Navigating the boulders (From Bucks Free Press)

Arctic survey blog: Navigating the boulders

1:20pm Friday 13th March 2009 in News

By Pen Hadow

Posted on March 6

The temperature has remained at a bitterly cold -40 degrees all day.

We’ve been trying to navigate a way through, around and over huge boulders of smashed up ice, some as big as a car.

Heavy sledges, poor light, bitterly cold temperatures all contribute to pitifully slow progress, however this is very much the norm in the early stages of a Polar expedition.

We are resigned to several weeks of daily discomfort and general misery, safe in the knowledge that conditions, progress and general wellbeing will improve over the coming months.

Ultimately this is our chosen career, we wouldn’t have it any other way – if such a job were easy everyone would be doing it.

Despite the hardships and truly inhospitable conditions we are privileged to be experiencing the raw and savage beauty of the Arctic Ocean first hand.

At this moment in time we would not have it any other way!

• Taken from the blog at www.catlinarcticsurvey.com