Ben Saunders - Polar Explorer, Motivational Speaker

Aaarrgh!

I was all ready to write a cheery post on our day in Greenland, when something disastrous happened. Somewhere between my Pentax *ist digital SLR camera (yes, it's called an *ist and no, I don't know how that's pronounced) and my iPAQ (the dinky palm-top computer I write these updates on) we managed to lose an entire storage card's worth of photos. 256mb - at least 80 pictures, as far as I can remember. We're not entirely sure why it happened, but an investigation is under way and there are several suspects.

We had taken some photos we really loved and so i was absolutely gutted to lose them. Tony tried to cheer me up by introducing me to the 'is it bigger than a toaster game'. It's basically a guessing game, with the only proviso being that the first question must be 'is it bigger than a toaster?' Apparently purists will always follow this with the question 'is it smaller than an alsatian?' I am beginning to have severe questions regarding his mental health . . .

Digital photos aside, today was awesome. We skied until late this evening and spent much of the day roped up, negotiating a steep crevasse field with our heavy sledges in tow. Crevasses are one of the big dangers we'll face in Antarctica later this year and we're both feeling far more confident around them after today.

Tony stuck the camera out of the tent door a minute ago to get this photo. The big snow sculpture is actually a six-foot-high cairn marking a depot of food and fuel we've buried. The reason we're practicing this will become more apparent later this year… As for now, does anyone know if data can be recovered from seemingly 'wiped' SD cards?

{ Filed under Greenland on Sunday, May 22nd, 2005. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site. }