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Up at 5:45 am, Olivier followed soon after. Had
breakfast of coffee, bread and cold meat at 6:30 am. You see we can get up early!
I arrived to find that a puddle of antifreeze under
my trike. Stripped the lower radiator cover. Just a slightly loose hose clamp. Reassembled the cover while Olivier filed a flight plan and checked the weather. I found him in the briefing office. Sondre Stromfjord
is a whole town that just has one job – to look after the airport – so everything is very expensive. Landing and handling fees were about 90 US dollars each. Fuelled up the trikes, packed and set our cameras. We
were told that a very big Sikorsky helicopter was going to land near to us, so we had to move. Taxied behind a Scandinavian Airlines Boeing for protection.
I was frustrated and wanted to get going. Olivier
can't be hurried – maybe the Latin blood, or maybe he has a better outlook on life than us big city crazies who are constantly in a hurry – anyway, we eventually got airborne at 11 am! The problem with getting
airborne so late was if we arrived at the next airport after 5 pm, we would have to pay a hefty fee. Well, we discussed this and decided that it would be better to go while the weather was good, then on to Iceland
on Saturday, than pay to leave on Sunday and maybe miss the good weather anyway. Maybe we would be on time!
We took off and headed straight towards the ice cap.
Amazing flight, beautiful sights, took lots of pics.
At the top I climbed to 11500 ft for a few hours. Flew above complete cloud cover for about 1 hour. Raced the last 3 hours to get in on time. I was tired after hauling on the bar for so long – arrived grumpy.
Landed at 4:55 pm.
Had a meal in the local hotel. Camped at the airport.
Cold, but not like Broughton Island. Didn't sleep well.
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