Expenews

On my recent South Pole expedition I wrote about natural navigation - using sun/shadows, wind and surface features to lock in on due south. Here on the Arctic Ocean all of those things apply but with a rider - ice drift.

Antarctica is stable, the ice sheet moves perhaps 10 metres per year but the ice veneer lying on the Arctic Ocean can move that distance in seconds. So the bearing you ascertain from natural features may only apply for a day or so, less in strong east-west wind or current and much less the closer you get to the pole.

Unlike Antarctica, wind events here can come from anywhere therefore you can't rely for any length of time on a wind tell-tale attached to your ski pole or on surface features for clues of direction.

As for the sun and corresponding shadow that shifts 15 degrees per hour, they are the most trustworthy so long as you keep an eye on your longitude and adjust your sun reference to suit you bearing.

Want to know more? Come and join me next year!

Eric

Camp4

We are back in our little tent after another day and although I am exhausted it was a really good one. Taking advantage of the excellent weather we pushed on and covered 18km today which we are really pleased about. We have now passed half way and are well ahead of our expected schedule.

The temperature has risen noticeably and is now 'only' -28C. This is still pretty cold I know but actually the change is really noticeable when hauling the sleds but even more so inside the tent where we have heated up more quickly tonight. Dramatically different...

Despite the warmer day I still have not been able to resolve my icing problem. Even though I have removed a layer and now only have an inner fleece next to my skin and a shell jacket outside,
when we stop at the end of the day the two are welded together with a sheet of ice and Eric has to try to tear the outer jacket off. The inner fleece next to my skin is covered in ice so as soon as I get in the tent I change to a dry fleece and then try to dry the other one out over the little stove. At least now I have got one set of leggings and one top dry so as soon as I change out of the iced up ones I warm up OK in the tent.

Our routine continues to improve in that we did 7 one hour hauls today with mostly only 5 minute breaks which is an improvement. I have also perfected the morning ablutions ritual to a dash from sleeping bag to outside in underwear and back to the sleeping bag in under 60 seconds. Amazing what you can do when you have to. This means that our key performance measures are improving across the board!

Thanks to Eric's diligence and care and my taking every effort to be careful as well we seem to have been able to manage the cold reasonably well. Although bitingly, oppressively cold we check each other's fingers and toes regularly and so far so good. I have to do a visual inspection of my toes each evening as there is so little feeling I can't tell without looking at them that they are still there! There was another medevac emergency rescue flight by helicopter today as one of the other teams trying for the pole lost another member to frostbite so we are being careful and not taking any chances.

Although the warming temperature is very welcome Eric tells me that this is because there is a strong wind and likely blizzard on the way in a couple of days. This is added impetus to try to make as much mileage as we can now while the weather is fine as even with Eric's second nature navigation skills, when in a white out blizzard with strong winds progress can be very slow.

Only 43 km to go - still full of secret self doubt that I will make it all the way but the odds are improving and it is exciting. If we can keep this pace up before the storm we may get there in three days or so. Here's hoping.

Do please keep the messages coming if you have time - can't tell you how great it is to receive this limited contact from home. Eric and I switch on the satellite system every morning quickly to see who has been in touch...