Day 5.
We left Iqaluit in the rear view mirror at the unusually early time of “still morning” and headed for Greenland, OK we don’t have a rear-view mirror but get what I mean. As we flew across Baffin Island we flew over a manned weather station in the middle of nowhere. I looked down and counted my blessings that I didn’t have to work there. Control had us climb 1000 feet because we were overtaking traffic and it wasn’t long before we saw our new friends sloging along in their Twin Otter below us.(Suck it slow pokes!) We had our survival suits handy but we not wearing them crossing the Davis Straight to Greenland because if we lost our engine at 13,000 we’d have 20 minutes or more before we went swimming. With that amount time one pilot could fly while the other got ready to ditch. When I fly solo over the ocean I wear the suit. It wasn’t long before we saw the mountains of Greenland appear over the horizon. I love the mountains of the Greenland coast because they’re so tightly packed and sharp. Looking at them made me happy that we were flying up a wide fjord enroute to the airport.
After landing both crews were informed that the main hotel was fully booked and that we’d have to spend the night in the hostel, wonderful. Not wanting to hang out in our cells the 5 of us headed to the disco/pizzeria/Thi food joint for the usual post flight briefing where we all agreed that we were indeed magnificent pilots for having crossed such and difficult part of the world. As a matter of fact the more we discussed it the more we were impressed with ourselves. Before going to the hostel we’d looked at the next day’s weather and saw that Iceland would still be blocked by the same strong low that had been in our way the day before. That meant that we couldn’t fly the next day. It also meant that we didn’t have to fly the next day, and you know what that means.
It was a fun night with the boys filled with pool, darts and bullshit. I traded winter camping tips with an eskimo from Virginia with a degree in English literature who ran tours on the ice cap and spoke fluent Dutch and fended off an old lady who’s boyfriend was “out of town” Like I said, A fun night.
I’ll have more pictures later when I get better WiFi and arent? Isnent? Not so damn tired.
