The Next Exploration

In my previous expeditions to Cocos Island National Park I’ve seen the hardships and the obstacles that the park rangers have to overcome on a daily basis in order to protect the area. It seems an impossible task with what little resources they have available, and with such great numbers of illegal fishermen pitted against them. Day by day, the battle continues, and little by little the fishermen wear away at the parks fragile ecosystem. It won’t be long now until the fishermen have fished beyond the sustainable limit, and the marine sanctuary will collapse. This is not an endless pot of gold, and there is a limit to how much we can take out before it cannot refill itself. The species that the Marine Reserve was established to protect are mostly of the Pelagic kind, and their time on Cocos Island is limited to only brief visits. As soon as the great schools of hammerhead shark, bluefin and yellowfin tuna, and swordfish depart for their feeding grounds they can no longer be protected, and as you can imagine, fishermen descend on their schools like flocks of gulls on a forgotten lunch. There are a myriad of unknowns about the pelagic species and we still can’t follow their open ocean migrations because they travel to deep and too far, making protecting them next to impossible. No amount of money can solve this problem, because the technology simply doesn’t exist.

What we do have however is a few key pieces of knowledge that we can use until our habitation of the ocean improves. Recently it has come to light that there is a sea mount just 30 miles off the coast of Cocos Island that the pelagic species and fishermen alike use on a daily basis. This seamount has never before been seen by human eyes, and it’s depth is known only by the fishermen who drop their lines approximately 300 feet to hunt for the gigantic grouper that also call this place home. One of these fishermen has provided us with the approximate GPS coordinates to find the seamount.

As the location of the seamount is as yet only an approximation, and it’s existence only a rumor until recently, it was not included in the original boundaries of Cocos Island. It hasn’t been considered even by agencies such as the French Fund for the Environment and the UNDP when they have been researching on Cocos Island in an effort to expand the borders of Cocos Island National Park, this work has been led by Kifah Sasa, and Kifah is also going to be a part of this expedition so he can have a first hand view of the events as they unfold. Nobody has had the equipment, the knowhow, or the ability to pull together a team capable of exploring the seamount to make it’s vital role in the Cocos Island Ecosystem anything more than speculation. We now have the capability, we have the team, and we are readying to dive into a sea of unknowns with one inspiration, to gain ground on the illegal fishermen. The question is how.

How will visiting the seamount do all this? While exploring the seamount we will be placing a receiving unit that will ping every time a tagged animal passes through the region. With the Unit in place over the next year or so, information will be gathered from years of tagging work that scientist Randall Arauz has been doing on Cocos Island. Every tagged animal that passes will have come from Cocos Island at some point in the past, because every animal was tagged on Cocos Island. Once Randall processes the information, he will know what animal it was that has passed the seamount, how long it stayed, and wether or not the animal makes frequent visits. We can make a strong hypotheses that we will not be disappointed with our findings. That hard data will then be provided to the agencies that are making the petition to expand the park boundaries and will be used to show that the seamount is not separated from Cocos Island, but is a major portion of the Cocos Island ecosystem.

It won’t be a simple task to place the receiving unit on the Seamount, at a depth of 300 feet and 30 miles from Cocos Islands protected bays, a whole new realm of difficulties present themselves. The main reason that the seamount hasn’t already been dove by the Seahunter group, a dive company that operates a deep water submarine on Cocos Island is that until now they haven’t had the ability to launch the sub in the rough pacific swells that rhythmically crash into the rock walls of Cocos Island. A new boat, specially outfitted to launch the sub in the open ocean has been outfitted and this will be its maiden voyage. The depth of the seamount is easily reachable by the three person submarine once it has passed below the surface, but is beyond the normal limits of even an advanced deep water diver. The normal limits of a deep water diver are at 135 feet, I’ve dove to nearly 200, and very few people have passed 200 feet without very specialized equipment. It’s unlikely that we will attempt a subless dive to the seamount, but if the opportunity presents itself and all safety measures are taken, we are specially outfitted with Rebreather units that recycle the air that has already passed through our bodies, enabling us to breath our own air again. With these units, it may be possible to reach the seamount and install the Receiver unit ourselves. If not, we will rely on the arm of the submarine to do the work.

