After a few more long days working away we managed to get camp looking fantastic. The shower was… I want to say brilliant because out in the middle of the Arctic the concept of a shower is a little on the ludicrous side. The truth of the matter is that it brings back floods of memories of being in Africa when you have to contort yourself into unusual positions just to get your whole body wet. Once that is achieved, under the incredibly slow (and short lived) trickle, you have to try and get all the soap of before the water ‘tank’ runs dry. Regardless of all that we can wash ourselves and we have grown quite fond of our little shower.

The kitchen sink has performed fantastically and we can wash up all the dishes after every meal now. It has all become so efficient that we even empty out our meal bags out onto plates and sit around the table to eat them. I have no idea why but they seam to taste much better of a plate rather than in a bag. Speaking of efficiency we have established a routine with the heater now and are able to keep the temperature in our home at a perfect level. We do have a hose to connect the heater directly to a 45 Gallon drum and run the heater continuously but despite the additional hassle we found that we can monitor the fuel far more efficiently if we run the heater from the 5 gallon jerry can on the back. When the Jerry can is full we can run the heater on its lowest setting for between 9.5 and 10 hours. The lowest setting is ample to keep our home warm and when the fuel runs out we can leave it about 2 hours before having to relight it. We have had long debates about the toilet and have agreed and settled that it will stay outdoors in the ice. Cold as it may be dealing with the pluming of an indoor one is just not going to be realistic at this stage.

We have taken to a regular fitness regime and every day we walk, ski, run or hike up at least one of the hills. I was so excited when we reached the top of one of the big ones to see that there was a clear run of snow down one side. Although the bindings and boots are not exactly designed for skiing and I didn’t execute it in the most graceful of manners I couldn’t resist telemarking down.

Excuse the change in tense here but the story was written in staggered instalments.

After all the work we put into getting our home up and running we then got a devastating call from the London head office… we are coming off the ice!!! For a whole host of reasons it has been deemed that our job is done and we are on our way home. Our extraction was synchronised with the main resupply for PAM and we then had to completely disassemble our home. We all felt a little shocked and sat in silence for a while, I suppose each of us was thinking the same thing one way or another and then starting to get on with job. The flight was delayed by a day giving us enough time to return the whole place as we had found it ( Well not exactly as we found it, we didn’t fill the cabins back up with snow. We actually took great care to board up the doors and windows to protect them) and then Charlie hopped on the plane as it came through on its outbound leg to go on up to see Pen, Ann Daniels (mother of 4) and Martin (sweat cheeks) while Katie and I made final preparations for departure. Once everything was packed and out by the runway Katie managed to get her very first glimpse of an animal, a wolf. The wolf was actually rummaging around the bag with the cameras in so we couldn’t get a picture but Katie was very excited to see her first wild polar animal none the less. The plane was late on its return leg and Katie and I had taken to trying to guess the song that we were singing songs through our emergency whistles to try and stay warm. The flight home was quiet and sombre and we all sat staring out of the windows watching the polar ice below (and Katie wants me to mention the enormous pink moon).

The latest instalments have been; a new kitchen with sink built into the worktop, a shower cubical with changing area, coat rack and boot area, fuel bund with dispensary taps, and an external home for the generator (with chimney for the fumes). Last night we even put up a dining table, found a few old plates and I made us beans on toast … who could ask for more!

Even with all these luxurious home comforts we have surrounded ourselves with, life isn’t quite like being at home, there is always a longer process involved in receiving the end goods. The shower for example. If you decide you want to have a shower you must first collect a bucket of snow, leave it by the heater for several hours to melt, then fill the bag with nozzle attachment with the water and put it up on the top shelf over the shower, then leave for several more hours for the water to warm in plastic bag. We purposely built the shower right next to the heater hoping sufficient hot air would rise to the roof of the porta cabin and heat the water sufficiently to take the Arctic chill off it. Tarka is about to try the first shower this evening so we will see…! Another example, Charlie pointed out to me the other day as he came in laughing at the randomness of cold weather living, was when he could hear sawing and wondered in to see what I was creating next, only to find that was in fact sawing away with the large wood saw, but what I was desperately trying to cut through was the weeks rashen of cheese!

