Blocked on a Little Island
Published on 12.04.2010 - Catlin Arctic Survey - 2
After the anguish that the trio experienced following the crack in the ice that appeared beneath their tent two days ago, it's now in another critical situation.
The scene isn't hard to imagine: on the morning of 11 April, when the three mates got up and left the tent, after an incident-free night this time, they found that they were marooned on a little island, with the ice all around it being both too thin to walk on and too thick for one of them to be able to jump into the water and swim.
What was to be done? As they are polar adventure professionals, the answer was simple: analyse the situation and following that mini brainstorming - if the fact of being blocked was confirmed - to tell themselves that there was nothing for it but to be patient and to wait. Wait and see..
And that's what the three expeditionaries did. And thus taking advantage of a perilous situation, they organised themselves to take it in turns to rest for the whole day. For they were blocked for an entire day. The fact that all three of them slept soundly during that day proves that they really needed the rest and that the physical stress that had penetrated their organisms in the course of these 25 days of adventure was enormous.
The following day, they doubled their speed and progressed by 10 km, taking their sea water samples as planned. On 12 April, the scientists' base camp cook explained how she managed to cook their daily food from frozen victuals (Extreme Cooking).
