Pete arrived back in the UK yesterday after a successful week of training with Niall and Murray in Tasiilaq on the east coast of Greenland. The boys were slightly delayed in getting their helicopter out onto the icecap because a member of a large team that had already begun their traverse had an emotional breakdown and refused to leave his tent and his team were forced to evacuate. So the small airport was a bit too busy to get our lovely monkeys out on schedule. None of the teams have successfully completed the traverse this season and a number of evacuations and rescues have already taken place. This is down to any number of things - colder than usual temperatures, people not being able to cope with the extreme environment and sometimes simply down to people being ill prepared. Given their new kit, mental resiliance and excellent training I have every expectation that Niall and Murray will buck this trend and make it across in good time and come out the other end the smiling fruit and nuts we know and love.
After all of the drama with the other team Niall and Murray eventually made it out yesterday afternoon and managed to fit in 2hrs skiing, covering 6km, before pitching camp for the night. They called me at 1am (I think the cold had already made them have a time difference brain malfunction) last night to say things were great, at least that's what I think they said - the connction was so bad I could barely make out a word. I was expecting a call this morning with a full update but they're clearly having problems picking up a signal on the sat phone. By about 3pm I was getting slightly anxious so I called Matt at Expedition Greenland who informed me they'd left a message this morning with their position and that all was well. Minor panic over.
And while EPIC Greenland has been kicking off I have been consoling myself over not being out on the ice by starting to look for a boat for EPIC Tasman, and this week I think I found the perfect one. When I called Tara to tell her the news she was like a kid in a candy store. So she and I are about to launch headfirst into ocean rowing expedition madness - chasing up sponsors, calling in favours and begging, borrowing and stealing everything we need to get ourselves and the rest of the team to the start line next January. We are eternally optomisitic that this will happen but are quite reliant on sponsorship and grants so the candy store kids are having to keep one foot firmly in their boxes and remember that we might not be able to pull this around in 7 months and may have to postpone until 2011. It's been a very difficult time for many expedition teams lately. The current economic climate is making us all feel like Indiana Jone chasing after his unreachable holy sponsorship grail.
And some icing on the cake (yes a sweet treat themed blog today) was Ed D suggesting we all do an ultramarathon later this year. Ed J has already done one so I'll leave them, and anyone else on the team mad enough to torture themselves, to their little bit of lunacy. In my mind this fits into the same bag that ocean rowing fits into for most of our readers - the absolutely stark raving bonkers loony nut house bag. But then we wouldn't be able to live up to our motto of venturing where few dare if that weren't the case.
After all of the drama with the other team Niall and Murray eventually made it out yesterday afternoon and managed to fit in 2hrs skiing, covering 6km, before pitching camp for the night. They called me at 1am (I think the cold had already made them have a time difference brain malfunction) last night to say things were great, at least that's what I think they said - the connction was so bad I could barely make out a word. I was expecting a call this morning with a full update but they're clearly having problems picking up a signal on the sat phone. By about 3pm I was getting slightly anxious so I called Matt at Expedition Greenland who informed me they'd left a message this morning with their position and that all was well. Minor panic over.
And while EPIC Greenland has been kicking off I have been consoling myself over not being out on the ice by starting to look for a boat for EPIC Tasman, and this week I think I found the perfect one. When I called Tara to tell her the news she was like a kid in a candy store. So she and I are about to launch headfirst into ocean rowing expedition madness - chasing up sponsors, calling in favours and begging, borrowing and stealing everything we need to get ourselves and the rest of the team to the start line next January. We are eternally optomisitic that this will happen but are quite reliant on sponsorship and grants so the candy store kids are having to keep one foot firmly in their boxes and remember that we might not be able to pull this around in 7 months and may have to postpone until 2011. It's been a very difficult time for many expedition teams lately. The current economic climate is making us all feel like Indiana Jone chasing after his unreachable holy sponsorship grail.
And some icing on the cake (yes a sweet treat themed blog today) was Ed D suggesting we all do an ultramarathon later this year. Ed J has already done one so I'll leave them, and anyone else on the team mad enough to torture themselves, to their little bit of lunacy. In my mind this fits into the same bag that ocean rowing fits into for most of our readers - the absolutely stark raving bonkers loony nut house bag. But then we wouldn't be able to live up to our motto of venturing where few dare if that weren't the case.
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