I even managed a short run this morning up and down the runway, my poor lungs were the only thing to suffer, with every freezing inhalation causing a deep burning pain. Couple more days and I am sure they will have got the gist.

We are working on the video of camp but having a few technical issues…will keep trying.

Well there is only 1 twin otter in service currently at Resolute and so we are in a queue behind the re-supply for the ice team and the Polar Continental Ice Shelf. Due to bad weather the ice teams re-supply has been put back two days already which mean we are not going to get on the ice until Wednesday or possibly Thursday at the earliest! let me out, let me out!!!

FSB’s Red Nose Day Celebrations

Our new heater has now arrived, hooray! So all being well we will be back out on the ice on Sunday, and not a moment to soon, as poor old Tark’s is suffering pretty badly with his allergy still, and various sources have put it down to the chemicals in the water here at Resolute. We will be testing the heater thoroughly and rigorously tonight to make sure it does exactly what it says on the tin, but thanks to all Ron’s advice from International Thermal Research Ltd I am feeling incredibly positive that we have a fantastic piece of kit from Pioneer Space Heaters. We are all scratching at the doors to get back up on the ice as we didn’t even have time to take in our surroundings last week. It is after all the cold Stark beauty of the Arctic Ocean that we signed up for, so on ‘take 2′ we hope to endure it with a smile.  When we do return on Sunday we hope that the pile of kit that we left out there is still in tacked, our tracking beacon is still beeping away with the kit’s location however,  we  won’t know until we get out there whether the kit is buried under a pressure ridge or floating in an open lead!

Some pic’s from week 1:

Frosted Tark’s

The pressure ridge behind camp

Charlie in the ‘Coal mine’ (at midday)

Charlie trying to fix heater

The second reason was medically more concerning. Unlike PAM we are not man hauling large sledges during the day and so keeping warm became a real issue. Unfortunately in order to stop ourselves getting cold weather injuries and keep the fundamental communication lines open we had to light our cookers. These in turn gave off relatively large amounts of fumes and so we were forced to keep them on for very short periods punctuated by walks around camp to get fresh air and stay warm. We had a very serious discussion to try and ascertain whether we could hold out safely until the first resupply was due in about a week. Unfortunately despite our original evaluation it quickly became apparent that in order to prevent the situation deteriorating into an emergency and not only causing further risk to ourselves but also to PAM it was decided that we should get off the ice.

7 days after we had  waved good buy to the guys in the twin otter they were back again to pick us up. They even had a doctor on board to check us over on the way back to Resolute. Truth be told it was such a relaxing sensation to be back in the warmth of the plane that we pretty much fell straight to sleep and slept all the way back. Once we landed we were all rushed to the medical clinic and checked over thoroughly. Preliminary tests suggest we are all well and we have to go back in a few days once they have the blood sample back to get the all clear. So we are going to spend the next few days collecting ourselves, cleaning all the soot off our equipment and getting a new heating system and tent before hopefully heading back out later on in the week. Apart from the kerosene heaters making life a misery I actually feel a little sad that we had to leave this camp as it was becoming quite homely.

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!!

Charlie Paton and I arrived last night to a pleasant -47, whilst the Ice Team, Pen Hadow, Martin Hartley and Ann Daniels have stayed on in Ottowa, along with Ian Wesley (kit boy) and Tarka. They are staying down a few extra days for some scheduled press conferences and have collared Tarks as their french speaking translator.

We will spend the next week here in Resolute sorting and preparing kit,  going through weather reading and prediction, working with the pilots to understand exactly what they require from the runways we must build and maintain and finally repeat training exercises such as falling through the sea ice and polar bear safety.

The Inuit town of Resolute is little more than the size of a hamlet back home in the UK, maybe a small village at a push, with a population of approximately 230 people, the facilities of a school, small supermarket, hotel and its lifeline - the airport!

We are still waiting for the freight to arrive, so for now I am furiously working away at eating all Randy (the cook) can throw at me…his chocolate brownies are amazing!!