Today I was sleeping in because I went to bed so late last night. I had to get up around 11 or so because the Coast Guard needed us to link up and retrieve some information from the Internet. We needed to get the coordinates for the SHEBA ice formation, and the Satellite for the Polar Star wasn't working. So we loaded up our equipment and went on top of the look out deck. I set up the INMAR SAT on a stool again and moved it around for the connectivity of the other computers while the ship turned. We successfully brought up the Satellite Images of the location of the Polar Star and the coordinates for where we needed to go. If we didn't get the coordinates we would be 20 miles off of our needed location. We ended up missing lunch again but luckily Mark reserved 3 lunches for us. I already slept through breakfast so I wasn't about to miss another meal. If you miss to many meals on this ship there is not that much to replace it with other than maybe candy and soda.

I was outside today on the lookout deck and we got sight of our first ice formations. It is much colder now and every time I step outside I need to be wearing a beanie, some gloves, and a good jacket to stay nice and warm. Around 3 o'clock or so we started running into larger drifting ice. The Polar Star just crushes any ice that is in its way. Also it was reported that some people saw polar bears. Mark told me he also saw some polar bears. I was looking outside and I couldn't spot out any yet. It's kind of hard because they blend right into the ice. One of my goals on this trip is to get a good picture of a polar bear up close. Other than that I've just been working on my journals and bio's of the members onboard the Polar Star. I found out that tomorrow morning we'll have to set up again and get the Satellite Image for the location of the Polar Star again. The Polar Star had it's first stall today around 6:30 or so. We ran into so much ice that the ship went to a complete stop. We had to back up and ram into the ice again to get through. The current temperature is about 35 degrees to 40 degrees. I'm not going to go outside again without wearing my Arctic Jacket. It makes me look like an Eskimo but that's ok because at least I'm warm.

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This Quest Project Web page
was last updated on July 29, 1998.