Henry Worsley’s journey wasn’t foolhardy – it was tremendous

Cold, bleak and deadly: Antarctica is little changed since the days of Scott and Shackleton

Photo: Global Book Publishing Photo Library

From The Telegraph by Paul Rose (Base Commander of Rothera Research Station, Antarctica, for the British Antarctic Survey for 10 years)

In Antarctica, making the slightest mistake can put your life at risk.
It is an unforgiving place.
Colder than cold, bleak, a vast wasteland of iciness, its deadliness stretches for thousands of miles.

True, it has been explored and mapped.
Yet the minute you step out of your modern base, regardless of all your hi-tech equipment, you’re in exactly the same Antarctica that Scott and Shackleton travelled in.
It’s remote and it is hostile.

That’s why Henry Worsley’s attempt to follow in Shackleton’s footsteps and travel across the Antarctic alone, pulling his own supplies, was so impressive.
He was a formidable explorer: well-organised, determined and incredibly powerful – not one of those people who just goes off with a dream and not much of a plan.
His was a good expedition, and I followed him all the way.
It looked as if he was cruising it and sometimes he was even going like the clappers.

 Antarctica from space (NASA)

But you’ve got to remember those conditions.
Even walking outside at minus 40 degrees when you’re well-rested is a very, very cold, potentially deadly experience.
For Henry to face those conditions alone every day would have been incredibly tough.

 Pulling a sledge full of supplies is brutal  Photo: PA
The former Army officer turned explorer died just 30 miles short of his attempt to become the first person to cross the Antarctic alone

The final expedition:

A solo 943 mile coast-to-coast trek across the Antarctic, pulling a sledge with everything he needed. He collapsed 71 days into the anticipated 80 day journey, and later died of organ failure

Bear in mind that he had to carry everything he needed.
He couldn’t take anything that would add unnecessary weight – such as a spare pair of gloves.
And everything you do in those bitter conditions takes effort.
Say you’re thirsty and want to get some water out of your bag.
You’ve got to get the bag off the sledge and unzip it.
But you’re wearing thick mittens for travelling – warmer than gloves, but offering less dexterity – and you’ve got to take the outer mitten off to reach the zip.
Where do you put that outer mitten to make sure it doesn’t blow away?
Even the simplest task can be fraught with danger, and the only way to stay alive is with a severe amount of discipline.

 His lifelong hero was Ernest Shackleton and it was his journey across the Antarctic that Henry Worlsley was trying to recreate - with the huge, added challenge that Worsley was entirely alone.

Like Shackleton, his bravery and his willingness to endure endless, uncharted terrain led him into a desperate race for survival that ended in his death

The British explorer died of organ failure - tragically - when the end of the mission was almost in sight - just 30 miles remained of his 1,000 mile journey.

It’s bloody hard at the end of a long day spent pulling that sledge.
All you want to do is get the tent up, get in and have a warm drink.
But the tent doesn’t go up by magic.
First you’ve got to secure the sledge, skis and poles so they don’t blow away.
You also have to bear in mind that the moment you stop you are instantly cold, so you have to put on a thicker, insulating down layer.
Then you find the tent and secure it – but it’s still just a shelter and minus 40 inside.
So you put the sleeping bag in, find the stove and melt some snow.
From stopping to getting a cup of instant soup takes an hour and a half.
Mornings are the worst, as you lie there, very hungry, tired and cold and have to force yourself to get up and start the routine over again: melt snow, make food, load sledge.
You love the sledge – because all that equipment is keeping you alive – but you are also beginning to hate the thing, the feeling of it rubbing on your hips as you struggle to put one foot in front of the other.

For all its harshness, though, Antarctica has something we love.Frank Wild, Shackleton’s right-hand man said that it calls you back with little white voices, and he was spot on.
Once you’ve worked there, it’s hard to resist its siren call.
Some people may say that Henry’s journey was foolhardy.
But it wasn’t.
For me it is only natural that we should want to explore new ground, no matter the dangers.
It is good for us to discover the “ground truth” of the planet for ourselves.
Henry’s was a tremendous journey and he very nearly made it.
For that, I salute him.

