Friday, July 11, 2014

Arrived In Ilulissat! And FOG.

Well, we arrived at least, and about half of our gear did as well.  Unfortunately, come of our cargo including much of our science gear and all of our safety gear, is still stick in Kangerlussuaq.

On our flight up, we heard the announcement from the pilot that the weather in Ilulissat wasn't good enough to land, but we were going to go up there anyway hoping that it would clear.  As we got closer to Ilulissat, the weather still hadn't cleared and we had to do some circles and wait.  Fortunately, these circles happened over the beautiful ice-choked Jacobshavn Icefjord, with bergs calved from Jacobshavn Isbrae, some of the fastest-moving ice on the island.  So many icebergs are discharged from this one outlet glacier that I have heard it said that it is statistically likely that the berg that sunk the Titanic came from this very glacier.  I'll just say it was better than being in a holding pattern over Newark (no offense intended- really!).

Finally we  found a hole in the clouds, dropped through, and found the airport.  Step one complete!  Some of our cargo, however, didn't make it on that flight, and this afternoon, fog blanketed much of West Greenland, causing no end of aviation headaches, including ours.

Right now it's still foggy, so the outlook looks dim for us in getting our fuel cache placed, which is our objective for tomorrow.  We'll talk to Daniel, our pilot, at 7am and see what it looks like then.

In the foreground, buildings that are part of our lodging, the Hotel Hvide Falk.  In the background, if there were no fog, you would be able to see the fjord...  Note that this photo, taken today (really!), bears a striking resemblance to one I posted in May of 2012.  I thought it felt familiar

So, nobody's doing much now, but then tomorrow's another day!

1 Comments:

At 19:09, Blogger IMC said...

Happy Travels! We'll be watching your adventures unfold.

 

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