Day 19
S83 26' 11.04", W80 33' 46.44"
///gallon.burritos.pocketed
Martin switches to half skins and is faster at first. Lou is cutting up bits of sleeping mat to make improvised heel blocks to alleviate Martin's Achilles issues.
“Hi good evening everyone, it’s Lou reporting in now from day 19 of the expedition.
We awoke to pretty strong winds this morning. We had to steel ourselves to get out the sleeping bags and get everything packed; which was quite challenging – getting the tent down and getting the gear into the pulks when it was a swirling maelstrom of spindrift out there. But we got going, and we’re glad we did in the end, because actually the wind calmed, and we made some good progress.
And last night, I fitted the half skins onto Martin’s skis. We’ve kind of been waiting to put those on, because obviously it’s a bit more challenging for him, skiing with one arm. So we were just waiting for the right time; for the pulk weight to come down, for the surface to level out, before we did it. So we fitted them last night, and he was off to a flyer today, and was actually travelling much faster and definitely found it less tiring as well. A bit more
glide, but obviously a bit less grip. And towards the end of the day, the terrain did change a bit, became a bit more icy. And then he was almost Bambi on ice at that stage – was slipping
around and had to resort to walking for the last 90 minutes. But also the wind picked up again right towards the end of the day, which wasn’t ideal; when we were looking to get the tent up. It had definitely gone up to a good 35 knots I
would say. So it took the two of us, working in harness, to get the poles into the tent and hang on to this thing, to make sure it didn’t inflate like a balloon, and be lost in the wind.
After a bit of a struggle, we managed to get the tent up and bundle all the kit in.
Then tonight’s tasks, as well as the usual stuff of melting snow, preparing our food and making all our drinks, I’ve been cutting some sections of foam from Martin’s sleeping mat, to make improvised heel blocks. He’s been having some problems with Achilles tendons, they’ve been quite sore. So I’ve been cutting some sections from the mat, and making these little improvised heel blocks and putting them into the bottom of his boots, just to raise his heels a bit and take the tension off his Achilles tendon. Again, this is what these expeditions are all about; improvising when an issue comes up, or a problem, looking at what we’ve got here and how we can utilise it. And improvise. And that worked well.
And that’s also a good reason for not bringing an inflatable thermarest on an Antarctic expedition; you can’t do much with those. And I’ve got one, and it’s already developed a puncture. So I’m sleeping on a deflated mat most nights, which isn’t brilliant, much to Dog’s amusement (I can hear him laughing in the background). So that’s been tonight’s task.
A good day, we managed, despite the strong winds at the end of the day, and Martin slipping about like Bambi on ice, we still managed 15.4 nautical miles. So we were really pleased with that. We’re nearly halfway now to South 84, so we’re going to get out there again tomorrow, hopefully bang out another 15, and we’ll be real close. And we’re really keen to reach South 84, it’s another milestone and that’ll leave us one degree to go to the halfway point of this expedition. A good milestone and exciting times.
That’s all from Lou and Martin for this evening.
Onwards”
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