Guy Fawkes Night (Log #4)
L O U ' S D I A R Y
Lou completed eight hours skiing today and bolted on an extra hour as he builds up his days. He achieved 11 nautical miles and has now firmly hit Polar travel mode. No overheating issues yesterday. Lower temperatures are helping me to keep steady body temperature throughout the day...
Nov 5 2018 –
Good evening everyone,
This is Lou reporting in from day 3 of the expedition. I’d like to wish everyone a happy Guy Fawkes night from my tent, out here in the middle of Antarctica – although I suspect by the time you get this it will be the following day – but I hope everyone has a great evening.
A much better day for me today than yesterday. I had a pretty rough day yesterday with lots of issues but conditions are much better. I woke up this morning to a bit of a stiff breeze outside the tent which can sound a bit daunting when you’re inside the tent but it’s never quite as bad when you get out in it. This drove the temperature down a bit as well which actually suited me a lot better. I didn’t have the overheating issues I had yesterday, sweating and base layer getting damp and getting dehydrated – the lower temperatures really suited me. I was much better able to maintain steady body temperature throughout the day. So that worked really well for me. I just felt better – I’m more into my groove – having sweated the final bit of civilisation out of me yesterday and now I’m firmly in Polar travel mode and feel a whole lot more comfortable, which is great.
“Now I'm firmly in Polar travel mode and feel a whole lot more comfortable, which is great...”
Sun was out, with great conditions, and I was able to use my shadow for navigating most of the day which saved me staring at the compass. Ever hour I would check with the compass, realign with my shadow, and just ski on that, which makes life a whole lot easier.
For my eight hours skiing today – I bolted on an extra hour as I’m slowly building up my days – so I went to eight hours today – and in that time I managed to achieve 11 nautical miles which is really pleasing. I was quite surprised when I flicked on the GPS at the end of the day to discover how far I’d gone. I’m working in nautical miles out here which works a lot better for me as I’m travelling South in degrees of latitude towards the South Pole. The South Pole is 90 degrees South and I’m currently now at 82 degrees South. Every degree is evenly split into 60 nautical miles and so it’s much easier for me in my head to calculate how far I’ve got to go to the next degree line so I’m working in nautical miles. Overall a much, much better day.
I’m going to start a few thank yous now with my blogs – there’s a whole lot of people who’ve been involved in this expedition in many different ways, who’ve helped to make this happen and in getting me to this point.
My first thank you this evening is to Wendy Searle, who is the expedition manager. I thought I’d better thank Wendy first as I forgot to do it at the send-off event and got into a whole heap of trouble!
Wendy, thank you – you’re my expedition partner in crime over many trips, and Wendy is going to be the link to me over the course of this expedition. All the blogs that you’re going to be seeing, everything is going to be compiled by Wendy and doing that for every day of the expedition – New Year, Christmas. It’s huge commitment and she’s done it before for expeditions I’ve been on so huge thank you to Wendy for all you’ve done.
