Call Trevor now for an entertaining lecture about his expeditions
LECTURES
Seaon 2009/10 Trevor will be lecturing for Travel Dynamics International on the Corinthian II visiting, Falklands, South Georgia, Elephant Island and the Antarctic Peninsular.Travel Dynamics International >
Expedition Cruise to Antartcic
December to January 2003
Humpback Whale, Copyright Trevor Potts 2003
Trevor is now back from Antarctica after his fourth visit, where he was a guest lecturer for Quark the Polar Cruise experts. (www.quarkexpeditions.com) After three previous pilgrimages to Elephant Island when it has been impossible to land on Shackleton's beach, he managed to land at both Cape Rosa where Shackleton made his first landfall on South Georgia and they all slept in a cave on the beach and he landed at Point Wild. Not many people get the opportunity to land at Point Wild on Elephant Island as it is a very inhospitable place. We were not dissapionted this time there was a near gale blowing from the shore which made the zodiac journey very difficult but here was no swell on the beach which made landing possible. Trevor went in first to check out the landing and sent the zodiac back for passengers this gave him a full 20 minutes alone on Point Wild a very emotional moment. Perseverance had paid off, finally after three previous visits he managed to get to the right beach where Shackletons marooned crew had to spend the winter of 1916 before being rescued by the Chileans. The only downside was the light meter on his twenty year old Nikon camera was not working correctly and the photos are badly under exposed
Trevor Potts is best known for his expeditions to Antarctica to re-create Sir ernest Shackleton's epic rescue mission from Elephant Island to South Georgia and his epic crossing of the mountains to get help from the whaling stations. Trevor is a qualified Outdoor Education Teacher with a Certificate in Education. He taught for many years in a variety of Local Education Authority Outdoor Centres. In recent years he has specialised in freelance outdoor education work and expedition lecturing. Trevor was the leader of the only unsupported expedition to successfully repeat Sir Ernest Shackleton's legendary escape from Antarctica.
In 1994, Trevor and his team built a replica of the 22 foot open rowing boat that Shackleton used to sail from uninhabited Elephant Island to South Georgia in 1916 after their ship, the Endurance, was crushed by pack ice (picture and details on the sailing page). The journey involved crossing 800 nautical miles of the Southern Ocean; the most feared piece of water on the planet. Even today, large ships are swamped and sunk by the enormous waves that are generated in the inhospitable seas around Antarctica. Somehow Shackleton � and Potts � came through unscathed.
But the struggle from Elephant Island to South Georgia is only half of the Shackleton story. After 17 days at sea, Sir Ernest finally landed on the uninhabited south side of the island. However, the whaling stations were on the north side 35 miles away across a number of treacherous mountains and glaciers. So Shackleton was forced to cross South Georgia on foot, which at the time was unmapped and unknown. More than a year after The Endurance was crushed, Shackleton returned to Elephant Island to rescue the rest of his men. Not a single member of the party lost his life.
In 2001, Trevor returned to South Georgia to follow Shackleton's footsteps across the island from King Haakon Bay to Stromness. In doing so, he became the only person to have successfully repeated Shackleton's odyssey unsupported by escort/rescue ships.
Trevor now lectures about his Antarctic experiences, blending Shackleton's story with his own unique perspective on the polar hero's achievements. In the past decade, he has spoken at dozens of venues including the Royal Geographical Society, the Scientific Exploration Society, the National Maritime Museum and the Commonwealth Institute. During the northern winter he spends time in Antarctica on cruises ships lecturing about Antarctic History and his own expeditions.
For the corporate audience, Trevor gives an illustrated talk that focuses on Shackleton's famous leadership style, as well as the explorer's commitment to forward planning, organisation and a determination to overcome whatever obstacles were placed in his path. Trevors' delivery has been described as, relaxed and understated with a dry sense of humour: perfect for bringing a fresh and relevant perspective into todays business environment.
In addition to his Antarctic exploits, Trevor was part of a team that completed the only kayak crossing of the Bering Strait from Alaska to Siberia in single seat kayaks, attempted the first kayak circumnavigation of Bylot Island on the northern end of Baffin Island, and sailed single-handedly around the Atlantic islands of the Canaries, the Azores and Madeira. A former Director of the British Marine Industry Federation, for many years he managed a boat-building yard that specialised in traditional wood boats and fibreglass canoes. He is currently establishing an outdoor education centre on the most westerly point of the British mainland. A past recipient of the Cruising Association's Duggan Cup and Fid Trophy, he is playing a centrifugal role in the creation of the newly-established South Georgia Association, and continues to find time to tend the bees that he keeps on his sustainable croft in Scotland.
BYLOT ISLAND BY KAYAK
Polar bears, foxes, seals whales and unicorns, just some of the mammals to be seen in Canada�s Arctic wilderness. The new Inuit led territory of Nunavut based at Iqaluit (Frobisher Bay) on Baffin Island is taking its first tentative steps towards eco-tourism. Our party was one of the very first to visit Bylot Island since its inclusion in the new Sirmilik National Park (place of glaciers) one of three the new governments has set up. Bylot is already an important Bird Sanctuary playing host to almost half a million nesting migratory birds.
Stepping off the First Air flight from Ottawa the contrast was very marked. The temperature had dropped from a very humid 34C in Ottawa to a bracing 9C in Pond Inlet. Paved roads and pretty girls in short dresses gave way to Parka clad mothers doing the school run on an ATV. Pond inlet is at the Northern end of Baffin Island, 300 miles north of the Arctic Circle and only 1000 miles from the North Pole. For the early explores Bylot Island was the westward turning point to head into the north west passage.
