'Now I understand why what you were talking about and why we put all our clothes and gear in stuff sacks at night,' Victor commented as a deluge of frost crystals poured over him and his sleeping bag.

We had just woken up and the morning's first task is to take one of our small tent brushes and sweep the walls of the tent. It's so cold and so humid here that a layer of frost crystals form on the inside of the entire tent. Its hard to understand the extent of the of the comfortableness that this creates because you rarely get this much frost in tents anywhere in the world. Unfortunately for us, it gets worse. Next, we sweep all the frost off our sleeping bags and Granite Gear stuff sacks (that are storing clothes, boot liners, etc.). The. We crawl out of our warm bad into a freezing tent where we have to put each sleeping bag into a bivy bag (for storage as the. We don't have to stuff them). Only then can we light the stoves and begins the process of thawing out and melting snow.

Sometimes I call this expedition the Arctic Ocean fun fest, but I don't really mean it.

It was brutally cold again today - around -30 and while we managed to stay warm and dry throughout the day, it didn't take long during our breaks for a teeth chattering chill to seep in. I even started out skiing with my down jacket on after several breaks just to 'jump start' my warmth.

The ice conditions were about as good as they can be here. We skied on a series of medium-sized older pans that were moderated drifted. Of course our bearing had us traversing them at a 30 degree angle so it was a lot of small ups and downs. The weather has been clear with very little wind and while the ice is drifting 'northwest', there is little other moment which translates into stable ice without active cracks or open water leads. At one point, we traversed a small lead that wound through a long chute. It may not seem like much but these variations in the ice surface are amazing.

Both Bachir and Victor are doing really well - especially if you factor the extreme cold. It's not easy to be here but both are starting to find their rhythm.

At one short snack break in the afternoon, I asked Bachir what he was thinking about. 'I'm calculating the weight of an average-sized Indian elephant.'

Bachir, it seems, has settled nicely into this cold life.