There are inherent difficulties when it comes to tagging a pelagic species as well. William Bebe was one of the first naturalists to visit cocos island, and in his book the Arcturus Adventure, he wrote of the difficulties of observing the fish. Hooked fish were found to die following their struggles, and even the great bluefin tuna are timid creatures. Bebe did however have plenty of encounters with shark while diving with his primitive compressor and helmet. The shark, though timid, can be curious. Species such as the hammerhead shark are frightened easily by the bubbles that the commonly used scuba regulator makes. The bubbles are thought to register as a impenetrable wall to the senses of a hammerhead. Marine biologist Peter Klimley writes in his book the Secret Lives of Sharks about suddenly realizing that the sharks all but ignored him while he freedove among the vast schools, sans tank and regulator. It was Peter Klimley who began tagging and tracking the sharks with great success, and scientists like Randall Arauz followed suit. The personality of the hammerhead shark has made it the most viable option for our expedition, and once the receiver has successfully been placed on the Seamount, we will move on to dive Cocos Island with the goal of tagging three more sharks. With three recently tagged sharks, and numerous sharks having been tagged over the last number of years, we will have an exceptionally detailed view of the role that the seamount plays on Cocos Island. The data will also be referenced to other receiver units that Randall already has stationed inside the park boundaries on known hammerhead cleaning stations and schooling areas. What’s more the tags are harmless to the shark, and will optimally be placed in the cartilaginous dorsal fin to minimize harm to the animal. Equal in difficulty to tagging the shark is covering the story.

I’ve teamed up with my brother Jesse Horton to capture the events as they take place, Jesse is a superb underwater videographer and has extensive experience on Cocos Island due to the fact that he has been working on Cocos as a the pilot of Deepsee, the submarine that we will be using. Jesse has also had footage included in a National Geographic special on Sharks along with the work of world renowned underwater videographers like Howard Hall.

For literary coverage, Kelly Hearn has agreed to join the expedition. Kelly is a National Geographic correspondent and has been working as an independent journalist in Latin America since 2004. Kelly wrote the National Geographic News Article for my first Cocos Island expedition and has done extensive research on the problem of Shark Poaching in Cocos Island.

Besides putting this expedition together, and aiding in gathering the scientific data, my role will be to gather the photographs that will be used to tell the story visually. Photography has been of great importance on other expeditions with goals such as ours like Micheal Fay’s legendary Mega Transect. It was the photography of Nick Nichols that put what science had found into perspective. Once the boat has left port, the photography will be my primary job, and I’ll be working to capture the value of the seamount through images.

The Urgency of the expedition cannot be stressed enough. Already over 90 percent of the pelagic species have been lost (appendix 1) and fisheries are advancing technology to make up for the difficulties of having less fish to catch. That they can maintain their quotas even with so few fish just goes to show that marine sanctuaries like Cocos Island are more precious than we think. Soon, they may be all that we have left.

Blog of Note

Check out my good friend Bill Carrol's blog, at http://www.opensignals.com/

Protesting the Torch?

We all know that China has been the center of much controversy over the last number of years, from the oppression of Tibet, to the Chinese involvement in Sudan. I have personally been guilty of pointing the finger with some of my shark finning research and journalism over the last few years. Although I'm not entirely sure that China was the best choice for the location of the upcoming Olympic Games there are a number of important factors that need to be considered before we stand in the way of the Olympic torch.

First and foremost, we should think about what the Olympics are, without the location that they are taking place being a factor. The Olympics are the only venue that the world currently has that can bring together nations from around the world and celebrate our individuality in the spirit of competition. Where else can so many cultures and nations come together under one figurative roof? This is not to say that all of the contestants and observers will abandon their prejudices. It is however an opportunity to bypass them, even if only for a short while.

Throwing the Javelin, running the fastest or the furthest, and wrestling are not just pointless exercises to determine the strongest contestant, but are designed to push people to develop their skills in arts applicable to warfare. In ancient Greece, these were more than just metaphorical challenges, they were highly specialized skill sets. Although the games now include sports that really don't apply to warfare, the basic tenants are the same. Even seemingly unrelated sports like the bobsled race still develop skills like teamwork, and communication.

