Fred's Logbook

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Date / Time: 2013-06-27 20:15:57Voyage from: to ETA:
Fred's foster-parent:
Name:Steffi
Profession:
Nationality:

Fred's vessel:
Vesselname:Polarstern
Callsign:
Flag:
IMO No.:
Vesseltype:
Length:
Beam:
Fred-Report:

Hello sunny day!
You may not believe it but last week I saw the sun from a
very different point of view! Now the sun is gone and we are
moving slowly through the polarnight. But before saying
„Good bye“ to the sun, I was inside a helicopter. That was my
first helicopter flight in my life, and I really enjoyed it.



At the beginning, when Sascha Schwabe, one of the pilots on
Polarstern told me that he will bring me to the helicopter I
was a little bit afraid. But he told me that Lars Vaupel, the
other pilot, is very experienced. The weather was very nice,
not too much wind and only some clouds with clear sky in
between. This is very important for a safe flight!

It was a little bit windy, but I saw that the technicians
Thomas Müller and Carsten Möllendorf are very professional
and helped the pilots for a safe take off and landing.



I was sitting with Dr. Joelle Buxmann on the front seat of the
helicopter. She is a scientist, a physicist, on board of
Polarstern and wants to know what kind of gases are in our
atmosphere. She measures ozone and halogens from the ship
already. But she wants to know how these gases occur over
different ice patterns and at different heights. So she takes
her instrument on the helicopter flight. The gases interact
very fast with each other and destroy ozone, for example.



She seems to be very nice and like me she was very excited
too. But as soon as we were in the air, we were only
fascinated by the view while flying high above the icy ocean.
And how Lars manages all these instruments, amazing! I had
a look, too.



Oh that was so much fun, but I am happy that we are all safe
back on board of Polarstern.

For more reports and photos go to
www.meereisportal.de

Yours,
FRED



Photos

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