Sunday, April 27, 2014

The michelin guys are back on the ice cap !

26/04/2014, day 8
Distance today : 88 km
Total distance : 270 km
Position : N63.314, W47.881, alt 2140m
Moving time : 7h30
Wings used today : Speed 19, speed 10 ; winds 12 to 30 km/h

At this lattitude in Greenland, at that time of year, there is still some hours of night (about 4 to 5), and that sets quite a bit the aerology of the area : temperature dropping at night generates more stable air flow on the surface on the ice (catabatic winds), and that usually happens between 7pm and 10am the day after.

In the afternoon, those winds are almost gone ; we therefore have to stop for a while between the wind system restarts again. As we cannot afford to waste time setting up camp every time, we are waiting outside.

The most efficient kite time would be between 7pm and 10 am, over night to get the most of the catabatics. But it's hard then to keep focus, to manage the hazards, and to maintain our bodies at good temperature.

So we just have to kite whenever we can, a bit in between, with pros and cons : in the afternoon we struggle a bit to keep progressing ; it gets a lot better during the evening ; and it's intense over night time.

That's why it's a bit hard at the moment to be efficient for very long, and therefore show better progression...

We would like to share a thought for towards our good friend Arnaud "Nono" Noel, who was doing all the communication coordination in 2008, when we crossed Greenland, from south to north.

And let's cheer for
- Laurent, franco-icelandic coordinator ; he makes sure you get our news, and get them transalted to both blogs (english and french)
- Rom and RĂ©mi who are keeping a hand on our "lattitudes nord" facebook
- Thomas, who is preparing the prorgession maps everyday (under the tab "prorgession" of the web site)
- Sylvie, who "spies" on our friends/competitors belgo-canadians, which makes us feel less "alone" on the ice cap :-)

All the best to you dear firends...

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