When Beijing was chosen, it wasn't because China was the most logical place on the planet to hold the games. It also wasn't to bring China needed income that the games would doubtlessly bring from the attendees. It was an acknowledgment that China now stands as a key nation relative to the rest of the world. It was also a statement about the future of China, they stand now at a crossroads, and the choices that they make in the years leading up to 2012 will establish their world role in the near future. In my travels to China over the last year, I saw first hand the mass gentrification that was within eyesight of every major roadway and railway that foreigners regularly travel. As soon as we passed beyond the road well traveled, the long history of China seemed to unfold before our eyes. China isn't just the strict, industrial age competitor that most Westerners see it as. In the mountains of Guanzou, ancient peoples still live lives governed by tradition and necessity. The Yao peoples still only cut their hair 3 times in their lives, and will work in terraced rice paddies that have been susstaining them since before the United States was even a thought, and in Yuangshou people ride bamboo rafts down the Li river, just as they did thousands of years ago. Some have adapted their rafts to incorperate gas powered motors, but the lifestyle remains inherently the same.

At first glance, it seems like China has invested all it has in the social progress and status that it will gain from the hosting the Olympic Games, but a deeper assesment will reveal a Country that is thousands of years old, and has not merely survived civil wars, genocides, colapsed empires and social spurning. If all of Chinas efforts are in vain, they have 6000 years of experiance in surviving to fall back on. Were the world to abandon China, and the economy collapes, the Yao will still be working in their rice paddies.

To impede the progress of the olympic torch is not just showing our disaproval for the way that China has handled its domination of Tibet. It is to stand in the way of what progress China stands to make on the world scene. Would not China be easier to negotiate with once it stands to lose something it has already gained? Not only do those protesting stand against China, they stand before an ancient tradition that has recognized our differences and has allowed us to put them asside, although not in all cases, in many.

Even so, what better way to make a stand right now for the atrocity that is Chinas rule of Tibet. The whole world is watching and this may be one of the few instances where protesting can make a difference. I bring it up, because I just want to make sure that those who protest are doing it fully aware of what they are doing, and why. They will certainly hurt the pockets of the political figures, and perhaps Tibet will gain something from the world being made aware of its plight. We also need to consider the other people who are befitting from the gentrification of China. Perhaps the gentrification that is taking place in China, the empty office buildings that are being built in hopes that they will be filled as their country makes the necessary changes to host the Olympics, will soon hold people who not long ago were working in sweat shops making cigarettes or sneakers.

Mika

“Unusual things are not meant to last.” Said Mika, a deceptively humble and sedate Inuit woman. She had said some form of the same statement many times over the last few weeks. This time she was referring to a team of dogs that she said could pull her Dogsled at a sustained speed of 17 kilometers per hour. Sadly most of those dogs had perished from the disease parvo, the year before. She sat across the room from me sowing a pair of beaver skin mitts speaking in a quiet monotone voice, occasionally punctuating words by raising her eyebrows. Inuit people are not all as quiet as Mika, but those who were raised mostly on the land understand the value of quiet. “We are taught to be quiet so as not to disturb the animals.” Mika said. I’m sure I had a quizzical look on my face. Who cares I thought. The more I learned from Mika about their traditions, the more I realized just how valuable their laws are. She remembers a time years ago when the Canadian Government tried to teach the Inuit to be herders, so they could make a living herding Caribou. The Inuit tried the techniques, but in the end the Caribou were just to hard to manage, so they went back to their old ways. What the Canadian Government didn’t understand, was that the Inuit had been managing the Caribou already for thousands of years. By our standards, the Inuit were a nomadic people, moving from place to place depending on the seasons. Nomads are roamers though, and they knew exactly where they were going, and it was the same as the year before. They didn’t move only to follow herds of Caribou, or to stay within hunting distance of the Flow Edge. They moved to allow their homes to air out, and to let the scent of man leave for a time, thus allowing nature to follow it’s course uninterrupted by man.

Many of the Inuit ways are confusing to us. They fight for rights to lands rich in mineral deposits, and yet do not mine them. They are a people backed by oral tradition, with knowledge passed down from the Elders. Those who lived solely off of the land are older now, mostly in their 80s, and it’s they who understand the reasons behind the laws. As with many oral traditions, they are passed on only when they are of use to those who keep them, and they are intimately connected with the language they were created in, changing the language changes the meaning of the story. Mika is fighting now to preserve not only her people, but their ancient ways. It isn’t easy, she is bending the rules by recording what has been an oral tradition for so long, and it’s considered rude to tell the Elders what to talk about. On the cusp that binds the generations, Mika is fighting to hold together her culture.

