Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
things were going well when a near disaster befell us. The leads of water
we are crossing now are blacker than ever, as dark as engine oil that has
not been changed for years. To bridge one wide lead, we had hooked
our sleds together and were rafting across one by one, pretty much
textbook stuff, when Jose thought he'd film himself floating across the
water. He made it to the other side, where Eric, Clark and I were wait-
ing, and told us that he wanted to shoot Eric telling the camera how we
had just crossed the water. Jose lost concentration momentarily and
stepped backwards onto a dodgy surface. The ice gave way, and in he
went with a crack and a splash. I was close to him, and I grabbed him
and held him up until Eric reached us; then together we hauled him
out before the top half of his body went under. The ice was breaking up
all around us, and it was a struggle to keep hold of him.
Jose was in the water longer than Eric had been when he fell in,
and his clothing and boots were drenched. Although he was scared—
as were we all—that he had hypothermia, he managed to joke that
he had a swimming pool's worth of water in each boot. We hurriedly
stripped off his wet outer garments and kept him running up and
down on the ice to try to get him warm quickly, then we rolled him
in the snow, covered him with it and rubbed it into his gear to absorb
the salt from the water. Clothing that has been immersed in salt water
takes an age to dry out over the stove in the tent, and the process eats
up a lot of gas power.
A few moments more in that water and Jose would have perished,
no question. It was fortunate for him that we were close at hand,
because he would not have been able to haul himself out. Up here, we
are close to death every day. You can't take your mind off the job for an
instant.
aPril 29
As usual, I am going crazy at the amount of rest time we are having.
Today, we had to cross a lot of water, and, instead of pushing a little
longer to make up the kilometres lost yesterday, Eric settled for 16 kilo-
metres for the whole day. It's so frustrating. We could easily be ten days
further on than this. I do understand that Eric needs to take Jose and
Clark into account as well: his priority is to deliver everyone to Canada
in good condition, and he is well on his way to doing that.
