Monday, May 12, 2014

Rythm, and decision making

11/05, camp 22
Distance today : 0
Total distance : 1525 km
Position : same as yestderday

Our rythm of progression and current life is tightly connected to weather conditions. Nothing is planned or written. And that is a challenge : we constantly have to adapt and be flexible. A day could last for about 30 hours if the wind allows for great progression. A rest time can be very short if the wind is constantly changing and we need to be on our toes to grab every little bit that's possible.

Rythms are also different amongst us : one could need more sleep than the other ; or prefers mornings over evenings ; or would like to stop while the other one would prefer to keep going...
We don't even kite at the same speeds : our weight are different enough so that we don't have the same feelings using the same wings : one can have to small of a wing when for the other it'd seem plenty.
Those small differences have effects on our directions, speed and behaviours while kiting. It's not always very easy to deal ; we constnatly need to adjust our behaviour accordingly.

We daily receive weather forecasts (from Marc) ; from there each of us go on with his own analysis. Then we take decisions and makes choices. It's not always easy to agree on everything. There is always the question whether we're taking the right decisions. We're always trying to understand how this mass of ice works, accoring to winds, temperatures. It requires a lot of observation, previous knowledge, forecasts and advices we got. But it's a very complex mixture, and we sometimes realize that we totally got something wrong.

2 days ago we stayed in our tents while we now think we should have gone out and kite on some weak (but real) winds just to go a few extra kilometers forward. This morning, after a short rest we packed everthing and decided to kite... we set up camp about 300m further : there was not enough wind to drag us and our pulkas.

Today there is no air at all where we're located, it's rare enough to mention it ! The forecaast for the next days is not very promising. Today we're more dreaming of the "Maelstöhm" than anything elase really...

PS :
we wanted to warmly thank :
- Damien Fourcy, who gave us access to valuable tools that allowed us to anylize the surface of the inlandsis and of the glaciers thanks to satellite images. Thanks Damien, for the great work.
- The Flying frogs team (Narsaq-Kangerlussuaq with kites in 2006), especially Bernard Schmidt (for sharing with us his expedition datas and logs), and Frederic Donze

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