Day 20
S83 41' 32.64", W80 26' 47.40"
///despoiled.seaward.apparatus
Thank you for the music: Martin's happy that he can hear his tunes once more. 15.4nm covered and progressing towards 84 degrees south.
“Good evening everybody. It’s day 20 of the Adaptive Grand Slam, Adaptive Antarctica expedition. Martin here.
Today was a slog, if I’m honest. And a day of... a mixed day. We set off in great visibility with a bit of a headwind and not too bad. But we kept on hitting pockets of snow. The pulk [sled] really sinks down into it, and you’ve got to work hard. And that was making us quite tired. And after about the second shift, so the first two 90-minute shifts we’d done, I then needed to attend to a call of nature.
Going for a poo in Antarctica is one of the more challenging and least favourable activities. Poor Lou, didn’t sign up for helping with that process, but he ended up having to try and unzip my salopettes cause it’s a struggle to get them zipped down with one hand, so that I could then go and do my business. Which I did, with the wind on my backside, constantly worried about getting frostbite, and luckily it didn’t. I managed to get up and crack on. Got back to the pulk, clipped myself back in and then thought ‘oh flipping heck what else is going to happen today this is just horrendous. This could potentially be the worst day.’
Then, something magical happened.
The wind stopped. For the first time – I think we’ve had no wind on one day so far. And as a result, my day changed. My headphones haven’t been working for seven days now, so I’ve been putting my phone in my jacket pocket, and trying to play music through that; and I couldn’t hear very well with the headwind. But today I could hear music. And the impact, and the morale impact, was enormous. Of listening to Eric Prydz – I immediately went back to the Holosphere, watching him in Tomorrowland in 2019. And that escapism, listening to Eric Prydz, really just enabled me to crack on.
My pace increased and things got better. As a result, tonight, I want to say thank you to all of the people in the world involved in music; it really is powerful. It really is a heck of a motivator, in any form, whatever genre. Thank you very much, because it made my day a heck of a lot easier today. And in particular, the fantastic work of Eric Prydz, David Guetta, Morten, Cosmic Gate, Above and Beyond, Franky Wah, Cristoph, Camelphat, Paul Oakenfold, Armin Van Buren, and the godfather; Tiesto [apologies to all in the dance music industry if the transcriber has any of these wrong]. And that lot was what was playing today, and it made my day a heck of a lot easier.
So the pace increased, and as a result we managed to bang out 15.4 nautical miles today. Which was great. And also the memories that come with the music as well. So privileged and blessed to have had so many good nights over the years; in Ibiza, Creamfields, Tomorrowland, just to name but a few. Some amazing mates from the rave family. So thank you to all those people involved with all those journeys, for giving me that morale and those memories today.
And finally, to Ben… we did about 64,000 steps on the final day at Tomorrowland in 2019, and I’m having, well, I’m doing between 54,000 and 60,000 steps each day here in Antarctica, with a pulk that weighed over 108kg at the start, so standby, because Tomorrowland this summer, we need to be aiming for 100,000 steps a day, and as you know, day 3 is Dog’s day.
Goodnight.”
// FOLLOW THE CHALLENGE //
Watch and listen to all the updates, live on the Shackleton map.