5 August Heading South

Travelling south through the pack we made excellent time, staying on our own lead from the way north almost the entire way. The most interesting observation today was the state of melt at 82N as we approached the pack edge north of Franz Josef Land. In addition to frozen ponds we encountered nilas ice which constituted as much as 1/10 out of 8-9/10 total coverage. Otherwise the pack this close to the edge was very heavily melted, with up to 4/10 melt on some floes, and rotten ice just 60-70cm thick. Is this the start of a period of freezing, or does this nils simply represent a significant layer of meltwater floating at the ocean's surface?


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