Going for broke
27th March 2006
Monday turned out to be another good day for Karl and Dimitri. Moved another 6.3 miles in a westerly direction. Although cloudy at times, the weather has remained good and was once again ‘warm’. The lads are in good heart but it’s obvious when you talk to them that they have heavy colds, however Karl states they are simply working through it. They have at last seen a couple of polar bears, but the closest only got to within 300 metres before veering out of the way. There is still a slow northwards drift and once again last night they drifted 1.5 miles northwards .
So far K and D have had a lot of luck, however they realise it would be foolish to push this and consequently have had to re-evaluate the situation. Their main aim now is to get across the remaining miles as quickly as possible before either the weather / ice or both take a turn for the worse.
Accordingly they have dumped some of their equipment, food and fuel in an effort to lighten the load of the sled and therefore move more quickly. It is a calculated risk, but they’d rather take that gamble than get stuck just a day or two away from the Russian coast. So this is it….they are going for broke.
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They must be able to see flagpoles on the Russian coastline!? - between the white outs.
All of their skills and body science come into play now, Feeling shit (virus / cold) is one thing but there is no easy way to beat being cold and short on sleep. Careful pacing with lot’s of confident (distant) support will assist their clarity of thought - [they'll be absolutely dependant on it by now].
They’ve got every element of what it takes - They know it, we know it -
- how about raising the Union Jack on that Russian flagpole! That’s the sort of thing a Para would do!!
There’s your target - First landfall - after you’ve finished kissing it like a Pope - pocket a pebble. I’ll give it a symbolic place in the ACF County HQ - with your Bering Strait success story - for generations of teenage cadets to be inspired to achieve.
Travelling lighter sounds like a real ‘goer’ - I know you’ll make those (relatively few) miles shrink away now!
GO GO GO GO
I salute you guys.