Antarctica Speed Record Blog - still waiting!
Hi guys. Still waiting to fly from Union Glacier to Hercules Inlet over here. My spirits are pretty good but this has been one of the hardest situations I have been in. I know I have waited for weather windows many times before, on Denali and Everest for example and have been stuck here a couple of years ago but we have had rubbish weather for the best part of a month now.
I have been on standby to fly in the twin otter to Hercules Inlet pretty much every day for the last week - it can be draining packing and repacking. Like in any sporting situation, waiting is part of the game but this wait is like standing in the tunnel before the biggest game of your life for about 5 days.
I am not new to this, I’ve been here before but I have never had a whole month of really bad weather. It’s genuinely been a bit of a rollercoaster.
The first couple of weeks of delays were really productive, tightening my systems, filming, fine tuning my route etc, now I am two weeks behind really. I can’t do anything about it though and my spirits are pretty good considering.
After my last blog we had the worst weather I have experienced in Antarctica, it was unbelievable. Really high winds, so high you couldn’t really stand up, then when the winds dropped it would snow, then the winds picked up causing crazy spindrift. You could be sat seven metres away from the tent and not even see it – it was biblical.
When it is that bad I am grateful to be here at Union Glacier and not out on the exped but it started to clear the last couple of days and yesterday it seemed like there was a positive shift in the weather producing the best chance to fly so far. I was all packed, waiting by my pulk most of the day. The clouds were breaking, then they would form again, we were getting satellite images every few hours and were hoping for a long enough window for good visibility but unfortunately we didn’t get it.
I even showered yesterday ready to get on the ice for 23 days!
It is just an emotional rollercoaster. I am trying to stay grounded and level and not get too frustrated but also the opposite to that and not get too excited because I want to save my energy for when I need it the most, but it’s easier said than done.
We have had a really unstable weather system sat over us for over a week now, and even though it is starting to improve it’s the moisture in the air that is causing the problem. The density of low cloud cover is affecting contrast and visibility to land the twin otter at Hercules. It will also provide me with challenges when I start skiing - but at the moment it’s literally just about getting a good enough window to get me to Hercules Inlet. Hopefully it will continue to improve and be a little more stable.
I ended up weighing everything yesterday! My pulk (sled) is 68.2kg (10 stone 7).
5.4kg of this is camera equipment (I’ll be self filming on this expedition). I have worked really hard with Rob (cameraman) and Dale (producer) from Zig Zag to shave off any weight I can off my camera kit and adapt it to make life as easy as possible.
I have 2.8kg of miscellaneous luxuries now! That includes two extra days of food - because I might not start the actual day I land at Hercules Inlet, might have to start the next day dependant on the weather and will have to judge the weather by the hour. Oh, and I have put my toothbrush back in!
If it wasn’t for the above my pulk would be around 60kg but I am taking the extra two days of food and instead of three ipod shuffles I am now taking one ipod classic. The snow conditions are far from perfect – there has been a lot of snow and in order to make my daily targets it could mean skiing longer days so I am taking my classic as it has a longer battery life, more songs and more audio books.
There are less margins for getting home before Christmas but I have a pretty big incentive to get back in time. It would be the 4th Christmas in 5 years I have missed – that’s a pretty big incentive to get going, I don’t want to miss another one!
It’s been great having Rob the cameraman around. We have taken sharing a tent to a whole new level. Our bodyclocks are so in sync we are even peeing at the same time. Rob got married 11 weeks ago and he has been away for 7 of the 11 weeks he has been married so he wants to get home too!
In good spirits here, despite the epic waiting. Hopefully the next time you hear from me it will be from Hercules Inlet.
Rich.
