Helen FieldsScience Writer

The other day we stopped next to a big piece of ice for a few hours. It was a sunny day, 35 degrees and not particularly windy. The sun was on the side of the ship away from the wind, so a lot of the decks outside were really warm. I didn’t need to go on the ice that day because we were writing about some science on the ship, so I parked myself with a magazine on a high-up deck, just outside one of the doors to the bridge.

The jacket is under me because the deck was too hot to sit on comfortably, and I had to take off my sweater, too – that’s how warm it was. It was great being outside. I could smell the steak grilling for dinner. When gulls flew by, I heard them instead of just seeing them through the window. I heard the engines fire up when it was time to move on from the ice station.

They only needed to move the ship a quarter mile or so, to an open spot where they could put in the CTD, an instrument for measuring and collecting water. Normally I would’ve had to go inside when we started moving because of the wind, but the ice was so thick around there that the ship only made it about half a ship-length before it ground to a halt. The guy who was driving had to back and ram for about half an hour to get the ship a few ship lengths away. Meanwhile, I was reading about solitary confinement in the New Yorker. (Yikes.)

Finally I started worrying that the sunscreen in my lotion wasn’t going to protect me anymore and I went inside. Well, also, some fire alarm was kept going off, and I figured the people on the bridge would let me know if something was actually wrong.

I had the steak for dinner that night – it was really good.