 My
name is Chris Bray, and ever since I sailed around the world for
five years with my family on our homemade yacht when I was a kid,
I have had a burning desire to travel. Experiencing new places
and people, scanning new horizons, and generally escaping the routine
clutter that otherwise creeps into and occupies day to day life.
I have been lucky enough to experience the thrill of walking where
no man has been before, building and spending the night in an igloo,
hauling a sled and wading through waist-high snow, stumbling upon
Sperm Whale teeth on a remote coastline…
My travels of late have become increasingly adventurous,
and consequently much more exciting! I am currently the Australian
Geographic Societies‘Young Adventurer of the Year’(2004),
along with my hiking partner Jasper Timm, for a 30-day wilderness
we completed in February 2004. We hiked approximately 300km along
some of the worlds most isolated and wild coastline - South West
Tasmania–no tracks or trails, and much of it was machete
work to cut our way though dense 5m high walls of scrub, sometimes
progressing less than 1½km after 11 hrs of exhausting battling.
Involving 2 airdrops of food&supplies, and swimming bitterly
cold rivers, this hike–completed only a couple of times prior–is
one of the few places in the world where you can walk for a month
along a coastline and be nowhere near any form of civilisation
for the entire time.
Such isolation, although one of the biggest attractions,
is itself, the biggest danger. Should something go wrong, the next
human probably wouldn’t pass through for another 2 or 3 years
at least! A reliable form of communication is at the centre of
all of my expeditions. Wether it’s used to weekly report
positions back home, or to summon help if your partner has been
bitten by a snake or broken a leg–the ability to communicate
with the outside world from its harshest outposts can be the difference
between life and death. Just the knowledge that if something did
go wrong that you could call for help, sets my mind at ease, and
goes a long way in reassuring friends and family, who are often
waiting for weeks, back at home.
Standard mobile phones simply don’t get coverage
in most exciting places, EPIRBs, while definitely worth carrying,
can only send out an all-encompassing cry for‘help’in
general, without being able to convey specifics such as what anti-venin
to bring. Only a satellite mobile phone, such as the Iridium 9505A,
connected to [the] Iridium [network] with Telstra Mobile Satellite
(TMS)–which I have had the pleasure of borrowing from‘Landwide
Satellite Solutions’–provides you with the power to
explain any situation to anyone, from almost anywhere on the face
of the earth–all you need is a clear view of part the sky,
and you can, for example, arrange for air-drops to be dropped sooner
than planned, or explain that you are running late, but all is
ok…The flexibility that a phone brings to an expedition
goes hand in hand with the sense of freedom that I aim to get out
of such journeys.
In addition to the‘Iridium 9505A’, I
have also used the‘Qualcomm GSP1600’and I found the
former to be more convenient both in its physical size and weight,
and also its user-friendly layout and software. I suspect this
will be my phone of choice to accompany on my next adventure, where
I hope to traverse right across the length of Victoria Island -
above Canada in the High Arctic - unsupported, hauling a kayak
full of supplies behind me, amidst Polar Bears, Musk ox, Arctic
Fox, Wolves–on a journey never undertaken before.
You only live once–so live life to the full
- but go prepared with a satellite mobile phone so as not to cut
your one chance needlessly short.
Chris Bray
www.ChrisBray.net
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