Written on 13th August 2007: I am writing this on Monday night, with the sun streaming through the fog into my hotel room, and right into my face. There's only one desk to write at so I am wearing my darkest sunglasses. I could close the curtains, but that would spoil the view, which is pure magic. The mountains on the far side of the fjord are higher than the fog, and the icebergs are eerily poking through the murk and everything is changing from minute to minute. Anyway, its Monday, but let's pretend its Saturday. Saturday was a bit special. No, Saturday was a lot special. So cue up some sort of flashback special effect; you can add music, if you like. We were up at around 6:30 am, nowhere near the crack of dawn (which is 4 am and is spect...

Today was another long day. Up at the crack of dawn - we're far enough south here in Kangerlussuaq that it still gets dark at night, and then pretty much busy busy busy until this evening. Eric Kendrick was first to leave on a commercial flight towards the north. He had a mountain of excess baggage that needed to go with him to Upernavik, where he will be installing one of our GPS sites. The folks at Air Greenland had been warned we were coming, but even so it took a moment or two of concerned glances and nervous foot shuffling before forms were produced and signed and Eric could be on his way. An hour or so later Dana and Abel carted off to a military flight towards the south and Narsarssuaq. They will be based from there while installing four more GPS sit...

I'm somewhere over Baffin Bay in a noisy but not very cramped LC-130 of New York Air National Guard (NYANG). Up at 4am this morning, running around as usual in order to stop and wait. and wait and wait. The formalities at the Scotia Airbase were very much more relaxed than those at Christchurch. No Extreme Weather Gear to roast in in the middle of summer and no barked commands like I am used to on the flights to Antarctica. We still got a cramped plane though. Instead of the ever-so-nice C17 Globemasters we take from "Cheech" to the ice, we got onto a ski-equipped Hercules with web seating to fly from Scotia to "Sondie" as the guard call it, or Kanger as pretty much everyone else seems to call it. We were told we were going to stop on the way there, and ...

So who came up with the idea again? Who thought "lets go and put lots and lots of GPS stations around Greenland....yeah, that sounds like a good idea!" It seemed a fine idea at the time. But then, at the time, I didn't have to get up at 4 am... 4am!! To get a taxi to an airfield to then get onto a noisy transport aircraft, to sit in webbing seats (not comfy) to fly to Greenland. Am I excited? Oh yes, definitely! Am I dreading it? Sort of... I've never been to Greenland, and my last experience in the Arctic was 11 years ago now, which seems like a lifetime. ...