12 May

7.30 my watch alarm went off and at 8.00 we were all over in the main building for breakfast. Again this was a good spread: 5 different cereals, a choice of different fruit juices, then fresh bread with cheeses, meats and jams. Also there was a pot of boiled eggs along with the endless supply of coffee.

Maybe fifteen minutes into breakfast Benny came in. "Bad news, no flight today, maybe tomorrow". After a bit of quizzing it was clear he did not know why, just that the Twin Otter was not flying in today. After Scott had finished his breakfast he went off to phone Issy, the Icelandic air contact person we had. We didn't gain much info, just that the Twin Otter was busy doing other flights to Greenland, the extra flights for the rescue team had put things out of sequence.

Four decided to go out for a ski, Petter, John, Alan & Gordon, while the rest decided its was not worth the bother unpacking all the gear, getting it wet and then having to repack it again for tomorrow morning. The rest of us just got out a book and read for most of the day. I had a walk around the base and walked the length of the runway. Its was a nice day, still, sunny and warm, just above freezing.

After another good meal in the evening we found out that there was a weather forecast on the TV at 10pm. The TV in the lounge only picked up one channel, a Greenlandic one broadcast from Nuuk. Nuuk is the capital of Greenland, on the South West coast. It's also two hours behind so the programme was actually transmitted at 8pm Nuuk time. The forecast was first in Greenlandic and the Danish. Not many people know, but 98% of Denmark is actually the Island of Greenland! Petter could understand the Danish part but I'm sure most of us got the gist anyway from the weather map. The forecast was for 3 days. Where we were there was going to be two more days of good weather and then the wind was going to get strong - up to 40 miles an hour. Dronning Louise land was having good weather and it would stay good. Down south where the rescue team was the weather was going to remain unstable, windy and cloudy for at least three days. We came to the conclusion that we would have to be flown out in the next two days or we would be stuck there for at least four more days. Well, as far as we knew, we were due to leave tomorrow...