Dispatch 7: Polar Bear Sighting : Beaufort Gyre Exploration Project

We encountered a polar bear yesterday evening. Of course, everybody wanted to see and take pictures of the ruler of the Arctic. The photos of people watching and photographing the bear are more interesting than the pictures of the polar bear itself. People gathered at the rails and jumped up and down while the polar bear lumbered on the ice near the ship.

We are now at coordinates 78° 30 N, 163° 00 W on August 19 at 6:00 p.m., local time. Our major work during last two days was water sampling along the northern boundaries of the Chukchi Sea. We will next return to the Beaufort Gyre Freshwater Experiment Project field program. We have two moorings and four surface buoys remaining to deploy, and will report about this later.

Dispatch 7: Polar Bear Sighting

Andrey Proshutinsky

August 18-19, 2003