Friday 1 March (day 5) : How are the sledges faring ? They split the ice like real ice-breakers.

Phone, March 1st

By satellite, 9 pm (local time), 1 pm Brussels time. The two men are clearly a lot more relaxed, they have now hit their straps as we were saying yesterday and getting organised. While Hubert was on the phone, Dixie was smoking his first pipe. "But at least it's good tobacco," said Alain "And it smells good. So that's OK..."
During the night, the men drifted 1.71 km northwards; it was minus 34°C this evening outside the tent and once again the pair has set up camp on their edge of a large expanse of open water that they will cross tomorrow morning. "But in my opinion," explained Dixie, "this open water will have disappeared by tomorrow. It's so cold and the wind has dropped. So we thought it best to stop."
There was a 30 km/h N-NE wind during the day, which enabled the men to try their parafoils for a 2nd time, the smaller ones this time. They worked very well and the wind dropped to 10km/h N-NE this evening. Satisfaction all round.

Emilie, in the 5th form at primary school, sent us a message that we find very touching (and not a spelling mistake in sight!) Thank you, Emilie. Hello, you explorers! My name is Emilie, I am in the 5th form at the Saint-Louis Waremme primary school (BELGIUM). I am following your expedition on the Internet. I am very interested because you are going to succeed in a major sporting feat in the Arctic where you are running great risks. You are also making us more aware about having respect for nature. We are using your expedition to tackle the subject of water in our lessons. THE VERY BEST OF LUCK! SEND YOUR E-MAIL HERE

Particular satisfaction regarding the sledges, which are performing very well when it comes to crossing stretches of water. The spades (which they are using as paddles) work well, the sledges are totally buoyant and split the ice like ice-breakers, it appears. So the good people at Aeriane did excellent work. "We should not forget," explained Alain, "that it is like being in a liquid environment and that we are in the middle of the Arctic Ocean..."
Having said that, conditions are still very poor in terms of sliding over the ice and the men still have to work together to pull the sledges across the hummocks (compression zones). But this does not prevent them from advancing several hundred metres, alone, each man pulling his own pulka.

After setting out at 10 am this morning (they need around 3 hours to strike camp), they stopped their march at 4.45 pm and spent an hour brushing their clothes, as they do every day.
The food is excellent and morale is high...

Thursday 28th February (day 4) : In another world...

Thursday 1pm, 9 pm out on the pack ice, minus 36°C. The very least you can say is that the two men spent a difficult night and also had an unusual awakening. You remember that yesterday they had to move the tent a number of times because the ice was moving so much and so dangerously. They finally found somewhere more or less safe to shelter - the size of a football pitch, they said.

But in the small hours of the morning, the two Belgian adventurers were amazed to see the terrain behind them to the south - i.e. the ice they had crossed the day before - had turned into an inland sea. Not one of the compression zones they had struggled across the previous day was visible above the surface of the water. Where had they gone ? Swallowed in the gigantic drifting moving of the pack ice. And to cap it all, the tent - their so-called safe haven for the night - was barely 20 metres away from this vast stretch of water...

Without panicking, the two men got up and left two hours later. As on the previous days, the terrain is still flat - so it's good from that point of view, but at the same time it's terrible for skis or sledge runners - too soft, too much water. You might well wonder how this type of conditions are possible when the temperature is minus 35°C during the day and even worse at night. Whatever, it all makes progress very slow and difficult - just 3.5 km covered yesterday.
But the two men are not bothered much about these low daily averages; they are too busy enjoying the sort of full moon display that few humans have ever seen.
One day at a time, hour by hour, one foot in front of the other: that's the philosophy for this kind of expedition.

Fortunately there are still some relatively untouched and unsullied areas in this battered old world of ours (which can be so wonderful sometimes, despite everything). Places where homo sapiens, whom we also have the bad habit of calling "civilised" man, has never set foot. These are rare places lost in the furthest reaches of the Amazon forests, a few forgotten islands scattered like grains of sand across the Indian Ocean and, of course, the polar regions, with the Antarctic icecap and the Arctic pack ice.

As you read these lines, the two Belgians, Dixie Dansercoer and Alain Hubert are in one of these marvellous places on our planet.

Depending on the time difference (GMT+ 9, Belgium +8) and the time you are reading these few lines (statistically, most visits to antarctica.org are between 8 and 9 in the evening), you can imagine what they are in the process of doing.

