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Week from 25 to 31 March
 


Display here a quite interesting map
representing the ice analysis from satellite imagery


Saturday 30 March (day 34) :

Dear visitors
The antarctica.org team will be taking some time off for the Easter weekend. So there will be no daily updates from Saturday 30th March to Monday 1st April. However, the satellite links will still operate, and we will report on them on Tuesday 2 April. Have a great Easter weekend, and thanks for your visits...


Friday 29 March (day 33) : And now, ready for speed...

Each day the men get closer to the moment when they will be able to finally unleash their Identified Flying Objects (sails) and throw themselves into the mad pursuit of the clock, on an ice pack the size of Belgium.
Even if they don't speak openly about these intentions during the daily Iridium satellite link-ups, it is the overriding impression that is gained from their cold assessment of the ice, wind and weather conditions to which they are exposed daily. Here, in any case are some hard facts:
1/ The ice is beginning to change colour, which means that they are progressing onto the older ice, which has survived the annual melt for more than one year, and is therefore more solid and less given to breaking apart to form leads.
2/ The ice drift is gradually carrying them more towards the West, instead of pushing them South-south-westwards, as was happening in the last 72 hours, which is a bit of a relief. Today, they only lost a few hundred metres to the drift, against the two to three kilometers that they lost during the last couple of days.
3/ Yet another test of the sails, carried out early today, yet again proves that the technical aspects are at the peak of performance, and all that is lacking for them to be able to unfurl their magic sails and fly like the wind, is a small breeze of about 6 km/h.
4/ The team is in great shape, not judging from their mood during the satellite communications, but more from the photos that they have sent and which were posted on the site on Wednesday. It looks like they are raring to go. As for the morale, which is one of the most important elements of an adventure of this kind, it looks totally intact and even pretty high considering the frustrating last days of combating the drift. The Belgian public can watch the news on the TV channel VRT on Saturday at 1pm and 7pm, to judge for themselves and be re-assured of the physical and mental health of the pair.

The 4th Episode of the Exploits of Nansen

We are continuing today with the fascinating account by Nansen, of an expedition that was taking place exactly 107 years ago which unfolded over virtually exactly the same period, day for day, as the present expedition ! Today, Johansen fell in the water. He had great difficulty trying to dry off in the evening. During the day, the two men experienced a white-out, where they could no longer make out the dangers lying ahead in the ice, as the conditions became increasingly more perilous…


Thursday 28 March (day 32) : The sleds scream, squeak, weep …

The two men are not worried. Of course, they know that they are running very late in comparison with the planned schedule (about 25 km per day) but they say that they are not beaten by any means. Quite the opposite, in fact. They know that the one thing that is typical of adventure is that it changes all the time, and for the moment, they are only adapting to their surroundings. Adapting little by little, one foot in front of the other, as the Reverend Didier Goetghebuer, Alain's former adventuring companion put it, to conserve as much strength as possible, and put in a spurt when the opportunity arises to go as far as possible.
In addition, despite everything - and especially despite the infernal drift that makes them go backwards at night and slows their progress during the day - they are in excellent spirits. The northeast wind will not last, that is certain, and the ice floe is becoming more practicable each day. By the way, we have been informed here at HQ via our colleague Gigi Johnson that the fine weather is stable and the drift will soon start pushing them in the right direction.

A day of fine weather, 6½ hours' walking, still no skis on their feet, very cold temperature (-35°C), only two leads of open water. Extreme concentration by the two men on their subject. It no longer gets completely dark in their tent at night.


UPDATE ON OUR FEATURES ABOUT COMPAQ POLE II
ALREADY PUBLISHED
STILL TO COME


- The expedition's dietician explains the imperatives of a polar diet

- Training as seen by Dixie Dansercoer

- Training as seen by Alain Hubert

- Portrait of Aeriane, the Belgian company that made the sleds

- The various stages in the manufacture of the sleds

- Remy Revellin, the cameraman, tells about the disconcerting circumstances at the start

- Jacques Richon gives his opinion as a doctor on Alain's frostbite

- Windchill factor table

- Flashbacks to the account of Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen

 


-Conversation with Johan Deschuyffeleer, number one of Compaq Belgium (Friday 29 March)

- History of Barneo Base, a temporary base on the ice floe (Wednesday 3 April)

- Account of a journey to Mustang by one of our visitors

- How to navigate and find your way around on the Arctic ice floe

- Update on the controversy that has raged between partisans of Cook and Peary for nearly a century

- A review of satellite communications and the Iridium company.

- Continuation of the flashbacks on the tales of Fridtjof Nansen

- Etc...

Wednesday 27 March (day 31) : " We have reached a different landscape "

Finally, the ice is becoming more open. The floes on which the duo are travelling are becoming more extensive and thicker. There are fewer ridges which characterise the hummocks (areas where the sheets of ice have collided), and areas of open water are fortunately less frequent. That is what made Alain say a little while ago that they have "reached a different landscape". Reassuring news for adventurers and backup team alike.