Links :

• The Guardian : Henry Worsley and the psychology of endurance in life or death situations 
• The Independant : Henry Worsley: Doomed explorers still have the power to capture our imaginations
• NYTimes : Henry Worsley and the Urge to Explore / Henry Worsley, a British Adventurer Trying to Cross Antarctica, Dies at 55
• GeoGarage blog : Scott's Antarctic samples give climate clues / Benjamin Leigh Smith: The forgotten explorer of the frozen north / Ernest Shackleton voyage to be retraced by modern-day Antarctic explorers / Shackleton Death or Glory - Rough Seas / Shackleton’s icebound survival story, up close

Were Portuguese explorers the first Europeans to find Australia?

Is this the first map of Australia?

Jave La Grande's east coast: from Nicholas Vallard's atlas, 1547.

This is part of an 1856 copy of one of the Dieppe Maps.

Copy held by the National Library of Australia

(Photo: Wikipedia)

From Atlas Obscura by Eric Grundhauser

Did a secret search for Marco Polo’s islands of gold lead Portuguese explorers to be the first Europeans to discover Australia?
According to some theories, the Dieppe maps, a series of artful 16th century maps say yes.
Operating in the mid-1500s, the Dieppe mapmakers created elaborate, hand-made world maps for wealthy patrons and royals.
The French artists who created the maps were just that, leaving the actual exploration to others and simply translating more utilitarian nautical charts into things of beauty.
The surviving maps are beautifully rendered, although their exact cartographic sources seem to have been lost to time.
This becomes most problematic in the case of "Java la Grande", a giant landmass unique to the maps that was drawn between Antarctica and what we would today consider to be Indonesia.
According to some modern researchers, this mystery island is actually the first record of Europeans seeing Australia.

 The map has been inverted to represent the modern view, but Java la Grande can be found where Australia would be.

World map of Nicolas Desliens, 1566.

(Photo: Wikipedia)

The maps, with their fancy compass roses and detailed illustrations, were intended to be pieces of art, rather than navigational aids, but their information had to come from somewhere.
The names and script on the charts are written out in a mix of French and Portuguese, giving rise to the theory, which was popularized in Kenneth McIntyre's 1977 book, The Secret Discovery of Australia, that the mapmakers of Dieppe were getting their view of the world, at least in part, from Portuguese expeditions.
In particular, one of the maps that came out of Dieppe, (and is survived by a faithful recreation) depicts the east coast of the fabled Java la Grande with place names almost exclusively in Portuguese.
Given the vagaries of the Dieppe map sources, this has led to the theory that it was the Portuguese who were the first Europeans to spy the Australian coast.

In addition to the general location of Java la Grande on the maps, there are certain features that adherents to the theory claim are unmistakably bits of Australia, such as an inlet that looks like Botany Bay and the Abrolhos island chain.

 Java la Grande was thought to be so big the map was awkwardly extended. 

World map, by Guillaume Brouscon, 1543

(Photo: Wikipedia)

As to what expedition could have seen the coast, it is suggested by McIntyre that it was a search for Marco Polo’s fabled Isles of Gold that led to the discovery.
Wealthy Portuguese explorer Cristóvão de Mendonça is recorded as having been tasked by King Manuel with sailing out in search of Polo’s treasure islands, but actual record of this voyage has been lost, if there ever was one.
Manuel was notoriously secretive about the findings of his exploration teams.
According to popular history, Australia was first visited by Europeans when Dutch explorer Willem Janszoon “discovered” the continent in the early 17th century, and later fully explored by Captain Cook.

On the left, first Portuguese chart designed in Dieppe by Jean Rotz in 1542.

On the right, Australia seen by Dutch in 1628...

