The AStrO population shrinks to 1...

After the evening of packing, there was a lot of effort put into enjoying the last night in Eureka. The ACE Arctic Campaign team participated in all of their favourite activities until the very wee hours of the morning. This meant that the morning started off very, very slowly.

The pilots had planned to leave Eureka after lunch so we spent the morning relaxing around the Weather Station. As long as most people we sleeping, there was no line up for the internet connection. However, the demand grew as more members of the team regained conciousness.

The day developed into one of the best yet for measurements. The sky was clear and the Sun was unobscured by clouds. Since everyone but Annemarie had packed up their instruments, there was much complaining that we were not staying one more day to take advantage of the conditions. Unfortunately, we needed to get down to Resolute to be ready for the flight out to Ottawa tomorrow afternoon.

There will be six of us leaving today with most of the equipment we brought to Eureka. Keith is the only member of the campaign team staying at Eureka. He will be spending the next 6 weeks operating the DA8 and ensuring that the DOAS continues to operate. I wonder how long it will take before he goes stir crazy up at AStrO...

After lunch, the pilots headed up to airfield to get the plane ready for the flight. At 1:45 pm, we got the call to load our gear and freight into the truck and we headed up with the team. It took all of about 5 minutes to load our luggage and equipment into the Twin Otter and then we were ready to go. We took off at 2:11 pm local Eureka time.

One of the pilots was quite interested in what we were doing so we had taken him for a tour of AStrO. During the tour, we asked him to fly over the lab on the way out of Eureka. He followed through on his promise and we had a great view of AStrO. The sky was beautifully clear and the vista was spectacular. Most of the team took the time on the flight to catch up on their sleep, but Richard B. and I spent our time peering out of the windows. The views of Ellesmere Island were superb and there were lots of glaciers that could be seen. After more than 2.5 hours in the air, we touched down in Resolute.

Ozzie (Aziz), the owner of the South Camp Inn, was waiting for us at the airport. We loaded all of our luggage into the van and the frieght into the First Air pickup truck and we were ready to go. As we drove into Resolute, we marvelled at the road we were on which was wide enough for two trucks to pass. We also saw our first stop sign in three weeks! Just for perspective, the hamlet of Resolute has four stop signs.

I asked if we should stop and deal with the waybills right now and Ozzie said I could wait and phone from the hotel. It turned out that Jeremy, the guy from First Air Cargo, was having dinner at the South Camp Inn. So I found out that they hadn't done anything yet but he was going to take care of it tonight. He said he would take good care of the instruments for me. Later, he phoned to say he had found a way of saving us some money by consolidating several of the waybills.

The only bad part of the day is when we found out that our plane would not be coming due to mechanical problems and bad weather in Churchill. This means that we will have one more day in Resolute. Now, we will have to find something to do...

Best regards,
Kaley.