At some point in all my trips, I usually write a blog post about how I feel lucky to be here. While I may be cold, hungry and lonely I am usually equally in awe about the places in which I'm traveling.

Today, I truly feel lucky to be here. And not in the philosophical sense, either. I mean lucky to be here as in here not a frozen ice chunk some where in Hudson Bay. You see, at some point last night the wind shifted and began blowing off shore and blew out an enormous swath of sea ice. When I got out of the tent this morning, I was greeted by the dark gray ocean as far as I could see. The flow edge was now around 600 meters from out tent.

While that is 600 meters may seem like a safe distance just the day prior there was stretching for as far as we could see - easily a mile expanse toward the sea.

We almost camped in an area that was now water as well. At the end of the day yesterday, Andrew was in lead making his way to a wide flat piece of ice. At the last minute, I yelled for him to back track to another spot - the ice where he was headed looked like it might be a newer lead and seemed like it formed after a recent split in the ice. We ended up camping at a spot about 600 meters further inland. Had we camped in our original spot we would most likely be dead right now. It was a sobering realization but I was also pleased that I had l trusted my instincts and experience.

Of course, at times like this I am glad to have the DeLorme inReach close by should anything really serious go down.

Despite the close call, we still skied out to the new floe edge where Neal and Andrew once again practiced in the dry suits - this time using picks to pull themselves out of the water.

The wind was picking up so we packed up. We found some a few large pressure ridges for the guys to practice hauling heavy loads up and over.

The weather continued to deteriorate eventually becoming a full fledged white out. Another brutal day on the ice. Considering the rapidly deteriorating ice conditions, I decided to make haste toward land and when Andrew's MSR snowshoe poked through a newly formed crack, it reinforced the precariousness of our situation.

For the next two hours we raced blindly toward land with the wind whipping across our faces. I was reminded of a particularly nasty day on the Arctic Ocean during our Last North expedition when we skied through a terrible white out all day long. Ryan would surely laugh if he was here.

To our relief we eventually could make out the dark shadow of land and found a small bowl shaped piece of ice just the size of our tent to camp on.

It's always good to be 'home'

I've been testing some of my enerplex batteries in the cold weather and have been pleased with their performance. This is also now the second trip for my Citizen Eco Drive watch and it is a huge relief to not have to worry about a battery - ever!