While no direct evidence of Portuguese discovery exists, there have been other findings that seem to support the theory of their early Australian discovery.
Various ruins, cannons, and other archeological artifacts have been found on the Australian continent that believers say point to Portuguese discovery, but the Dieppe maps remains the prime source of speculation.

Links : 

• Wikipedia : Theory of the Portuguese discovery of Australia
• The Stradbroke Island Galleon and Java La Grande 
• GeoGarage blog :Capt. James Cook raised an ocean of knowledge / Controversial 400-year-old Australian map exhibited / The man who invented the Admiralty chart and nearly discovered Australia and Antarctica 

France SHOM update in the GeoGarage platform

12 nautical charts updated

see GeoGarage blog

Opinion: Were US sailors 'spoofed' into Iranian waters?

A riverine patrol boat from Costal Riverine Squadron 2 escorts the guided-missile cruiser USS Bunker Hill (CG 52) while in the Arabia Gulf in this November 15, 2014 handout photo, provided by the U.S. Navy, January 12, 2016.

Ten sailors aboard two U.S. Navy riverine patrol boats were seized by Iran in the Gulf on Tuesday, and Tehran told the United State the crew members would be promptly returned, according to U.S. Officials.

REUTERS/Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class LaTunya Howard/U.S. Navy/Handout via Reuters

From CSMonitor by Dana A. Goward

In 2011, Iran spoofed – or faked – Global Positioning System signals to send a CIA drone off course.
Did it do the same to trick Navy vessels into Iranian waters?

As images of captured American sailors competed with those of the President Obama during the State of the Union address Tuesday, viewers across the world asked: "How could this happen?"
The world’s most powerful nation with the most advanced navy had been embarrassed on the same day as the president's speech.

After a series of other implausible explanations, the Department of Defense settled on the explanation that the crews on both boats "misnavigated."
That in the middle of their trip between Kuwait and Bahrain the two boats accidentally went more than 50 miles out of their way to venture into Iranian waters.
But were they really that poorly trained and inattentive?
Is the navigation equipment in the world’s best navy that poor?
And was it just a coincidence it all happened on the day of the president’s address?
Or was something much more deliberate – and potentially troubling – to blame?

Iran has demonstrated in the past that it has the capability – and the will – to exploit a critical and broad vulnerability in our key navigation system – the Global Positioning System, or GPS.
In 2011, Iran manipulated GPS systems on a CIA surveillance drone to send it off course and capture it.

Now, at a time when elements in Iran are feeling their power and prestige diminish after Tehran agreed to the US-led pact to limit the country's nuclear program, the Islamic Republic could once again flex its muscles and show it has the wherewithal to toy with nearby Navy crews.
And, as the US government is well aware, the GPS network that both drivers and sailors rely on remains vulnerable to attacks.
Powered by solar panels and some 12,000 miles above the earth, GPS satellites broadcast very weak signals that are easy to block or jam.
Over the past few years, illegal jamming by criminals and terrorists trying to hide their whereabouts has become an increasing threat to those signals.
But perhaps more worrisome, GPS signals and receivers can also be spoofed, or faked.
This involves the spoofer sending a bogus signal that can fool GPS receivers, allowing the attacker to trick the device into thinking it's in another location.
Iran claims to have used that technique in 2011 to redirect a CIA surveillance drone from Afghanistan.
Their claim was credible at the time as they clearly had possession of the undamaged drone.

 Demonstration of a Remote Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Hijacking via GPS Spoofing

Military Global Positioning System (GPS) signals have long been encrypted to prevent counterfeiting and unauthorized use.

Civil GPS signals, on the other hand, were designed as an open standard, freely-accessible to all. These virtues have made civil GPS enormously popular, but the transparency and predictability of its signals give rise to a dangerous weakness: they can be easily counterfeited, or spoofed. Like Monopoly money, civil GPS signals have a detailed structure but no built-in protection against counterfeiting.

Civil GPS is the most popular unauthenticated protocol in the world.
The vulnerability of civil GPS to spoofing has serious implications for civil unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs.

