I started this post about 12 hours ago and I am now on my 3rd attempt. My first draft was a real master piece and the computer, having a mind of its own, decided to crash and loose everything. My second attempt turned into a bit of a rant about the fact that I had lost my first post but I was called away to a meeting and by the time I got back the computers battery had died and for some reason, best known to itself the computer failed to save anything. So here I am on my third attempt!!!

I’ve lost track of time up here and all the days seem to blend into one. Yesterday though I got excited for the first time as Chip (the expeditions operations manager) and I flew from Resolute Bay up to Isachsen to drop a fuel cache. The small plane (Twin Otter) that will drop us out on the ice later on the week can’t carry enough fuel on board to go from Resolute Bay to our drop off point on the ice and back again. Consequently we have had to put a makeshift refuelling station about half way. I say about half way because its very difficult to know exactly were we will be put down. Obviously the sea ice is slightly temperamental and so it will be a case of finding a landing strip suitable to put the plane down on in amongst the chaos. Apart from the convenience of being about half way, Isachsen was chosen because between the 1940’s and the 1970’s there was a research facility up there and they built a runway to get all the kit in or out. It was a very surreal experience, with no pun intended the entire station was quite literally frozen in time. After some fast and furious digging we managed to unearth the door to one of the facilities and when we got inside everything was exactly as it was the last time people were there. All the food was still neatly stacked on the shelves, the beds were made, the pens and pads were on the desks and there was even a leg of lamb in the fridge!

In any case the flight was a welcome break from the never ending mountains of kit we are preparing and testing. Why, so

close to departure, are the team still testing equipment you might be asking! Well the answers are simple. The first reason in neither exciting or surprising, it’s money!!! To cut a long story short expeditions don’t run on thin air and for some reason (still unbeknown to me) sponsors always seem to wait until the 11th hour before joining or committing to expeditions. As a consequence buying equipment is left until the 12th hour and with heavy time constraints you often can’t get the exact piece of kit you want and have to modify a similar item to make do. The second reason IS exciting, well it is to me at least, and that is science. Originally expeditions were all bout science and discovery. As technology and knowledge have evolved at an exponential rate over the past century, discovery and scientific endeavours have made way for personal expeditions. Not that their is anything wrong with these trips but a significant void has opened up between expeditionists and scientists. Many believing that our advancements in technology such as satellites have made the relationship superfluous. The truth of the matter being that there is and always will be a close symbiotic relationship between the two. The only problem being that we are no longer simply charting and mapping new areas (or rarely in any case), in order to produce a significant and worthwhile set of data we have to go the extra mile. As such a considerable amount of the equipment that is being used on this trip is firmly in the prototype stages and has been specifically designed for this trip.

Well I think that’s probably enough about my opinions on expeditions and science. Tomorrow we are collecting the final pieces of our kit and all things being equal and pending good weather we are currently looking at a Saturday drop off.

Oh I almost forgot, for some reason the newsletter is not working so I apologies to those who have subscribed and I will try and fix that as soon as possible. The good news is that our widget was accepted by Yahoo and you can now download it on the right. Just click on it and it will do the rest for you. At the moment it acts a bit like an RSS feed and will update automatically every time we update the website. Hopefully I will get it to run all the videos at images soon as well. Any feed back about it is much appreciated!

Sorry it’s been so long since we last updated the site.

We have had a flat out start to 2009, working every hour we could find. With the only exception being 4 days off around Christmas, in which I became Tarka’s ‘feeder’, trying to replenish the 2.5 stone in weight he lost whilst cycling across Africa!

Well, our exciting news is that in 2 weeks time we are off to the Arctic Ocean for approximately 12 weeks! We are extremely fortunate to have been invited into the team of the Catlin Arctic Survey. The Catlin Arctic Survey is an international collaboration between polar explorers and some of the world’s foremost scientific bodies. It seeks to resolve one of the most important environmental questions of our time: How long will the Arctic Ocean’s sea ice cover remain a permanent feature of our planet? The expedition is being led by highly experienced polar explorer Pen Hadow. Accompanying him will be Ann Daniels, one of the world’s foremost female polar explorers and Martin Hartley, leading expedition photographer. Team (PAM) will be traveling on foot, hauling sledges from 80°N 140°W, across 1200km of disintegrating and shifting sea ice, for around 100 days, in temperatures as low as -50°C.

Tarka and I are 2 of the 3 members that constitute the Ice Base Team. The range of a Twin Otter (fully loaded) is about 1,125km. The distance from Resolute to the Team PAM (who will be travelling along 140° Longitude) is 1,100km. There is therefore the need for a re-fuelling point, at some point along the plane’s return journey, hence the need for two Ice Bases (see below). Our job is to inform pilots of weather conditions, on the ground, and to mark out and maintain a suitable runway. We will need to keep an eye on the state of the ice runway, which needs to be 305m in length and at least 60cm thick in order for the Twin Otters to land. Fog also starts to become an issue in the later stages of the expedition, as the slightly warmer temperatures meet the cold open water exposed by the ice break-up. Flying in such conditions is particularly dangerous, making re-supply runs that much more difficult to complete and our role as Ice Base staff that much more critical. In addition we must take care of the fuel cache used for re-supply and provide a little psychological support for them knowing there are others out on the ice.

For those who know little about the Arctic Ocean, in short Tark’s and I are going to live in a tent induring ridiculously cold temperatures for a little under 3 months (2 days ago we were given current weather reports of -80°C excluding wind chill)! Our tent will be on a thinning layer of ice that is constantly on the move, we may wake each morning kilometers away from where we went to sleep! Our main role is to aid the landing of the plane onto the ice to re-fuel, however for this to happen we have to make sure the fuel drums have not floated away on a fresh stretch of open water or sunk to the bottom of the ocean! On a daily basis we will be drilling holes and taking ice samples whilst watching our backs for the large white furry friends that will be our neighbours for the duration of the expedition.

To learn more about the Catlin Arctic Survey please click on the video link.