This morning, we have received, via the l'iPaq
two other photos from the ice pack
Click on the photos to enlarge them
The one on the left : 23K / The one on the right : 36K

Alas! The terrain remains riddled with ice sheets (bigger than in previous days but still dangerous) which are moving, and which have to be crossed nevertheless; they crash together, overlap and sometimes even get forced under another sheet. All that is happening live, while the men are trying to walk across them.
And then, there is the wind which, for a few days now, has stayed stubbornly from a northerly or north-easterly direction. That is a source of worry for the two men, because they were expecting to be able to get out their traction kites in the next day or two (the clock is ticking away, as Dixie put it), and they are wondering if this infernal headwind will continue to foil their plans.

Finally, they have to take account of the drift of the ice floe which, instead of helping them to move north as predicted, is taking them westward and even south-westward.

7 hours' walking today, -32° C (the coldest day since the start of the exhibition, because of the wind), splendid weather.


Alain Hubert talks to us about his training methods - and other bits and pieces...

The day before leaving, Alain Hubert took an hour off at HQ, switched off his mobile and ruminated a little on the situation as a whole.

This short break enabled Alain to talk not only about his training methods - often comparing them with those of his expedition partner - but also about the feelings he was experiencing at such an important moment in his adventure, as well as his job as boss and expedition leader. It was a recurring theme of the expedition/adventure/business.
In particular, he spoke about the anguish that always comes before moments such as this. He also said that the hostile environment of the Arctic is second nature to him, almost as though he had been born into it. "There's a side to me like an animal," he explained, "and I just adore the Arctic's terrain of moving ice, where you have to have your wits about you at all times, scanning the slightest new horizon..."

Open the body of the release here


Tuesday 26 March (day 30) : In the catacombs, 9 - 4 = 5 !

That's the limit! While Dixie and Alain are experiencing the worst conditions for making progress that you can imagine (since the start, exactly 30 days ago, they have worn their skis for a grand total of 4 hours!) they are now facing a totally unexpected obstacle: a North wind and a negative westward drift, i.e. a drift that is "pushing them backwards" towards the Siberian coast. Not content to toil away like slaves in the time of the pyramids, now they have to fight to avoid going backwards !

Today, having walked for 7½ hours, they calculated that they had progressed by about 9 km but they realised that at the end of the day, when they checked their GPS (Global Positioning System), that a strong North wind combined with the movement of the ice had taken them about 4 km backwards. 9 km - 4 km = 5 km/

You can imagine that during the satellite link-up, the two polar explorers were in a rather bad mood. "It's hell here, you don't realise the efforts that are required of Dixie and me all day long to drag these damned sleds and cross the ridges", Alain explained two hours ago. "I call it the catacombs of the Arctic. There is no other word for it. Bye ! "

For the first time, antarctica.org is publishing some videos about our expeditions - 15 film clips so far. Click on the icon on the right and, above all, read the warnings shown at the top of our "Video" page.
The quality of the clips is not always excellent, but the reason we chose to show them anyway is that they are either superb pictures of the polar regions, or clips relating to one or more important moments in the expeditions.


Monday 25 March (day 29) : Happy with the day... /
First live photos from the ice floe

The photos published today (the two photos below, the pair of walruses and rear view of Alain).are the first that we have received (via Compaq's iPaq) since the team started out onto the ice. These photos have only been received now because the sun is higher on the horizon, so the men can recharge their batteries more easily and therefore take care of sending the photos.

While at this end of the adventure, we are rather concerned about the slow progress, at the sharp end, far away on the ice floe, where no human being has ever set foot, the two men are in high spirits. It is true that they can't use their skis yet, but they are walking. One foot in front of the other, like madmen, to use one of the terms employed in today's satellite conversation, and trailing the sleds behind them, like the heaviest of burdens. Result: 7 km today in 8 hours' walking, counting the 400 metres of westward drift observed during the night. They consider that they have "worked" hard.

However, they could have done better if Dixie had not found himself face to face (or almost) with a bear when he went a short distance from the tent to answer a call of nature. However, this time, the animal was far less inquisitive than those who came to pay them a courtesy call the other day, Friday 22 March. Nevertheless, they had to wait for it to go away (in no hurry at all, of course) before they could think about starting the day. They struck camp 1½ hours behind schedule. 11.30 instead of 10 a.m.

Their impression that the terrain is becoming gradually more open has been confirmed, and the areas where they can ski are more expansive. "Finally, we think it is the weight of the skis that is making gliding impossible", Dixie told us a little while ago. "Once they are a bit lighter, we will be able to glide better, that's for sure".

An other abandon on the ice pack...

We are continuing today with the fascinating account by Nansen, of an expedition that was taking place exactly 107 years ago! The explorer has an injured wrist - a deep wound down to the bone; they are so tired that they even fall asleep while eating, but still they have to organise the camp and look after the dogs.

Second expedition abandoned on the Arctic ice floe : we have just learnt that the Australian pair of Jarvis and Treseder (on the route Arktishevski -> North Pole) were picked up on the same day as Chinese adventurer Liu Shaoshuang. At present, we do not know what caused them to give up (" Peter was suffering severe frostbite on his left foot ", says the press release) . But it is certain that these polar regions are not readily practicable this year.

Tomorrow, we will be publishing our new video page, with a dozen fascinating clips, including the pictures of our two ice-men starting out.

 

To display the previous follow up pages, click on the related week
below the button "Dispatches"


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