This was demonstrated in June, 2012 by a dramatic remote hijacking of a UAV at White Sands Missile Range.

The demonstration was conducted by the University of Texas Radionavigation Laboratory at the invitation of the Department of Homeland Security.

It became much more credible several months later when Prof. Todd Humphreys and his students at the University of Texas showed how it was done.
In a live demonstration in 2013, they took over the navigation system of a large yacht in the Mediterranean.
Now, hackers are even selling spoofing kits.

For the 2015 DEF CON hacking conference in Las Vegas, a Chinese researcher sold equipment and published step-by-step instructions for building a spoofing device for about $300.
The loss of the CIA drone in 2011 should have been a wake-up call for the US military that GPS needs more safeguards.
That incident was yet another warning sign that's gone ignored.
But even presidential mandates meant to protect GPS have been ignored over the years.

In 1998, President Clinton became concerned about America’s growing reliance on GPS for navigation.
He directed the Department of Transportation to study the issue and make recommendations.
Those recommendations, which called for improving receivers, developing interference detection networks, and developing non-satellite navigation systems for use alongside GPS, came out just 12 days before 9/11.
Most of them, understandably, were tabled.

Then, in 2004, the Bush administration began to focus on GPS's other functions – providing highly precise timing signals for synchronizing telecommunications and IT networks, financial systems, and power grids.
President Bush issued a presidential directive that identified GPS services as essential to the nation’s critical infrastructure, security, and economy.
Among its provisions to protect GPS, it directed acquisition of a "back-up system" to serve the nation in the event of a GPS disruption.
President Obama later reaffirmed that directive and has issued several additional presidential orders designed to make the nation’s critical infrastructure more resilient.
The Obama administration has also continued to voice significant concerns about GPS vulnerability. Department of Homeland Security officials have called GPS "a single point of failure for critical infrastructure."
Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter has said he wants to "unplug the military from GPS."

But plans to construct a land-based GPS backup system remain dormant.
Studies have shown that, for about $50 million a year, a system known as eLoran could provide a signal more than 1.3 million times stronger than GPS.
And, importantly, the signal is incredibly difficult to jam or spoof.
The deputy secretaries of both the Department of Defense and Department of Transportation have spoken out in favor of such a system.
Yet nothing has been done.
Similar systems are currently being used by Russia, China, South Korea,Britain, Saudi Arabia, and even Iran.

We may never know what truly led two Navy vessels into Iranian waters – the Iranians confiscated the boat’s GPS navigation suites before they were released.
But all the reasons that have been offered to the press seem unlikely.
Small Navy vessels like these have multiple and redundant systems, and usually travel in pairs or small groups specifically to avoid having a single point of failure threaten their mission.
But the incident is once again an important reminder that GPS as a single point of failure can cause significant problems for America, the least of which are minor embarrassments like this one.
Officials in the Obama administration have said they are going to act and address this problem.
Let’s hope that they – and the administration that comes next – follow through on presidential commitments and finally do something to safeguard GPS for everyone.

Links :

• NationalInterest : The Pentagon Is Worried About Hacked GPS 
• TechInsider : Drug traffickers are hacking US surveillance drones to get past border patrol
• Forbes : Hacking A Phone's GPS May Have Just Got Easier   / Watch GPS Attacks That Can Kill DJI Drones Or Bypass White House Ban
• InsideGNSS : Homeland Security Researching GPS Disruptions, Solutions
• UT Radionavigation Lab : civil GPS spoofing and anti-spoofing
• USCG : Global Navigation Satellite Systems – Trust, But VerifyReport Disruptions Immediately
• GeoGarage blog :  Rising fraud in the high seas / Superyacht GPS spoofing experiment on the high seas

Breathtaking manoeuvres in the harbour of Chios

Nissos Rodos, the ferry of Hellenic Seaways Island Rhodes evolves one "breath" from the ship Eleftherios Venizelos (ANEK Lines) at the port of Chios. 

 Harbour aerial view

 Khios harbour with the GeoGraage platform (NGA chart)