Part 2

Not all struggles can be described in full just by recounting the events. This last day was one of those days. Iʼve deliberated at how to complete this story over the last few days, and have had a great deal of trouble figuring it out. Iʼm still not sure that Iʼve
found the best way to convey the feeling of both desperation and determination that all
of us were going through that morning as we left the last camp amid waist deep snow.
At a certain point, I was acting outside myself, with my self consciousness confined to
the hood of my parka. As nice as it was to be on autopilot, at the same time the danger
of falling into a complacent pace was more than just possible, it was our greatest
enemy. Breaks dragged on, snow still fell. Finally as darkness began to fall, we passed
the final descent to the sea ice and made it to open sea ice. Only 21 miles stood before
us, and for a moment we almost felt we were home. The Sea Ice was slow, and the
blizzard obstructed our view of the city lights. Flickering in the distance, just barely in
visible range, a single light occasionally broke through the storm to guide us home. All
it takes sometimes is a single light to remind you that you arenʼt alone. That there is
someone out there waiting for your arrival, standing and looking into the windswept
darkness waiting for you, silently rooting you on. As hard as those final miles were, they
were impossible to give up on. Our beacon in the dark led us to the waiting friends and
families. They stood in the bitter cold, in the whipping wind and welcomed us home. At
midnight, on the final day, we had finally overcome our greatest challengers, ourselves.

New Photos From the Race

Qamaluaniq Challenge ~ Part 1

I hate competing. I loathe it. I was convinced by my teammates for an upcoming Ellesemere Island Expedition that it would be good training though. It was only going to be 7 days, and it would be fun. Besides, we weren’t actually “racing,” it was all in the name of fun. I can’t say I was in the least bit excited about covering 320 kilometers without cross country skis, and the mandatory 120 pounds of flower that we were to deliver to Kimmirut. The weight of our gear, the flower, the heavy wooden sleds, and my team mate and I was to much even for the 9 bearlike inuit sled dogs we had fan hitched to the pulling end of the sled. Fan hitch is how the Inuit used to run their dogs. In the Arctic, and near arctic, there aren’t to many trees for the dogs to get tangled up in, so having each dog separately tied to the sled allows them to pick their own path through tide tossed sea ice, and the boulders that roll down from the stone walled canyons broken off by the intense cold. All dogsledding is descendant from the Inuit. It has even been argued that the Inuit could not have survived in the Arctic without dogs. Pieces of dogsleds made from baleen, whales jaw, have been found alongside bones of dogs in archaeological sites 5000 years old, the oldest of the arctic ruins. Not to much has changed in the designs, better wood is brought in and carved into shape. It used to be the only source of wood was driftwood that washed up from the south. Imagine what you might think of driftwood if you have never seen a tree. Imagine what you might have thought of a ship sailing north full of Southlanders were you Inuit. Inuit people imagined ships carved from single gigantic trees. It seems silly to us, but try to fathom a home built from snow warm enough to wear a t-shirt in.

Arguably things have changed more quickly for the Inuit than any other culture. Just 30 years ago, people where still living in Igloos out on the land and traveling by dogsled. A friend, and a great source of knowledge in the wild is a small unassuming woman named Mika. She was number 9 in a family with 12 children, and offers a great perspective on the changes that the Inuit have been through. She sees her siblings as covering three generations, the first children where born out on the land, to a family that moved with the seasons and followed the hunting grounds throughout the year. The middle children were sent to town to go to school, while the family still lived on the land. The last generation of which Mika was a part grew up in a town, close to a school and in a world constantly in touch with what we would call the “Western World” and what they would call the “South.”

On day one of the race, I wrote in my journal that I had just been through the hardest day of my life. Even when the dogs are fresh, and the the trail flat, the dogs had trouble carrying our weight, so one of us was constantly running the flats, climbing the hills, or skating, a technique kind of like riding a giant skate board on your knees. 75 kilometers later, and 2000 vertical feet climbed. We stood atop a plateau that represented (at least to me) five more days of struggle. This same night, the temperature dropped to about -40 degrees. It doesn’t matter if you want it in Fahrenheit or Celsius, at -40 it’s the same. It’s the point where both parties can agree that it’s freezing out. We set up our tents and retreated into our many layers of sleeping bags to sleep out the night.

