MOSAiC

The journey from our rendezvous with Akademic Federov was quick. A couple hours only. Coming back to our floe was exciting. Evening. Dark. Breaking through different types of ice. We were headed towards a waypoint on the navigation system, but this is hard business because the waypoint is based on ice maps that are some hours old, and everything has been drifting along. As we approached, the captain eventually took over controls from the first mate and ramped up the speed. A bit surreal. On the lookout for anything recognizable. Waypoint getting closer. Anticipation building. Down to ¼ mile and we are flying along at what seems like a very fast speed to me. There, off to starboard, are the flags we put down by the gateway to the Fortress. Flying by quickly! Hit the brakes! We barreled into the floe, just south of the gateway, eventually coming to a stop on a thick chunk of ice….. one nice relic of the ice floe overturned right next to the ship. Must be about 2m thick. I’m feeling energized and nervous already about the state of our floe and where we have parked. Spent the next couple of hours studying our surroundings, figuring out where we were in our maps. It seems clear that we ended up just outside of the Fortress’ outer walls. The captain is happy to be embedded in the floe. Markus is happy. So here we are….. home in the MOSAiC floe.