Day 9
S81 2' 55.32", W80 0' 51.48"
///bozos.starkly.iconoclasts
WARNING: some strong language in today's blog. The team are on a high as they cross into 81 degrees South. Louis' practical jokes don't go down too well.
“Hi good evening everyone, it’s Lou reporting in from day 9 of the expedition.
We woke up this morning to another day of good visibility. There’s still quite a strong cross wind, but the sastrugi, the surface itself, wasn’t too bad either, so we’ve made really good progress. We’ve ground out our longest day so far; we were out there for eight and a half hours of skiing today, and in that time we managed to cover over 13 nautical miles. And towards the end of the day, we crossed our first degree of latitude; South 81. As most of you are aware, the South Pole lies at 90 degrees south, and we started down at the top end of 79, so we’ve got ten degrees of latitude to cover. Each degree is 60 nautical miles in distance, that’s why we’re working in nautical miles as well. [A nautical mile is 1.15 ordinary miles].
Today we managed to cross South 81, and punch three miles into that. Our next target now is 82 degrees south. We’re going to go for it and try and get there in five days, is our target. We’re looking to really start making some progress now. The pulks are a little bit lighter; tomorrow we’ll come to the end of our first 10-day food bag, so that will be over 10kg in weight reduced, and obviously we’ve burned a bit of fuel as well. The weight is slowly starting to come down, and with that, we’ll start to build the amount of hours we’re doing and hopefully the distance as well will increase. It’s encouraging, and the forecast looks good for the next couple of days at least as well, so we’re looking to continue in very similar conditions we’ve had so far. Hopefully we’ll make the most of that and start grinding out some mileage.
We’re getting more into the routines now, and just getting slicker with the tent routine, and getting quicker pitching the tent and getting packed up in the morning and getting moving a bit quicker, and just shaving time off all the routines and working out the best way to go about things to be as efficient as possible.
We had a bit of comedy today. We’re always paranoid in strong winds, when we stop for breaks, about losing any kit; a glove, a hat. So many expeditions I’ve seen people lose something in the wind, and once it’s gone, that’s it. And I was taking Martin’s jacket off today, and I deliberately held onto the corner tab of it, and he didn’t realise, and I made out I’d let it go in the wind. And for a split second he thought I’d let his jacket go in the wind, and I’ll I could hear was a mumble from under his ski mask of ‘you sick bast**d’. So I’m not sure he appreciated my joke. But a bit of bants starting to go on as well.
A great day all round and good progress – 13 nautical miles – and we’re looking to build further on that tomorrow.
That’s all from Lou and Martin, wild camping out in Antarctica.
Onwards”
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