They're out there on the ice, certainly hauling their sledges over the dreadful lumps and bumps of the ice; they will also be carrying the sledges between them because they're too heavy - this is one of the remarks made often during the latest satellite contacts, they had not mentioned the extreme heaviness of the sledges before - or they are carefully picking their way past a hole in the ice. In everything they do, they are slowly putting into practice the harmonious muscular movements that Frank De Witte and the other trainers at the Belgian Olympic Committee drummed into them for months.

Dear Visitors, Heartfelt thanks for all your contributions, many of which are extremely interesting. Dialogue has now been firmly established between the website and yourselves - and we hope it will stay that way throughout the whole of this huge adventure. And if you also happen to have an adventure - polar or otherwise - to share with us, please don't hesitate to send it to us; if it is a little unusual, we will publish it. But please do not forget to mention your first name and last name so that Dixie and Alain can know where the messages come from / Thank you. SEND US YOUR MAIL HERE

If they have set up camp, they'll be working in their tent, each one being careful not to trespass on the other's 2 sq.m. of comfort zone. One of them will be preparing the evening meal (dehydrated organic soup, a slab of food to be stirred into the hot water and made up of mashed potato, polyunsaturated oil, MGLA, dehydrated chicken or fish, ground up cereal), while the other is doubtless repairing the tent pegs. Outside, the temperature is minus 35°C! (Talking about food, next week we will be publishing an interesting piece that Arnaud Tortel, the expedition dietitian, has just sent us - everything you need to know about the polar diet).
It also has to be said that faced with the frightening growls of the pack ice, with the immense and slow movements of the ice that they have to cope with as it cracks the firm ground beneath them into giant rivers, listening to the rustle of the ocean 5 metres beneath them, they are in the process of piecing together the invisible as they witness the process of the formation of the mysterious Arctic pack ice. Almost within reach, above the white and barren landscape is the incredible Sound and Light spectacle from the entrails of the Earth...

We often ask ourselves why these extraordinary men set off to find the impossible at the ends of the earth the way they do: what Alain Hubert and Dixie Dansercoer are in the process of experiencing - with the living, freezing water turning into pack ice before their very eyes - is without a shadow of a doubt one of the answers.

Wednesday 27th February (day 3) : A breathtaking show accompanied by a full moon...

Wednesday 5 pm, 9 pm out on the pack ice. Minus 36°C. Indifferent communication with the satellite.
Superb night illuminated by a full moon and a display of northen lights that filled the sky... Holes and haloes of light beneath the moon. Lights from another world. A startling show...

Dixie Dansercoer: "We had to move the tent twice during the night, because the pack ice moves in funny ways... The spot where we pitched the tent three hours ago no longer exists... There are grinding and growling noises everywhere, the pack ice moves every which way. These are movements caused by the full moon and have incredible power. It's very impressive. We didn't make much progress today, 5 hours on the march to cover about 4 km. We lost a bit of time because we tried out the big parafoils on a fairly flat bit of terrain and they worked perfectly with a southerly breeze of 10 km/h.
But we'll have to wait for the terrain to improve. The weather turned very fine again during the night. Well, we're making a gentle start, hoping that things will get better in the days to come, but there are compression ridges in front of us as far as the eye can see. We'll see tomorrow... Many thanks for all of the messages of encouragement..."

While waiting for a satellite slot, here is an episode from "Mad Max with icicles"...

Wednesday, 4 pm: the exciting story from Remy Revellin (who coined the expression "Mad Max with icicles"), who went with the two men to film the expedition's departure on the island of Koteln'iy, has just reached us.
He explains the circumstances of the dreadful argument between two Russians about the dilapidated state of the base. He talks about the atmosphere of the final two days before the departure. He tells the story of a saucepan of hot mashed potato flying across a shabby run-down kitchen to end up hitting a man called Valodia - the former boss of this base - full in the face.
He tells us about the departure and the surrealism of the surroundings (take a look at the photo opposite...).
This is a poignant and unusual report about a place that people almost never visit (the previous helicopter flight to Koteln'iy was back in October 2001). Places where a few poor souls, fuelled by alcohol and dreams, struggle to survive...
Click here :

Tuesday 26th February : On their marks

No more concerns regarding Hubert's numb fingers, because his fingertips that were blue yesterday turned white today, which is a good sign.
Nevertheless, Alain and Dixie still had to wait until the storm had blown itself out before striking camp; they set out at around midday, but had to stop 4 hours later, making it a paltry 4 km covered today.
While the terrain is improving, the conditions for sliding over the ice remain "dreadful" and they have been forced to stow their skis in the sledges and walk. "If there was a little more wind, the terrain has become so good we could make headway under sail power," explained Alain in his satellite slot. "But overall, things are getting better all the time. The fact that we were dumped on to the ice on Sunday at 4.00 pm and we hadn't taken our rations for that day may have handicapped us a little. Now I'm using Dixie's system of wearing a plastic under-mitten..."

