Well, I’m here in Lima awaiting my wedding day with Esther on July 2. I was hoping for a chilled out time before the big day (although you’ll be pleased to know I temporarily joined a gym here to keep the training going!). However, I have had my own mini adventure before the big day trying to replace all the clothes - including my wedding suit - that the airline lost when they sent my luggage to somewhere in Mexico (I think).

Anyway, at this time I’m trying to balance the upcoming needs of married life with the plans for Polar Vision. I am a lucky guy, not just to have met my future wife Esther, but also that she has been so supportive. Its often easy to get tied up in all the various necessities of trying to put this together (Polar Vision, not the wedding… at her choice, that’s strictly Esther’s domain ), but you also have to remember about those you leave behind. I guess its a delicate balancing act of family at home, the team and the challenge, and of course the cause which we are aiming to support.

Although I cannot really appreciate the beauty of Peru in the same way as other people, I can still take in the feeling of being here in a new place and facing the start of my next big challenge. I guess that’s the same as being in Antarctica. I won’t be able to see so much, but I can take in the feeling of being in such a special place. Plus, to be honest all that whiteness will get dull after a while, surely? Anyway, it makes me appreciate what I do have, which is more than many others, particularly those that Guide Dogs and Sightsavers International support.

Well, I need to head off to plan the next few days. I am lucky and grateful that two of the team - Richard and Andrew - have flown out for the wedding. I have been trying to find a good 12 mile loop to drag a tyre around….. (just kidding guys….)

-Alan Lock

I just spent the last four days backpacking the King’s Range portion of the Lost Coast in Northern California (website here:http://www.blm.gov/pgdata/content/ca/en/fo/arcata/kingrange/index.html… it’s described as a spectacular meeting of land and sea).

The area is called “The Lost Coast” because of the large amount of seismic activity in the region. Seismic activity created lots of large mountains, so the original designers of Highway 101 were forced to pull the highway away from the ocean, and the cost was “lost”.

That loss is now everyone’s gain, because the place is very isolated, rugged, and beautiful. You walk along black sandy beaches in a few short feet between ocean and mountain. Indeed, for several miles of the hike this stretch is tiny enough that hikes must be timed with the tide tables, because at high tide hikers have been swept away.

My second night out on the coast a heavy fog rolled in from the sea. I was camping in a grove of redwood trees, trying to get some shelter from the persistent sea wind which dogged me for the duration of the trek. The fog fully blotted out the light of the stars and moon. Whatever residual light that might have shown through was then subsequently blocked by four or five or sixteen layers of leaves from the redwoods above. When I turned off my flashlight I was facing total darkness.

Conditions that dark really aren’t natural. There’s usually some kind of light that can be seen. This was a peculiar combination of factors that made where I was about as dark as dark can get on the surface of the earth.

The human body struggles to react to conditions which aren’t natural. Darkness of the kind I experienced there doesn’t just sit in front of your eyes and wait for you to grope along until you bang your shin on something or stub your toe or fall into a ditch. Total darkness seems to actually enter the face… not just through the eyes. Darkness like that seems to almost have a smell… to enter the sinuses, to sit on the surface of the face, not like a blanket, because blankets have some substantive and cloying nature, but rather, defines itself and dominates its presence through its very absence. Your ocular nerves are not picking up any stimulus, which almost never happens, and they start rebelling and freaking out.

I, of course, still had my flashlight. When I turned it back on I got a tiny circle of perception surrounded a darkness that was reinforced beyond even what it’d been when it was all I could see. I think it helped me realize there are things I don’t realize I’m failing to notice. I most likely won’t, for example, live without the use of my eyesight. Working on Polar Vision, however, lets me realize the challenges people without the use of their vision every day. Our group’s work with Sightsavers International reinforces my realization that preventable blindness is worth preventing (did you know a dose for a drug called Mectizan (http://www.mectizan.org/ costs less than a dollar and prevents a disease called river blindness for a year? Last year Sightsavers distributed almost 22 million doses of the drughttp://www.sightsavers.org/learn_more/causes_of_blindness/river_blindness/). I think people should know about the work Sightsavers is doing. I think they deserve as much support as possible.

The team has got lots more great summer training up ahead! We all sincerely hope you are enjoying your summer as well.

Andrew Jensen

A few weeks ago, we were proud to announce Sean Swarner joining the team. As a youngster, Sean was diagnosed with some very rare forms of cancer, read his last rites, and was in a coma for a year. It’s an amazing story… you should check out his website at www.seanswarner.com.

Sean survived his cancer and went out to climb the highest summit on each of the seven continents (including Antarctica). Now, Sean is returning to the frozen south to head all the way to the Pole with us.

His addition to the team has especial resonance with me. Two years ago I lost my mother to ovarian, stomach, and colon cancer. Colon cancer, currently the third most prevalent form of cancer for women (after breast and lung), is often diagnosed very late. After my mom was diagnosed, she only had a little more than two months before she
passed.

Two months! She knew the prognosis was grim. She didn’t have the odds in her favor. Rather than submit to hopelessness, however, she used the last weeks available to her. Mom saw all her loved ones to say goodbye. She reached out to people she felt she might have wronged (or who had wronged her) to achieve closure and forgiveness. She even kept up some of her work with the Hepatitis C society.

One of the common questions we get asked on the Polar Vision team is if we’re scared about the conditions down at the Pole. The typical answer we give, after a tough looking shrug, is that we’re not scared, we’re prepared. Indeed, prepare we have. Our training in Canada was arduous and colder than what we’ll face in Antarctica.

Still, I get quizzical looks sometimes when I say I’m not afraid. I guess the looks are quizzical because folks don’t understand I have this source of strength from seeing my mom. After the surgery to remove malignant tissue from my mom removed critical digestive components of her body, she knew the end was coming soon. As I said before, she carried on.

For two months she carried on. Well, we hope to be walking across Antarctica for less than that. Things will get cold, distances will appear insurmountable, but what we’re facing is comparatively easy.

When I read about what Sean is doing with his own organization and with ours, I get inspired. Even though my mom has passed, her legacy lives on in me and in those she touched with her life. Alan is proving to a lot of people there is life after losing your eyesight. I think Sean is helping to show me that there is life after cancer.

-Andrew