After 36 hours of steaming, the day dawned with a beautiful sunrise over Robilliard Island as we arrived at our sampling station just south of M’Clure Strait in the Canadian Archipelago.  The wind has certainly picked up and the seas are rough and choppy.  It is much colder up here as the entire deck is encrusted in ice and slush.  With the soft light of the day, it is quite beautiful.  The days are getting shorter and shorter both as we head north and get later in the year.  I believe we are losing about nineteen minutes of sunlight each day!

We have been collecting water samples along our transect the entire day in order to determine our next sampling area.  Hopefully it will involve getting into some ice as the area around the ice edge is particularly interesting in terms of productivity and ocean chemistry!