Well after my up beat post describing life up here to be considerably better than i had previously expected, things have taken a turn for the worst. The kerosene heater lamp in the dorm tent has completely given up the ghost and has made the tent truly inhabitable. The soot/fumes have been causing us to cough up large amounts of black mucus, give us head aches and dry coughs amongst other things, and on consulting our expedition doctor we have been advised to avoid using the heater where possible as we are suffering from low level carbon monoxide poisoning.

After only 3 days, the inside lining of the dorm tent, resembled a working coal mine and so has now been abandoned and packed away. This has resulted in all of daily life being contained in just the one mess tent, which is buy no means big enough. We therefore have to remove all our day kit out to face the elements in the evening, and bring in our frozen sleeping kit.

The kerosene heater in the mess tent has also started pluming out fumes and soot, albeit at a slightly slower rate, and so we have reduced to having it on to just at meal times. Even within that 30 minute period of having it on everything gets covered in black, making life a very cold, dirty, toxic and miserable! To put it into perspective Charlie, captain of our FSB ship, is an ex Royal Marine and has spent the last 10 seasons in either the Arctic or Antarctic, and is highly experienced in miserable living conditions and right now he says he wouldn’t even send his worst enemy up here as it is now.

The re-supply due in 11 days time will hopefully bring us a better and safe form of heating and hopefully some fabric to make a second skin for the large space station tent, allowing us to discard this ever darkening mess tent also. Currently the space station with its single walled skin and being 3 times the size of these canvas tents would provide absolutely no insulation and so it can currently be used for nothing other than storage. Which leaves the only option for the next 11 days nothing short of just survival.

It is currently well below -40ºC outside (current thermometer does not cope with below -40ºC, will hopefully get a better one at first re-supply) and -20ºC inside and hence why I am enduring the pain of frozen feet (a mixed sensation of no feeling at all with the excruciating return of blood flow) as i write this. Although I am only really putting off the most dreaded task, getting into a frozen sleeping bag only to count down the grim unpleasant hours of the night until morning allows us to walk around again and warm up a degree or 2. I am relieved to say that in this instance I am not suffering on my own and Tark’s and Charlie have also lost their sense of humour!!

The one thing that 2 days ago had left me feeling slightly excited, was the knowledge that with all the billions of people living all of the world, we are currently in the most northerly home in the world! However right now the excitement of such a fact has faded.

Two days ago we arrived at 82ºN 115ºW  to our own 4km² ice pan that we now call home. Still can’t quite get my head round the fact that we are living on the ocean and not on land, but a floating ice pan is our garden, truly a stunning garden at that. We had the most perfect weather for our arrival, stunning blue skies and next to no wind. After a 5 hour journey via twin otter (2hrs to Isachsen, a 40 min re-fuel and the final 2hr 20min flight) we were down and got straight to preparing the run way for the second aircraft. The second aircraft was due an hour later loaded with our fuel. As for the cold, the flight was pretty nippy, and I was head to toe in everything I possessed, which left me a little apprehensive to how i would cope as we flew ever more north. Miraculously from the moment I left the plane I was snug as a bug as we worked away erecting tents, filling fuel containers, laying the tarpaulin floor etc. Before we knew it, it was 8.30pm, time for supper and bed, but it was only a few hours later that for the first time that day the misery that I had expected on stepping off the plane, finally hit. Laid in our sleeping bags, only an hour or so after the stove and heater flickered out we were hit with the perishing arctic cold. The following morning I was selfishly relieved to find, that whilst I had suffered silently all night shivering and shacking in my bag, Charlie and Tark’s had been equally as cold and not one of us had gained a wink of sleep. Tark’s then drew the short straw and braved the darkness and the bitter winds that had picked up to re- fill the kerosene heater lamp, within 30 minutes, life, blood flow and even a smile had returned to us all. The day was spent continuing with camp…everything takes a very long time up here and so I think it will be the best bit of a week before everything is organised properly and we have settled into a routine. The priority for the day yesterday was the toilet, as we all wanted to avoid frostbite where possible, and so we are now proud owners of an ice-loo. Camp currently consists of 2 tents, the mess tent and the dorm tent. Both are adequate in space and height, we would even say they feel quite homely if it wasn’t for the problem that is turning camp into ‘the dungeon of the North’. When we come in from working outside we need to put on the heater lamps to defrost and general prevent us from becoming a permanent ice block. The tents are too large for the 3 of us to create any form of heat just through our presence. The lamps however, just on their lowest setting are causing a serious amount of black soot to line the tents and prevent the small amount of day light there is, in. Not to mention the bigger concern, that we are breathing in all these fumes and soot and are slightly worried about our health to say the least! Other than have a soar throat from the fumes and being black from head to toe I am in high spirits. Poor Tark’s however, picked up some rash the day before we left Resolute Bay and it has festered nicely in to a hell of a scabby mess all over his face and just to add insult to injury his eyes have swollen up quite a lot!

As for the Ice Team, we know very little on their progress, other than the small bar of ‘Hotel Chocolate’ I bought Pen for his birthday, thinking I was being very thoughtful and organised to plan for such things back in England, has today caused him to chip his tooth…opps!!