Hello from the Arctic Sea!

Basically there's a ton of open sea out here even though in the photos it looks like it's all frozen solid. Sea ice isn't like lake water since it's salty (obvious I know, but some people forget that salty water takes longer and colder temperatures to freeze than freshwater). The polar bears are out in full force this year because they're not getting enough to eat. So they can't be out on the pack ice since....there's not much ice out there for them to hunt on. So they're starting to be closer to the landmass, where since the sea is not as deep here, the water freezes over. So in summary, if you look from the 'beach' outside my hut, you'll see ice for miles, but if you get more than a mile out from the land, you start coming upon huge stretches of unfrozen sea ice. Just observations.