HMS Endurance Kayak Team Blog

26th February
Its 1055am the day after my return from the expedition. I have just left the bridge after being back as the Officer of the Watch for the first time. I feel quite drained and certainly more drained than I did for the whole of the expedition.

When I was out in the field I felt like I could keep going for an infinite amount of time, working through our daily routine and building up the miles. However, now I’m quite certain I could not go and do another expedition like that straight away again. It takes a lot out of you both physically and mentally. I am really pleased with the way the expedition went and the amount we achieved in our compressed time scale. I am also so happy to be back onboard so I can easily contact my friends and family. To be able to speak with my fiancée, Sophie last night was the best thing for me. To reassure her that I was OK and still thinking of her was so important.

However the expedition was excellent and we all learnt so much and are all far better paddlers and far better at cold weather survival because of it. Here are a few things we learnt:

How to pack a boat so that all the commonly used items are easily accessed and stowed after use.
How to paddle in an economical manner to cover the maximum number of miles in a day possible.
How to paddle through high concentrations of ice of up to 9/10ths.
How to cope with a capsize in extreme temperatures.
And most of all how to work as a team; a part of a kayaking expedition which aims to be unsupported for a large number of days.

I am confident that we can come back and give the circumnavigation another attempt. It is certainly possible and with enough time we would have been able to complete our paddle this time around. Instead, we learnt a huge amount and will be far better prepared if we ever get another chance.

There is huge scope for an expedition of this sort as we have access to many areas that cannot be accessed by ships or helicopters and therefore there would be a huge amount we could do as part of a scientific project in the future.

Overall the expedition was amazing. It fulfilled everything I wanted to get from the expedition; except the knowledge that we were the first to circumnavigate James Ross Island. Though we can probably claim the circumnavigation of Vega Island as a `first’ in kayaks it is not the same as James Ross Island which has a much grander history and is a far greater challenge.

Hopefully the challenge of circumnavigating this great island will not remain unachievable for long. Due to global warming the island has less and less ice around it each year. Unfortunately for us 2007 was a year when it had higher concentrations than the previous two years. Overall it is important to remember that although the receding ice caps open up great possibilities for science and exploration, global warming is the greatest challenge facing the world today and we need to do as many things as we can to help counteract it. This starts at home and not in the Antarctic. Though hopefully through expeditions like this and through the science conducted by the British Antarctic Survey we can help raise public awareness.

Endurance Kayak