Do you know that feeling, when you are in your nice warm bed, and the floor around you has cooled in the early hours of the morning but you still can’t sleep because nature has been calling. Eventually you have to throw off the duvet and roll out of bed, your feet cringe as they first touch the floor. Now imagine the same feeling except in a tent at -40. Earlier that night, I had watched water freeze as we poured it into a pot, building a rough stalagmite of ice before our eyes.

Day two was far, far harder. We were already exhausted and sore from the first day, and the dogs must have realized they weren’t going home. According to my GPS we actually did more climbing on day two than on day one, but we didn’t get the satisfaction of standing on top of a peak and looking out over the bay ice to see what our efforts had added up to. The climbing was all done in long slow climbing sections quickly followed by short descents that nullified any gains we felt we had made. A rolling and mostly featureless landscape that offered no short term goals to reach for us or the dogs. Dogs love the rough ice that forms where the frozen ocean has been pushed by tides and winds against the shore into a cracked and broken accordion of Ice. To them it’s the equivalent of a racetrack, they yip and bark and growl each vying for the front position in the pack, another reason why having different length ropes tethering the dogs to the sled is so effective. The Plateau had none of that thrill. Yet, standing on the edge of the plateau at the end of the daylight hours and watching the sunset stands out as one of the most beautiful sights I’ve been privileged enough to see. After descending into that valley during the twilight hours, we lead the dogs for 4 more hours into the night and that stands out as one of the most difficult nights i’ve ever experienced.

The halfway point, Kimmirut, welcomed us on the third evening with a feast and a warm place to lay our sleeping bags. The locals were more than willing to lend a hand with any of our tasks. Even the dogs were treated as royalty, dining on the same fresh meat as the people instead of hard packed and frozen dogfood. Seeing the blend of cultures that have created Kimmirut and the way in which the people live their day to day lives in the far North forces reflection on our own cultural development. After a lengthy prayer by one of the village elders, locals descended upon raw caribou laid out on a sheet of Tyveck. To the side, a table waited with cooked caribou for those that didn’t find the raw caribou appetizing. The inuit culture like many other native peoples has found a blend of religion and tradition with those of the foreigners that have shown up over the years, this blend has paralleled the peoples adaptation to life in houses and villages, as well as having replaced dogsledding with snow-machines. As we found on our return trip to Iqaluit, the changes have their downfalls to survival in the North.

Back at camp 2, with dogs and racers well rested and inspired from an easy day traveling up a frozen river from Kimmirut. They sky held signs of a coming storm, but the racers readied for another day. The race organizer Muni held us back against our will, even though we trust him and his unparalleled knowledge of the trail implicitly. It wasn’t until waiting a full day in the tent that we found out we had been held for a search and rescue operation. Suddenly we didn’t mind waiting so much, the head Ranger, Jameson, was missing. He had left in the early afternoon the day before to pick up spark plugs for the snowmobiles and hadn’t returned. In a landscape as vast and dangerous as this, anything could have happened. Theories on his disappearance verged from the catastrophic to the mundane, but when a man like Jameson disappears without a trace something must have gone horribly wrong. After spending the night in two sleeping bags, a bivy sack, a vapor barrier and a tent, I couldn’t imagine anyone surviving a night out in such bitter cold. Mika was more optimistic, and in her way quietly gave us all hope. The wind had swept away most of the snowmobile tracks, the snow in the sky blended with the snow on the ground, and only the occasional rock added depth or contrast to the scene. In this weather, the Canadian Rangers had combed the land for two days and hadn’t turned up a sign of Jameson. It wasn’t until the next morning, after his second night out that he was found. He had veered off the trail, and had fallen over 20 feet into a ravine breaking his pelvis. He hadn’t moved in two days, and he was alive. Chills sent shock-waves up and down my spine when I heard that he had kept his willpower to live. According to Mika, your will is your strongest force against the cold, and Jameson had little else to protect him.

We had to feed the dogs their emergency food which had previously weighed down the sled even more, along with some of our extra fuel, and without the weight of the flower, climbing back up onto the plateau was tough but quick and manageable, the weather was holding, and the dogs had had plenty of rest. Throughout the day, the weather slowly started to lean towards storming, the wind began to build, and oddly enough the temperature began to rise. Dogs run slow in the warm weather. I watched my altimeter all day, and the barometric pressure was dropping faster than we were climbing indicating the onset of a low pressure system. By nightfall, we were in a blizzard, winds buffeted the tents at 60 miles an hour and our dogs had curled up into themselves letting the snow cover them for more insulation. Again, we had no choice but to wait it out in our tents.

