Blog Archive

Saturday 23 July 2016

That sinking feeling - a lot of kit a a little anxiety!

Once again we squeezed our out sized bags onto the check-in at Birmingham airport. This time it was two plastic barrels stuffed with bread mix and packed into expedition sized Ortlieb kit bags. It occurred to me that if we always take this much luggage with us each time we fly back to the boat then, sooner or later, it is going sink under the load!

After months of planning and preparation it is, finally, time to go. The ice is as good as it has been for a century and even the weather is looking benign. So it looks like a green light for Greenland just as soon as we have crammed the boat with food and fuel sufficient for four weeks without chance of re-supply. 

Sally is in charge of provisioning and, predictably, has concocted a complex spreadsheet predicting the exact amount of weetabix required - none so far as I am concerned! I am going to buy some fishing lures and surprise everyone with a copious supply of Cod and Arctic Char. Given previous experience however it's probably a good idea we have the weetabix calculator!

We have a lot of jobs to accomplish over the next couple of days as well as provisioning and, at 4pm Monday, we are off to the firing range to get Rod and Denzil accustomed to our awesome fire power. The polar bears are going to be very hungry this year as the sea ice, their hunting ground, melted much earlier than usual.

So much to do and much excitement tinged, as ever, with not a little nervousness.