Two Months To Go

60 days before the expedition starts. I am excited about it but I can't say that I was in the same excitement and nervousness level as I was for the North Pole. I think mostly because having been to the North Pole help and also I have been preparing for this since the beginning of the year.

Having said that, I do have a lot of things to prep for this trip, strangely. From additional gear acquisition to technology, everything is still not yet in place.

I bought a new anorak 3 days ago (and on its way to me). The one I used in the North Pole is goretex which is not suitable for South Pole apparently. Goretex is waterproof and breathable. But since South Pole is going to be super dry and breathability of goretex stops working under -20C, there is little use. The new anorak is made of nylon and been tested (as it was said and recommended by ANI) so I have no option but trust it.

On the technology front, it was unfortunate that I cannot rent a tracker. The only place I found on the internet that (used to) rent out this device is in Australia but they no longer do so. They only sell the device along with monitoring packages. If I was richer, I probably would purchase it and use away. But even if that's the case, I still have to improvise the battery or recharge it somehow because the battery life only lasts 8 hours.

So instead, I will use my satellite phone and GPS to do it manually. I will dispatch my GPS location every night. This was part of the plan anyway but the plot will not look as smooth and web followers will not be able to see my movement every hour or two.

Speaking of this, I still have to develop my own Java application to handle the messages I'm going to send and plot the traverse path on Google Earth or Google Map. It'll be some work too. Hopefully two months is enough to write and test the app before I go. I also have my brother in law to host this app for me so in that sense I have someone to take care of any outages or hiccups with the program while I am on the ice.

Lots of more things to do but not sure it's its too little time. It remains to be seen.