The day began as John and I experimented with the newly frozen lead near where we had camped. We had camped the night before on our side of a lead that was very open in hope that it would freeze overnight and indeed the temperatures at least as cold as -30°F probably colder. It did freeze. We had at least 3 cm of spongy ice. Sea ice is a much "strechier", more flexible than fresh water ice. Anyway, as we skied across it, it sank slightly as we shuffled our way.

When we got across, we were able to ski north again, which was quite a relief for us. During one of our breaks, we were discussing the wildlife that we had seen the day before, the seals. And we are very thankful that we were given the opportunity to see seals but also thankful that we did not see Polar bears and the one attracts the other.

Well then off to the east we saw a cave. This Arctic Ocean version of a cave is an ice cave, made by slabs of old ice, multiple feet thick, thick piled together. And where they were piled together and there was a hole. It was a very blue hole made by the light shining through the ice. And we saw some tracks by it that and we really couldn't identify and we thought, "What is this?" "Do we want to find out what this is?" We weren't sure if it was a good idea but we were curious. So I got down on my knees to peer inside this cave and John peered down and looked right behind me. Well, what was in this cave surprised us so much. It was probably as surprised as we were by it. It left out of the cave so fast that I ducked, barely, and John fell over.

That's the end of the blog for now. Thank you. Goodnight.

Daily Expedition Data
Date: April 1, 2009
Location: N85° 40.464' W074 43.564'
Time Traveled: 10 hours
Distance Traveled: 8.8 nautical miles
AM Temperature: -36°F
PM Temperature: -26°F
very clear/sunny, light SW wind 4knots
260 nautical miles to North Pole

DAY 31 - WILDLIFE (PART 1)