Off to the Pole

The first day of the expedition proper is a relaxed start with us needing to be at the airport at 10am and having packed and sent our sleds and equipment to the airport yesterday afternoon. However, as the morning progresses, concerns rise over the bad conditions at Barneo and after waiting for an hour or so at the airport we are eventually told that the pilots have called off the flight for the day. Apparently it is quite mild up there but very windy so the snow is being blown up into the air cfiticaly reducing the visibility - if Russian polar pilots say it is too dangerous to fly, you know that the conditions are terrible!!

This gives us an unexpected additional day in Longyearbyen together with nerves as to the implications for our likelihood of reaching the pole. The guides seem pretty calm about this but don’t provide the greatest reassurance by going on to say that they have never not reached the pole and on prior trips the helicopter has picked them up on the last day and flown them the rest of the way to the pole before heading back to Barneo. I commented that I, and perhaps others although I wasn’t presuming to speak for them, was really rather keen that we reached the Pole under our own steam rather than via the helicopter and that one option would be to do an extra hour or two each day to catch up the time we missed. Luckily, my rather British way of phrasing things had been laughed at and commented on enough on the trip so far that I was comfortable that the meaning would not get lost in the translation.
 
This extra day was a good opportunity to join the local Liverpool fan club in their corner of the largest bar in town for the game against Reading.

Typical Liverpool - should have scored 7 or 8 but in fact managed none and yet another keeper had the game of their lives against them!

The rest of the day was pretty quiet and an early night in preparation for the big day. There was time to get very annoyed by a TV program about 2 Brits who were driving all the way to the South Pole in a world record attempt and managed to heavily over-dramatise every challenge they faced - everything was life threatening and potentially disastrous including the fact that it was -30c outside despite that fact that they were driving in a heated 4x4. Perhaps I need to make my expeditions sound a bit more death defying...