ESA Arctic Mars Analog Svalbard Expedition Field Report (AMASE 2007) student blog: Feeling unwell

24 August 2007

Today has been a very busy day, unfortunately my inkling from last night was right and somebody hit my mute button during the night, so I woke up with no voice, what so ever, feeling less than good!

The rover team went out again today as the rover never functioned yesterday – today it functioned perfectly and they acquired three samples, that being their goal for the expedition, so that’s perfect.

The rest of us have been participating in a field test like that we had on the 15th in Bockfjorden where a group goes to a secret location and pretends to be a rover and the rest of us stay on ship and pretend to be rover planners.

I again was a rover planner, only I haven’t been much help. I wasn’t even present much as the only things I can really handle today are sleep and tea. However, the bits I have participated in have been very educational again.

Tomorrow will be the last day we can go to shore, so I will go and pick up my magnets that I left out yesterday, but they’re close to shore so it shouldn’t take too long. The day after tomorrow we’ll head back for Longyearbyen and I will set course for Copenhagen at 5 o’clock Monday morning.

Templefjorden is still amazing though I’ve been watching it through windows today, not feeling up to tempting fate by going out into the cold. We have seen more traffic here by Asvindalen, than on our entire trip – we saw a tourist cruise from Longyearbyen yesterday, and today another ship anchored up close to us.