Is it goldfish syndrome, stubbornness or a desire to succeed that makes us try and try again when we have failed? My grandmother kindly reminded me of my frozen toes the last time we tried this route. Friends commend me on having the courage to try again and my mother says I'm just stubborn and that 'I should just get married'.
But for whatever the reason I am at the eve of our departure for Baffin Island. A documentary on Shackleton and polar travel ominously plays in the background on BBC 2 behind me as I write this note. A glance at the documentary behind me shows the team discussing a broken crampon... let's hope that that will not be a feature of our expedition.
But back to our reality and our expedition. We have different strategies to last time. We have new clothing, another guy to keep us amused and most importantly we're going a month later in the season - much warmer!
Of more interest to you guys at home, you can follow our progress on a spectacular 3D map with a special fly in feature that allows you to sit back and follow our route. We'll be updating our blog everyday and schools can get involved by asking questions which will directly arrive to us to answer through the wonders of satellite communication. Our website and blog site for you to bookmark is: http://www.etelive.org/baffin (Follow 'latest updates' to see the maps).
-------------------------- Je vais ecrire un petit note en francais pour le monde francophone. On partira demain pour nos expedition a Isle de Baffin.
Vous pouvez nous suivre sur nos site de web: http://www.etelive.org/baffin. Regardez vous la carte en 3D!! Trop cool!
Alors, j'espere que je ne vais pas avoir trop froid cette fois et j'espere que vous nous souhaitez le mieux de chance! Dans un mois mes amis...