Smooth sailing and stormy weather

Arctic adventurers are on schedule 425km into their 3,500km journey.

They began the week topless, playing improvised ice baseball in the sun as they waited for the wind to return. But six days later, as they tackled their third week on Greenland's ice sheet, Arctic explorer Adrian Hayes and his teammates found themselves sheltering from a snowstorm after their longest and most successful day so far, reflecting on another turbulent trek.

It all began, an upbeat Hayes said by satellite phone, with birthday celebrations for his Canadian teammates Derek Crowe and Devon McDiarmid last weekend. "Last Friday we had two days of no winds, sitting in a tent unable to move anywhere," he recalled yesterday. "We ended up playing a bit of baseball with a shovel and snow." He added: "Derek had a birthday last week, and Devon. They brought along a little cocktail and there have been a few messages sent to them."

But the fun was interrupted on Saturday with the arrival of strong winds and a series of problems. "We had a bit of a bad day, to be honest," said Hayes, 46. "We lost fuel bottles, which came out of the bottom of Devon's sled. They were strewn across the ice over about 10km, so we had to go back and get those. We also lost a litre of fuel. You put retaining straps on caps to stop them falling out, but one came loose."

Hayes and the two Canadian are attempting to cross the world's second-largest ice sheet, unassisted, on a hitherto untraversed 3,500km route from the Atlantic to the Arctic. They are using wind power to kite-ski and haul their 150kg sleds. If successful, the expedition will make history as the longest unassisted Arctic journey. Hayes, a former British Army Gurkha, whose feet bear the scars of years of military service and three previous polar expeditions, has struggled to get comfortable with his boots and a harness.

"On any expedition, you take some time to sort your equipment out. I just took a little long to sort out my harness," he said. "It was digging in and causing pain where you don't want pain and things like that." As for his feet, he said: "They are well worn and well used and a bit misshapen from various things, and boots do tend to rub the wrong way. My feet are pretty much plastered in zinc tape to avoid blisters, and I've had to carve into my boots with a knife to relieve pressure while my feet settle."

But since Sunday, the men have enjoyed a largely uninterrupted week of usable winds, with Wednesday being the most exhausting day so far. "We started off with a bit of a whiteout, high winds, and we used a 12-metre kite, and then it all got a little too strong," Hayes said. "It was gusting to 25-knot winds so we took a little break in the tent, and then we went from 5pm to 9:30pm. "The sun was setting, there was good music on the iPod, good snow conditions - it was just great, and we were really moving fast. We covered 99km in total, which is our best so far."

Each day the three wake at 6am to the song of a few sparrow-like birds that have been following them. The explorers spend the next two and a half hours preparing for the day, boiling snow or ice to make breakfast before laying out their kites and packing their things away. Depending on the wind speed and conditions, they may ski until 5pm or even 9pm, he said: "There's no set routine. When we have got wind we go and when there is no wind we rest up."

Flexibility, Hayes said, was key. That and a good soundtrack. "I borrowed a mini iPod Shuffle from a friend, and this thing plays various music as I go along. I have no control over what's on it, which is probably for the best," he said, laughing. "It's just a mixture of new age music and Coldplay, and things like that. Despite covering only 425km of their route's 3,500km, the team are so far on schedule to reach the Arctic Circle within the next week - a goal they had set for themselves. [e-mail]