The wind has settled but it still occasionally tries to blow you over. It is a complete whiteout, but the light is OK. Time to go. Awake at 5 for breakfast and coffee, a process which somehow takes one and a half hours. Then it takes 5 hours to dig the tents and pulks out of the snow, and to pack and collapse the tents.
When we finally get going, the problem is navigation. About 2 metres of snow is visible in detail before the whiteness of the snow melded into the sky in a thousand shades of white. The third person carries the compass and shouts directions to maintain course. We are heading back to Access Point, almost directly south. At one stage the cloud does lift for an hour or so, but generally the whole day was spent in both dreary yet somehow beautiful visual deprivation. When we came a cross a large crevasse, all 9 or us get attached to one rope, with sleds. Every movement is a cluster of clumsiness. We zigzagged using GPS waypoints to avoid some crevasse fields, and again the roping up for the final crevassed descent to the seas was rather comical, if not extremely annoying. Stephen put a ski and half a body in one crevasse, so it was all worth while.
Ah, the sea! 28km over 11 hours. A stella and exhausting effort. We set up tents on small patch of snow and rested well.
The problem for the next day was the sea. A sou'wester brought in a large swell that made getting into the Zodiac impossible. We were stuck here for another day. I explored the point, coming across, an Adelie penguin and a few Gentoos, a Weddell seal, Antarctic fur seals, skuas and gulls. Quite a nice day. As light fell the sea settled, but it was not til the next day we were evacuated from Anvers Island, on day 9! What a relief.
No comments:
Post a Comment