Trav's Travels: Stranded: Weather Delay

Delay Day 1 (10/28)

I woke up this morning really confident we were flying out. The weather was beautiful here. When I walked in very sprite and happy, they said, "flight's cancelled" I was sure they were joking. But alas, they were not. Bad weather enroute somewhere.

I wanted to be helpful and since we'd probably be having a flight on Saturday and everyone would be doing flight ops, I decided to help them out by doing some cleaning. Saturday is usually the day we do housemouse in the bighouse and greenhouse, so if they were busy with flight ops, they might not be able to get to it. So, by myself, I cleaned the entire greenhouse and bighouse.

Unfortunately in the late afternoon while doing some physical exertion, I felt a strange sensation down in my groin. Felt like blood briefly pumping through it. And then later once I was sitting down for dinner, I started having a pain in my left testicle. It remained throughout the evening, so I reported it to the medic Sam. We went through a SOAP report and then called the Arctic field support doctor at CU-Health. The doctor wondered if I either had a partial hernia or strained groin. He suggested ice, iburprofen, and a pain killer (i didn't want to take this though, so I didn't). And no lifting.

Sam made a very tasty middle eastern dish. It had lamb kebab and yoghurt, tabooli (or something like that),

Delay Day 2 (10/29)

Bad weather enroute.

My testicle was still hurting all day today. I called back for a check in with the CU doctor.

The folks here have been disappointed and said I am unamerican that I have not seen the 3 original star wars. So Elissa, Matt, Nate, and I watched the entire original star wars trilogy. That's the most I've watched a TV in a long time! Still pain in the testicle all day and also some cramping in my stomach.
The crowd made pizza for dinner. I wasn't feeling great so I just laid in bed and listened to a little bit of the gator game. Elissa was nice and made me some pizza and Nate delivered it to my room

Delay Day 3 (10/30)

Not great weather here, but I guess bad weather at Constable Point where we re-fuel.

Delay Day 4 (10/31)
Happy Halloween!

Elissa and I tag-teamed it for dinner. We made a yummy thai curry with chicken. I also made 3 versions of peanut butter balls: regular peanut butter and honey; peanut butter, honey, chocolate mini chips, and oats; and peanut butter and honey dipped in chocolate.

I was the only one that dressed up for halloween. I dressed up as one of the solar trackers that we clean on a daily basis. Matt took a photo of me with Elissa as the sun (the solar tracker obviously tracks the sun) and Sam cleaning me.

The last few days I haven't been sleeping well. I've been going to bed at the normal time, but I wake up around 4am, which is a bit after Marie goes to send Iceland the current weather. Then I lie in bed, heart pounding as I listen to the wind and wonder what the weather is like outside and whether we'll have a flight.
Tonight I was even more restless, because I finally gave in a checked the weather forecasts. The weather looked good for the 1st at constable point, but not great at Summit. Looking at the weather forecast, there appeared to be a couple hour window of decentish weather at summit corresponding to good weather at constable. But what scared me was that after tomorrow, weather looked horrible at constable point again for the rest of the week, and not good at summit. So I was worried, we may be stranded for at least another week if the "cowboys of the skies" didn't make it in. That is the nickname I had heard about them before b/c they do fly in much more severe weather than the ANG would even think about. I kept thinking about the story of the group that was stuck at summit for over 3 weeks with bad weather. There flight was supposed to be on a Sunday, so on Saturday they had a big lobster feast as a celebration. But a week went by with no flight. So they had more lobster on the next Saturday. Still no flight for a week! So the next Saturday they had lobster again. Then the next Satruday! The lobster then ran out and finally they got a plane!

Day 5
Drama today!! We woke up and Marie had not heard from Norland Air at all. Come morning meeting, still no word. Then right at the end of morning meeting, she got a call that they had off-decked from Akureyri. I jumped up in jubilation, even though I knew this didn't mean they were coming here with certainty. When they were 10 minutes out from Constable, we got a call that they didn't like the weather at summit (25 knots of wind) and were going to land and sit for an hour at constable. Luckily our wind dropped down to 20 knots, which was acceptable to them, so they took off. We still weren't sure if they'd make it, b/c they could still boomerang. We heard they were 40 minutes out! Which was exciting. But still, no one pulled our bedding and sheets, b/c that is the ultimate jinx. Finally we got an 11 minute out call, which is a point of no return, so we pulled our sheets!
The twin otter landed, and we unloaded all the freshies for the winter-overs, loaded up our bags, and jumped in! Of to Iceland!