Ho Ho Ho

Hello - We have been slowly building up to the race day which is now Tuesday morning.  Yesterday we took the pulks and ski'd to a campsite where we made camp, cooked, slept, cooked breakfast and were due back to the lodge at 9.00am.  All good training for setting a regime and getting the making and brreaking camp like clockwork. Although it was a lovely morning the weather came in during the afternoon and it got a little chilly, windy and was a complete white out e.g. you could not see the difference between sky and ground, and cannot see any hils, lumps or bumps.  Very hardgoing and time to dig deep.  The camp was only an hour away but that was an hour of hard graft as the skiing is still alien to us.  The training has paid off though as it been manageable.

During the morning we had a satellite phone and comms workshop and covered off a refresher on navigating by the sun at different times of the day (e.g. at  2pm your shadow will be 30 dgrees off North etc). Following that we went shooting with the pump action shotguns.  We have 3 types of cartridge.  Slugs (one big shot in the cartridge - will stop an elephant), plastic bullets (you know what they are - think riots), and bangers which go BANG about 50 metres away.  The idea of the banger is to scare away any bears so dont shoot it past them as they will be running towards you!

We then had a very serious session on polar bears and how to understand their behaviour. Certain movements and positions mean different moods.  To summarise, dont piss them off and if you do try and make them feel better or take v quick evasive action!

This afternoon we have a 2 night expedition on the sea ice. We come back on Monday and get a cooked lunch, supper and get to stay in the lodge (on the floor in our bags) because Tuesday is RACE day and I go off the radar, in communicado for 4 weeks! 

Will update this on Monday night!