Apart from that, the pair have experienced a few problems putting the tent up and with the tent pegs that they have had to repair. Then the stove caught fire... But it's all in a day's work for two men who are used to living under these conditions. All that seems to be worrying them a little now is the cold and the wind-chill factor (they had to cope with 30 km/h north-easterlies today). Which is why they have decided not to have any more breaks once they were underway : their main fear is the more serious one of frostbite. And finally, they did not come across any more bear tracks today. Another important point: the food is excellent. In the morning they fill a thermos with some good nourishing soup that they drink along the way. In a word, morale is on the up...

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One small piece of news before heading out on to the pack ice in the afternoon. Yesterday, Monday, our site received 2 302 visits, making a total of 29 185 pages visited (printed) and 500 148 hits…
This gives us an average of over 10 000 pages visited each day since the Arctic adventure season opened - and more than 1 100 visitors every day. These figures are great reward for our work, and as you can imagine, they make us feel good about what we are doing.

Dear Visitor, We would like you to have your say, as well as to get to know you better. So please send us a few lines with your views of the great adventure currently underway so that we can publish them here Welook forward to hearing from you SEND US YOUR MAIL HERE

We would also like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for the faith they have placed in us and particularly to tell them that we are inviting anyone and everyone to send us their columns and notes (a few lines would be enough - or a few pages, if you prefer), because we would very much like to get to know the people who surf their way to our site. That way, we will be able to establish a more direct - more personal - link between the expedition HQ (Michel Brent, Dung Van Meerbeeck) and all of the good people out there who visit our pages on a daily basis. Our aim is to publish a "readers write" column, as it were. Letters that will not be published so much on our "Mail" pages, but here on the "Live" page, once a week or more frequently, depending on the amount of mail we receive.
The purpose of this would be to get to know you all better, while at the same time allowing you to have your say.
Send your mail to us here.

We'll let you know shortly if the storm is still raging out on the pack ice and how Alain has gone about treating his numb fingertips and hand.

Monday 25 February : Departure in dramatic circumstances …

8.00 pm local time (midday back home) : our men were only able to advance 4.5 km today. The reason was a dreadful storm that blew up out on the pack ice, with winds blowing at over 50 to 60 km/h and visibility reduced to around 50 metres. So they thought it best to call a halt and shelter in their tent.
"Luckily, it is less cold now," explained Dixie. "Minus 27°C. To get across the compression areas, we are having to carry the sledges between us, which means we are to-ing and fro-ing constantly. It has to be said that conditions are also extremely poor in terms of sliding across the ice, which is also slowing us down..."
When they woke up this morning, the two men saw bear tracks around and close to the tent. The beasts had been on the prowl during the night...
During the day, Alain found his thumb and most of his right hand were numb, so he is taking good care of himself this evening.

We have just had Remy Revellin on the phone (from Yakutz), who had the time to say that it had really been hell for the guys down there and that the island of Koteln'iy, where the men set out from, is like Mad Max with icicles. We asked Remy to write up his diary for the trip during the return flights. We should be able to publish it for the end of the week...

The two men set off from the Koteln'iy weather station in dramatic circumstances. One of the men stationed there, in this forgotten place at the ends of the Earth had inflicted a serious stab-wound on his boss who had traveled on the journey from Tiksi to the New Siberia Islands on board the MI8 helicopter chartered by the expedition and had criticized some aspects of his work.
So instead of setting off in the early hours of the Sunday morning, Alain and Dixie had to wait for the helicopter to return with the local police and a doctor before asking the pilot to fly them to the departure point at Cape Anisiy, situated twenty kilometers from the place where they were dropped off last Saturday.
Instead of arriving on schedule (around 7 a.m.), the MI 8 showed up about 4 p.m. And finally delivered the men to the departure point at about 5 p.m. Then they parted company from the photographer and the cameraman and set up their first camp of the adventure some 800 meters from Cape Anisiy, working by moonlight.
At least that enabled the two men to realize that the ice floe was not as firm as it appeared.
Yesterday evening, inside the tent, after having carried out a short reconnaissance on the ice by following fresh bear tracks - despite the fact that on Koteln'iy Island, they were told that polar bears did not inhabit this area - the men heard the first "percussion drills" of the ice floe smashing. "With everything that had gone on at the weather station, that dramatic fight, it was apocalyptic", Hubert just had time to say before the satellite link went down.

We will probably have another satellite session before this evening.