Saturday, March 23, 2013

Maps

Being a bit of an out of the way place, It can be difficult to find good mapping for Greenland. Saga maps produce a couple of really nice maps of the Ammassalik area fortunately but there is nothing available from the major gps manufacturers.
I use a Garmin GPSMAP62s GPS, a robust and useful GPS but no decent maps of Greenland are available for it. Soooo, one of the really nifty features of some Garmin products is the ability to load georeferenced scanned paper maps in. The end result is an accurate, highly detailed map. Below are a couple of screenshots from the Custom maps I loaded into the GPS compared to the world base map that came with the GPS. Pretty cool huh?






Wednesday, March 20, 2013

More sponsorship :-)

I received great news today when the Managing Director of Norske Skog Boyer (the company that I work for) confirmed that he would be able to assist with supplying me with an Iridium satellite phone.

This means I will now have the DeLorme InReach unit as my primary form of communication and the Iridium phone as a vital backup. Travelling solo in the Greenland landscape on expedition without access to weather forecasts is really not an option so it is vital to have more than one way to access forecasts and other communications. That was the final part of the jigsaw of logistics and now it is simply up to me to prepare for the trip physically.

It is amazing and wonderful to see how individuals and companies are willing to help someone undertake something a little more challenging than the norm. It's pretty cool to see how people understand and support a sense of adventure and I am very grateful.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Sponsors


DeLorme InReach SE
 Great news! DeLorme InReach has come onboard and agreed to sponsor me with one of their unique and incredibly useful InReach units DeLorme InReach. The new InReach SE, to be released in June, is a standalone unit capable of sending and receiving messages via the Iridium satellite network anywhere on Earth. It can also pair up to an iPhone or Android phone to display my position on downloaded maps on the phone. Weather forecasts will be vital and the InReach unit will be my conduit for receiving these daily.The InReach will also send out tracking markers that will show my location and progress in real time. The other very important fuction that the InReach provides is an SOS signal in case of serious trouble requiring rescue similar to an Epirb or PLB. The amazing thing that differentiates this unit from every other is that a confirmation signal comes back to the unit to let the user know that the message has been received providing peace of mind for the person requiring rescue.


Mont Epoch
 Mont Outdoors is sponsoring me as well, supplying their superb outdoor equipment for my trip to Greenland. I will be using their 4+ season 2 person Epoch tent, Mont Epoch a very strong shelter suitable for extreme conditions. I will also be using a Mont Spindrift Mont Spindrift sleeping bag rated to c. -15 degrees C. Mont have been manufacturing sleeping bags for a very long time now and are one of the few true quality sleeping bag manufacturers left in Australia. They are supplying me with one of their brilliant Lightspeed jackets, a well designed Hydronaute Pro jacket suitable for all conditions. I will also be using their fleece clothing and an Icicle down jacket for those chilly nights. I have used Mont gear for a long time and it is all superbly functional, innovative and very well designed.
  
Mont Spindrift sleeping bag

 
Mont Icicle down jacket
 



















Mont Lightspeed jacket

Smitten Merino Clothing Smitten is supplying their very classy and warm  wollen undergarments. Well made and very durable, the beauty about wool is that you can, when necessary, wear it for days on end and not get too much of a pong going :-) Definitely easier on the nose than polypro.
Smitten Merino in Greenland