Yesterday (27 Feb) we visited TELENOR main office at Fornebu and had a lesson in basic use of the maritime VHF radios provided to our expedition; the Standard Horizon HX 870 E. This radio is far more advanced than what we are used to and give us a lot more opportunities and safety.
When TELENOR learned to know about our Expedition, they where keen to support us, because this expedition is quite longer and more exposed than most expeditions are. We will also try to give something back to future kayakers, by establishing a pattern of coverage for small hand held radios close to the water.
We have now finished preparing and packing all our communications and electronic gear.
In addition to the radios, both of us have a Garmin InReach GPS with tracker and the possibility to communicate by TXT through the Iridium Global network. We have a camera and cellphone, and thanks to good friends, we have solar panel to charge our Powerbanks, and the kit has been adjusted to fulfill our particular needs.
We are planning to make a blog update pr week and pictures to our back office when the opportunities arise.
When we started to plan the trip, the historic weather data said the temperature should be above 0C. Wrong ! The forecast of today says that we should expect a couple of weeks with temperature down to -10C, combined with winds between 5 and 10 m/s.
We do believe in testing our kit before use. The last thing we got were sleeping bags, designed to comfort -5C. I put up a bivy bag at the balcony and it was -12C. To cold, the spec was not lying ! Today we got a new one to test, comfort -10-18C. A new night is waiting for me at the balcony…
The Russian - Scandinavian Kayak Expedition 2018 -2022 