Earlier this week, Mark Roberts and Shaune Adderley made the journey to the North Pole – the first Bahamians to ever to take on the courageous challenge.
“I was invited by a friend who has lived in The Bahamas for a number of years and he with a group of New Zealanders were going to the North Pole. They had been to the South Pole and he called me up and asked me if I would be interested in going because two of the seats that he had filled were vacated,” Mr. Roberts said.
“For two months I said ‘no it’s probably not a good idea’ and then he said ‘I feel bad for inviting you because I knew a Bahamian would not be able to cut the mustard.’ And that started the ball rolling in that direction that we were going to go and take on the challenge and have some fun with it.”
He added that he is proud to take The Bahamas flag on top of the world.
“I can’t imagine anything that I would be prouder to do. I actually felt bad for saying no for two months. I should have said yes earlier so I could have trained more because the opportunity to take The Bahamas up to the top of the world is a once in a lifetime and I am over the moon about it,” Mr. Roberts said.
The average temperature on the North Pole is a blistering -20 F on a warm day to -80 F with wind chills.
Mr. Roberts said he and his partner prepared for the daunting task by going through a guide and checklist.
“You can’t really train for the cold. We were fortunate because Tropic Seafood let us come into their freezers for two days worth of training so that we could test our gear. The critical thing we could do is purchase the right equipment and the right gear. We would have seven layers on and we did a lot of physical training. Our longest gym workouts were four hours and we did the elliptical machine because we will be skiing 12 hours a day to make 120 hour journey to get to the North Pole,” he said.
Mr. Adderley said Mr. Roberts pushed him to take on the challenge.
“I like the experience. It’s something on my bucket list. Something I would like to do. I know there are not a lot of Bahamians that would not get to do it. So it was nice for me to get invited to go there,” he said.
“It makes me feel proud to do this for my country. When I put my mind to something I like to go through with it. My family is all ups in arms. The only thing that really concerns me is the cold because as a Bahamian I have never been in that type of cold. So I am glad we have the layers and we have been in the freezer. I think it’s a mind thing.”
The duo first flew to London to begin their journey. Then it was off to Ausland, Norway and then to Russia.
They arrived at North Pole on Friday morning and will be there for seven days. To follow their journey visit https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bahamas-North-Pole-Explorers.
