soon. Probably not so easy to find a new one up here where polar bears rule the region. 8.30 am school starts…okey..8.40 am because everyone has to look for their pencils and rubbers under the table. Thanks to some waves at night. 10.30 am we have a break outside in the beautiful sun. Trying to suck up as much vitamin D as possible. Of course we do our daily workout, today to loud music of ACDC. If now a narwhal would swim by we would probably miss it. Everyone is dancing, moving and singing. We do some more school till 1 pm. Everyone is hungry for lunch. The others were fixing different stuff on the boat and we explored that our 2 month old cabbage made roots. Wuhu, that’s a good sign. We still have some precious vegetables and vitamins. But I think we soon have to farewell our basil plant. Even in our bathroom it is getting too cold. The afternoon passes quickly collecting data: sea state, wind speed and direction, ware and air temperatures, air pressure, magnetic deviation, wildlife observed and taking water samples. After a delicious dinner, I have to wash dishes at the back of the boat with the -2.2 degree Celsius seawater. We re saving as much water as possible. My biggest fear.. to drop a spoon into the full bucket. You don’t want to dive your whole hand into that water to get it back. After a beautiful sunset we get ready for bed. Now it’s 9.30 pm, I have to go to bed to catch some sleep before my night shift. One kiss for each child and just one quick look outside over the stunning breathtaking Arctic sea. Good night everyone. Christina

Quick update on our autopilot: It is still being temperamental and spooking, so we had to spend some time hand steering again today in the chilly breeze. We tried to calibrate it in the morning without success.