Saturday, May 3, 2014

A severely injured shovel !

2/05, day 14
Distance today : 132 km
Total distance : 791 km
Position N67.862, W45.544, alt 2080m
Moving time : 7:30
Kite used today : Beringer 8s

The choice of the equipment we bring along haas been discussed over and over again, and very well thought. But sometimes we undoubtedly trust without thinking (maybe like a lucky charm) some gear that we've been using forever, that has never failed, that seems unbrakable. This morning, as i was trying to dig out of the snow one of the ancres that was holding a corner of the tent down to the ground i broke my Lexan made shovel. This shovel has travelled the world, and never showed any sign of weakness. And there this morning, crack, it broke ! when we realize the use of such a tool on an expedition llike this one, it certainly is a bit emotional. We'll keep you posted regarding the post recovery operation of the shovel, cause we'll definiely try to fix it somehow.

Back to business ; it looks like we got out of a first 100km of sastrugas, not very high, but very wavy and annoying. Then about 50km were in a kind of white daylight, so we couldn't even notice the contrasts on the snow. At that point we didn't get the landscape information from our vision, but more from shockwaves as we could only react to lanscape changes. Here and there some lack of edge control (very close to make us fall) would wake us up, and keep us fully fucused on our day's mission...

We've passed Sisimiut's lattitude today (Greenland's second biggest town ; about 5 460 inhabitants).

PS :
- Antoine, we haven't gotten the chance yet to honour you with a kilometer of loops
- Special greetings to Francis "le Grec", that we wish to find in great shape !
- Dear regards (and thanks) to my suiss friends Luc and Laurence ; we are going to think of you today while kiting...

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