Our party of 16 had travelled from as far apart as Tasmania and Scotland to make the first modern attempt at a continuos circumnavigation of Bylot Island. Sitting in the new Nattinnak Centre it looks as though you could almost reach out and touch the mountains, across Eclips sound. The snow covered peaks of Bylot are over 6000 ft high rising straight from the sea, Sirmilik glacier looks deceptively close but is in reality 14 miles away. The first task for our party was to kayak across to Sirmilik.
The tidal flows were much greater than we had been led to believe. We knew this by the speed of the icebergs that were drifting past us on a windless day. Sometimes of course the wind was blowing so hard it was pushing them the other way. The tide would get stronger as we approached a new moon. This strong ebbing tide and an opposing easterly wind with its attendant wind chill and its ability to kick up a steep broken sea could cause us a lot of problems. With a water temperature at a mind numbing 1c a capsize would be fatal. It may be just about possible with a lot of help from the rest of the party to survive. Survival would involve righting the kayak and getting both paddlers back into their cockpits within two minutes. Three minutes and the person would be of no assistance, completely numb and totally useless. Even if it were possible to get a frozen helpless person back into the kayak after a few minutes what next? Hands could not operate the bilge pump or hold a paddle. No paddling action would mean little progress under tow from another kayak, no heat would be generated. Survival would be a slim chance. In 1998 two American paddlers were blown out into Eclipse sound by a sudden increase in wind strength as they approached Mt. Herodier, they did not survive. The reality of the situation was slowly sinking in to our party, although all were experienced sea kayakers many had never experienced paddling in the high arctic. The strategy for the eight double kayaks was to buddy up and to stay close, very close as a group. Eventualy the 14 nautical miles from Herodier to the Sirmilik glacier were paddled in four hours. With strong easterly winds blowing the party had battled into the wind for a day to get to the narrowest point of the sound, this tactic may have proved crucial if the party had been caught out with a rising east wind as the sound became much wider towards the west increasing the width of the crossing. It was however a gamble as the wind and waves tended to increase at the narrowest point because of the funnelling effect. Three days were spent waiting for the strong easterly winds to die down. During this time the group were camped at the foot of Mt. Herodier, it gave time for people to start to get to know each other and to start appreciating this fantastic unspoiled area. Our campsite was overlooking the narrowest point of the crossing where Pond Inlet gives way into Eclipse sound. This area acts as a funnel for marine mammal heading up into the rich relatively ice free feeding grounds The very rare Bowhead whale is a regular visitor as is the much more common Narwhal, the unicorn of the sea with its two metre ivory tusk. On our second evening at Herodier, pod after pod of Narwhal rounded the little point next to the tents and swam swiftly by, many no more than fifty metres offshore. This was the first of many such treats, the pair of peregrine Falcons with two young in a nest on the craggy hillside a short walk from the tents was another. Dick the birdwatcher in the party eventually logged over forty species out of a possible total of just over fifty to be found on Bylot. At this campsite we also saw our first evidence of early Unuit habitation in the form of an old burial site. On the morning we decide to make the crossing it was fairly calm but with a lot of inshore ice to negotiate. There was a fair amount of fog which was a big worry as it always makes navigation very tricky in a small boat. Thankfully the fog cleared away fairly quickly shortly after we set of. On the Bylot side the ebb tide appeared to be flowing at its strongest and a shortsteep chop was encountered which caused some of the group to get very chilled.
The group were generally in good spirits after the crossing, pleased to have completed the first major challenge. The hired kayaks had performed well, despite being laden with thirty days food and fuel for two people, plus climbing and camping kit. There were however one or two niggles with the kayaks, although they were well designed and performed well they were poorly built and some of them leaked badly causing some discomfort and some general apprehension as to their inherent safety.
The next major challenge was the thirty miles of paddling through the mass of shore ice to Dufour Point. The floating pan ice had been pushed in towards the shore and formed a band about half a mile wide. The problem was if we paddled outside it in the wind and tide we may not be able to find a way back in to the shore, for rest or to camp. We decided to stay close to the shore and had a very interesting day route finding through it all, fortunately the day was calm and there was not to much movement and little danger of being crushed between it. The shore ice extended north into Navy Board Inlet before we finally paddled clear of it two days later. Navy Board Inlet was spectacular because of the number of huge icebergs towering over fifty metes high. At regular intervals hundreds of tons of ice would fall away with a loud crack like a rifle shot followed by a low rumbling sound, consequently we never approached closer than about half a mile. There is evidence of Inuit hunting camps up the whole of the west coast of Bylot. Some of the camps such as those between the Akineq and Sermilik Glaciers looked as though they had been permanent summer camps for hundreds if not thousands of years. The fragile ecology is such that during the short growing season it many, many years for any damage to recover or any human detritus to rust, rot or bio-degrade away.. The larger Inuit settlements on the exposed shoreline where there is little annual grow which eventually buries the site in mare southern latitudes are rather like partly excavated archaeological digs. On a number sites we visited overlying much of this archaeological evidence of hundreds if not thousands of years of continues use, there are the trappings of present day Inuit such as old oil drums and parts of snowmobiles. The accepted practice for visitors is not to take anything away and not to leave anything behind in an effort to preserve these sites as much as possible. We packed out all of our rubbish, leaving behind the residue of burnt plastic is unacceptable. We were also careful not to light a driftwood fire anywhere that may leave a permanent scar that would take many years to green over.