April 5, 2010
Day 34. Picture Perfect
Sometime during each day as I'm taking pictures, I'll think, 'that's the image that sums up the day - that's the picture for today's web update.'
Snowing and whiteout this morning. Ugh! Its going to be one of those days. Within the first hour, I had taken several nice shots but the best was a distant picture of AJ and Darcy in a mostly white back drop (because of the whiteout) and a solitary blue slab of ice. I was pretty sure that image would be going on the web site as a summation of our day.
I couldn't have been more wrong - except for the whiteout part - that would last all day.
We covered seven miles today, but most of that was in the afternoon. After three, hour and a half shifts, we had only progressed one mile north. Double ugh! We spent our morning crossing two open leads, scouting around a third and veering way west around a fourth.
It takes us about 45 minutes to cross an open water lead. Catamaraning the sleds, rigging the haul lines (front and back), getting on drysuits. As my suit is the only one that doesn't leak, I am now the designated swimmer. Breaking thin ice, swimming to the other side and then hauling the first passenger across. Its tiring. At one lead there was about 20 feet of swimming and pulling the sleds. Finally, at the opposite 'shore' I struggled to haul myself out of the water onto the ice two feet above. I was exhausted.
Floating in the Arctic Ocean while Darcy and AJ finished rigging the sleds, I tried to listen to all the different sounds. Mostly, it was quiet, but if I listened carefully, I could hear many different sounds. Icey snow falling hard on the top of my drysuit, wind, the squeak of snow under AJ's feet and the distant whine of two ice pans colliding. I closed my eyes and listened to the soft splash of my hand through the water.
'I could be anywhere right now,' I thought. I also wondered if the seal AJ had just seen would take an interest in me. I hoped not. I also hoped there weren't any polar bears nearby - they're excellent swimmers and in my orange gumby like drysuit, I'm a far cry from Michael Phelps.
We skied blindly in whiteout the entire afternoon. I took pictures of a crazy snowstorm with big flakes, a large ravine of chunky blue blocks, skiing across small slabs and cracks, another jumbled mess that made us all laugh because we didn't know what else to do as we lowered our sleds backwards down a five foot ledge.
Image: Eric pulling Darcy and the catamaraned sleds across a lead.
The Save the Poles expedition is sponsored by Bing with major support from the University of Plymouth, Terramar, Seventh Generation, Goal0, Atlas, Sierra Designs and Optic Nerve.
Remember, it's cool to be cold. Save the Poles. Save the planet.
For more information, please visit www.ericlarsenexplore.com
For information about guided Antarctic expeditions, please visit http://www.antarctic-logistics.com/
For media inquiries, please contact lora@screamagency.com
For technical inquires, please contact webexpeditions.net
Snowing and whiteout this morning. Ugh! Its going to be one of those days. Within the first hour, I had taken several nice shots but the best was a distant picture of AJ and Darcy in a mostly white back drop (because of the whiteout) and a solitary blue slab of ice. I was pretty sure that image would be going on the web site as a summation of our day.
I couldn't have been more wrong - except for the whiteout part - that would last all day.
We covered seven miles today, but most of that was in the afternoon. After three, hour and a half shifts, we had only progressed one mile north. Double ugh! We spent our morning crossing two open leads, scouting around a third and veering way west around a fourth.
It takes us about 45 minutes to cross an open water lead. Catamaraning the sleds, rigging the haul lines (front and back), getting on drysuits. As my suit is the only one that doesn't leak, I am now the designated swimmer. Breaking thin ice, swimming to the other side and then hauling the first passenger across. Its tiring. At one lead there was about 20 feet of swimming and pulling the sleds. Finally, at the opposite 'shore' I struggled to haul myself out of the water onto the ice two feet above. I was exhausted.
Floating in the Arctic Ocean while Darcy and AJ finished rigging the sleds, I tried to listen to all the different sounds. Mostly, it was quiet, but if I listened carefully, I could hear many different sounds. Icey snow falling hard on the top of my drysuit, wind, the squeak of snow under AJ's feet and the distant whine of two ice pans colliding. I closed my eyes and listened to the soft splash of my hand through the water.
'I could be anywhere right now,' I thought. I also wondered if the seal AJ had just seen would take an interest in me. I hoped not. I also hoped there weren't any polar bears nearby - they're excellent swimmers and in my orange gumby like drysuit, I'm a far cry from Michael Phelps.
We skied blindly in whiteout the entire afternoon. I took pictures of a crazy snowstorm with big flakes, a large ravine of chunky blue blocks, skiing across small slabs and cracks, another jumbled mess that made us all laugh because we didn't know what else to do as we lowered our sleds backwards down a five foot ledge.
Image: Eric pulling Darcy and the catamaraned sleds across a lead.
The Save the Poles expedition is sponsored by Bing with major support from the University of Plymouth, Terramar, Seventh Generation, Goal0, Atlas, Sierra Designs and Optic Nerve.
Remember, it's cool to be cold. Save the Poles. Save the planet.
For more information, please visit www.ericlarsenexplore.com
For information about guided Antarctic expeditions, please visit http://www.antarctic-logistics.com/
For media inquiries, please contact lora@screamagency.com
For technical inquires, please contact webexpeditions.net