This is going to take some sorting out!

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OK, so where were we.......oh yes I was in the medical centre getting sortied out courtesy of BP (they even washed my bike gear and fed me) Sue was back at the hotel, or to be more exact, the large portakabin masquerading as a hotel, and Tony and Andy had gone back to the crash site to recover BOB. Whilst I was being taken care of I was visited by the local police officer who was investigating the accident, after having the riot act read to me for being so irresponsible as to crash in the middle of nowhere and endangering myself and my wife he proceeded to ask for identification and documentation. "This is where it gets a bit tricky officer, you see in order to reduce the weight of the load on the bike we decided to leave a couple of bags in storage back at Fairbanks and unfortunately all our paperwork is back in those bags". From here on in it got a bit messy, he wanted to see the documents in person which would have meant going back 500 miles to Fairbanks to get them and 500 miles back (I know it sounds rediculous), he was also intent on arresting me for some sort of felony (that's a crime to you folks back home) and I was running out of grovelling power, I had already by this time debased myself to the lowest form of human life in an attempt to lessen the impact but he was having none of it. "Boy am I one stupid son of a bitch Officer, you're going to have to arrest me, I just can't see any way out of this. My wife is really shook up, but I'm sure the two guys we were travelling with will help her". Once he got the power trip out of the way he was actually very helpful (I know it's the uniform!!) we sorted out the paperwork issue, I keep scanned copies of all our documents on a server back home so that as long as I can get to a PC with an internet connection I can download them anywhere. which is what happened in the end.

The whole reason for coming to Prudhoe Bay was to start our Pan American journey at the Arctic Ocean and finish it at the Antarctic Ocean, tip to tip. The only way to get to the ocean in this part of the world is to take the Oil Installation tour, this involves paying 40 dollars each, watching a video on how good the oil industry is and how little impact it has on this environment and then touring the oil fields at some point during which you are allowed off the bus to paddle in the sea. That night as we sat in our room we decided that the trauma of the days events would require at least a good nights rest to prepare us for the problems of the next few days. Sue and I were both shook up physically and emotionally and neither of us got any real sleep, I was feeling guilty for getting us in this mess and Sue was worried about having to ride the 500 miles back to Fairbanks on a bike that we weren't sure was roadworthy. In the morning Sue said we should still do the Arctic tour as that was the only reason we had driven up here.

If Sue went through the ice now, she would have to rely on the inflatable bouy on her back!

Can we go back now?

The Arctic ocean at Prudhoe Bay was muddy and cold! and that was that, but it was also the real starting point of our journey and held some significance for us. When we got back to the hotel Sue went to our room to try and relax and Tony, Andy and myself set about trying to get BOB into some sort of rideable condition, the police officer who yesterday made me public enemy number one actually turned out be a descent sort of guy and arranged for us to fix the bike in an aircraft hanger at the local airstrip where his daughter works.

BOB was feeling sorry for himself

BOB had taken quite a pounding on his journey onto the tundra, it appears that when we went down, the right side of the bike contacted first, BOB, Sue and I parted company but the bike kept going and flipped onto the front end landing on the screen which flattened it completely. anything sticking out broke or snapped off and then came to rest on the left side. In the hanger we had the use of a workshop with tools and a workbench with vice and managed to bend the frame holding the screen so it was useable and ran out of cable ties on everything else.

Halfway through the operation the surgeons went to lunch.

BOB was not looking foward to going back to Fairbanks.

The journey back to Fairbanks was unsettling, Sue was understandably nervous and I just wanted to get back and start the process of sorting out the insurance. There was no way we were going to do the whole 500 miles in one stretch even though this far north it never gets dark, so we spent the night in Coldfoot Camp. The run down to Coldfoot was uneventful apart from stopping for a grizzly bear to cross the road, you can't see it in the photo below unless you click on it to enlarge it (the bear looks a long way off, but trust me if you get any closer and he decides to get shirty you better have enough room and time to turn around....or reverse gear!)

"Go on Tony get a bit closer"

BOB holed up for the night at Coldfoot 11.45pm