Drilling for Water

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Now getting quite proficient at harnessing the team and even Tovok acknowledged me for the first time this morning when I came to harness him to the sled. Really starting to bond with the dogs; their total devotion to pulling the sled is phenomenal, you can’t help but respect them. Also you have to admire their knack of being able to pull something like 200Kgs and crap at the same time! I couldn’t do it; well not intentionally anyway.

We travelled a long way today and part of the journey was from a frozen lake up a very long steep hill. It was knackering as at times you have to get off and either help the dogs or run behind and in the deep snow with the heavy boots on it was quite exhausting. Still the view from the top was magnificent. We finally made camp and my job was to go with some of the other team members down to the lake and drill for fresh water. Initially you have to chop away some of the top ice to make a small indent about the size of a small washing up bowl with an axe then drill into the final layer until you reach the water below. The indent then fills up with water from the lake that you ladle into a plastic container. Once the plastic container is full you tie one end of a length of rope around it and the other end around yourself and drag it across the snow back up the slope to the cabin. Takes quite a few trips for enough water for everyone plus water for washing up and the sauna.

During the day I had found that my camera would no longer switch on and the second battery that I had fully charged before leaving home had gone flat almost immediately and so my camera had packed up. One of the problems is that when you take the camera out to use, the metal case freezes to your fingers. So I decided to put one of the batteries in an inside pocket to warm it up and then I found that the camera burst back into life again. Re-chargeable batteries just don’t like the cold.

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