The Goliath Expedition

31st March 2006
I got a call from Karl this morning (09:00 UK) (23:00 Thurs AK), stating that from yesterday’s location they had made it to within half a mile of the shoreline but had to stop due to lack of light. They had come across some open-water with a 9ft wall of ice on the opposite side. They managed to find a way around this then discovered they were on ice that was attached to the shore. It was quite the roughest they had seen so far, however it was old ice and not going anywhere so they were quite confident they wouldn’t just drift away during the night.

I had to wait until 22:00 (UK) for Karl to come back to me with the confirmation they had reached land. His first words were “Terra Firma!” It would appear they had landed before noon and were on a thin strip of land running along the coast. Needless to say they were elated and mightily relieved. They were then going to make their way down to the settlement of Uelen (see the attached maps), some 3.5 miles away. The settlement is probably just a collection of huts and if anybody lives there then this should give the inhabitants something to talk about for the whole of next week.

After that they will be making their way down the coast, a couple of hundred miles to the settlement of Provideniya where they hope to sort things out with the authorities! That could be a whole other adventure. Dimitri hopefully plans to fly back to the US from there. Unless K&D can find some sort of internet connection / or telephones in the settlements along the coast then communications could become somewhat sporadic. If we have to rely on the satphone then we’ll have to be extremely frugal with airtime as Karl only has three batteries left. But, you never know what’s going to turn up around the corner with this expedition and we’ll keep you updated as best we can.