Two mornings later, I stepped out of the tent to find our sleds buried, our tents in self created wind wells, and the dogs still sleeping under the snow. It was late in the morning, and according to the locals, it was the most snow to have dropped in over 15 years. Snowmobiles where bogging down before they even began to move, tents had been ravaged, the storm was in a lull and would begin anew at any moment. We had 50 miles to go, and not enough food to wait out the storm.

The Northern Lights

Tonight I went outside to catch some fresh air, I'd spent the majority of my day inside packing food for the expedition, and the fresh air was a great way to unwind. Looking up into the starry sky, a faint green ribbon, almost smoky in appearance began to unravel across the sky. Within seconds, the most beautiful Northern Lights I've ever seen burst into the atmosphere and unfurled in hues of green and purple. The green is common, but the purple is a rare treat. The lights are caused when Light from the sun enters the atmosphere at an angle that ionizes certain atoms in the upper atmosphere giving off the light that can range from soft and lazy, to a rapid fire kaleidoscope reminiscent of a lazer show from the 90's. When we are in Ellesmere Island, we won't be able to see the Northern lights, because there will be no night, and the sun will not set while we are are above the arctic circle. The lights were feared in ancient times by the Inuit, but now that it is understood that they do not bring harm, they serve only to inspire.

Iqaluit to Kimmirut and Back

So tomorrow the team and I are leaving for a 7 day dogsled race to Kimmirut and back. The round trip will be 320 Kilometers, most of those miles will be run by at least one team member. Tomorrow will be our hardest day, and I'm glad that we are getting it out of the way right off the bat. We will sled for about three hours to cross the bay, then we'll hit rough sea ice that has pressed into shore all winter, creating massive folds in ice many meters thick. Just behind the sea ice, our trail heads for the sky, and a very poorly covered slope strewn with boulders marks the beginning of 700 meters of climbing. The dogs are not going to be very happy about this, and I probably won't be either. To do a race of this distance is intimidating, but to do it in the frigid temperatures that we will be in is downright terrifying. It's so cold out here, that cargo holds and transport trucks called "refrigerators" are actually heated to keep food from freezing to much.

There are six teams in the race, one of them has already said that he will only be along for half of the race, he already had to do the first part of the course just to get to town, and the tough 70 year old Inuit man is running with puppies, as all of his dogs died from disease last year. It's guys like this that make me reevaluate myself. What I call adventure, and what I prepare for many months to do, this guy has done his whole life. I listened very carefully to his words of advice through an interpreter last night as he advised the teams on the condition of the trail, the speed of the snow, and the dangers that we will be encountering. I am certain that his words will echo in my mind as all that he warned us of comes to pass.

Training

With most of the team here finally, and the expedition coming up quickly, we have been working overtime trying to get everything ready. Food needs to be packed so that in two months when we pull it out of the box, we aren’t missing anything, and gear needs to be tested and readied for the expedition. Even with all of the things we have to do, the dogs need to be run every day.

Time is running short. But every day, when we get out on the ice with the dogs, everything seems worth while. Passing kilometer after kilometer in the silence, with the beautiful and surreal landscape stretching out around us, our stresses disappear. Training in Iqaluit is not just getting our body ready for the physical stresses of skiing all day every day, or staying warm in the cold. Training is also getting our minds ready for the solitude that we will find on the ice. Ellesmere Island offers some of the most remote landscapes in the world.

For me, training also involves figuring out what camera equipment I should be taking with me, and how my equipment will handle the cold. I’ve already learned so much about taking pictures in the cold, but in training, I always have a warm place to come home to. Hopefully, we will all be able to learn as we go, and adapt to our environment well enough to get our job done. The pictures from Ellesmere Island will be used to show the world the effects that global warming has on our planet, and because of that the pictures are one of the most important aspects of this trip.

In a couple of days, we will have our best training run yet. We are doing the 6 day race from Iqaluit to Kimmirut and back. We will get to test our gear, our food, and our stamina in another beautiful landscape. For us, the race is about figuring out our systems, and having fun. Winning would be a great bonus though!