Channel Swim Update

by Hugh Bowring. We did it! At 17:38 on Tuesday afternoon expedition HQ’s Tris Kaye set foot on French sand to complete the Channel Arm Bandits’ relay swim in 15hrs and 28mins. From my own perspective it was unquestionably the most physically demanding thing I have ever done. I hated most of it, but loved the rest, averaging out as pretty awesome. 40-hour stretch with no sleeping and starting my…

Here are a few pics of the aurora taken by Ian Prickett on Tuesday. We hope you enjoy them.

It’s been a lovely day with clear blue skies but the temperature has remained stubbornly in the low minus 40s and the wind above 30 knots. Several of us have been out for local walks but you need to keep your jumper on. This picture shows the sun dipping behind a haze of drifting snow. By Brian…

We are now waiting for a period of stable weather before we can make plans to move north. Having been out of action for three months, the two Caterpillar D6Ns are going to need a lot of thawing out and preparation before they are ready to start, which is likely to take two days or more. Then there is the challenge of digging out all of the fuel scoots which have become quite submerged over t…

by Brian Newham. It’s now seven months since the ship left us at the coast, and as we started our journey and worked our way up onto the polar plateau in the advancing winter it was very obvious how isolated we were. Our nearest neighbours are 470km away at the Russian base of Novolazarevskaya with the Indian base of Maitri very close to them, but the reality is that it would be extremely…

Q: How did you all feel when Ran had to pull out? (by Simon Davies) A: It was a big surprise and something that none of us had considered. Despite that, the decision to continue with the attempt was straightforward and unanimous. Within the remaining team we had all the skills that we needed although we had to drop the original skiing element because we were a man short. Importantly, we also had…

Q: Did you consider removing some of the spikes on the CAT treads to increase the pressure per spike thus driving them further into the hard ice and reduce the slipping that you encountered on the “blue ice”? When you stop and winch, is there some extra anchor you deploy to keep from sliding? (by Peter) A: We have considered reducing the overall quantity of spikes on the D6N Tracks. It is a…

Before the answers, a note on the picture: Rob thought people would prefer this stunning picture he took of the aurora rather than his own face. Thanks Rob, we do!! (this bit was NOT written by Joanna – she would have loved a pic of Rob!) 1.  What was your favourite subject at school? Not really a subject, but gymnastics, athletics, and rugby were the things I enjoyed the most. Academically,…

Q: What is the Ice Teams’ unanimously favourite guilty pleasure when you get downtime? (by Gina Callini) A: In the modern world communications are often taken for granted but given where we are and the fact that we are totally isolated in a polar winter we are incredibly lucky to have an Iridium Pilot satellite system with both voice and internet access. This is our window to the world and it…

Here are some meteorological stats which Brian Newham has pulled together covering the 87-day period when the sun was down (9th May to 3rd August):   Average temperature            minus 41 C (-42 F) Minimum temperature         minus 55 C (-67 F) Maximum temperature        minus 23 C (-9 F)   Average wind speed             27 knots  (31 mph) Minimum…