… having had a good sleep the other night, then last night I was awake again at I dunno – was it 01:00 or 02:00? Well, whatever it was, it was flaming ridiculous.
Back to sleep again, I awoke at about 04:45 or something and lay there quietly vegetating until the alarm went off.
Breakfast was rather quiet as everyone was concentrating on packing and, having been caught out by Adventure Canada’s charter flights in the past,as well as my packed lunch I made myself a couple of bagels with jam and stuffed them in my backpack too. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Back in the cabin, I stuffed all of my winter gear and spare clothes into a bin liner, wrapped it, labelled it and taped it and dumped it in the office. I’ll be back at some time in the future and I don’t want to lug a pile of winter gear around the world with me unnecessarily.
And then I hid in my cabin and kept out of the way of the chaos. I did have to stick my head out of the door to take my luggage down and to receive my passport.
Most of the morning was spent reading a book on the failed Greely expedition to Fort Conger and I was so captivated that I didn’t want to leave the book when I was called to my zodiac. But needs must when the devil drives so I sailed ashore.
But here’s a tragedy. I think that some salt water has got into the contacts of the big lens because it won’t focus any more. If that’s the case, then it’s more than a tragedy. A crisis, I would call it.
The bus that was waiting for us took us to the airport at Kangerlussuac, passing by a friendly arctic fox on the way.
But here’s some more bad news. Our flight is running late. An hour behind time, so they say, But I’ve heard that before. It was about seven hours late last time.
So plenty of time to have a walk round and eat my packed lunch. And to buy a packet of crisps because Ben the Chef’s idea about the size of my appetite is somewhat different from mine.
Waiting around for ages,I was joined by Rosemary who walked down from her hotel, and we had a little chat. But not for long as we were summoned through security. And our flight arrived only 50 minutes late, which is always welcome news.
Once the previous passengers unloaded and the plane was cleaned, we could board and we set off to Iqaluit where we refuelled.
They served a meal on board too and much to my surprise they had something for me. The jammy bagels that I had surreptitiously prepared at breakfast were not required.
No sleep on the plane though. One of the many children on our trip, all of whom had been exceptionally well-behaved throughout the trip, chose this moment to have a temper tantrum and that went on for a couple of hours.
At Toronto, immigration was quite painless but we had to wait ages for our luggage. A 20:50 touch-down, yet we didn’t reach our hotel until about 22;30 and that was depressing.
This evening I’ve washed my undies as they needed it and I hope that they will be dry for tomorrow. And I’m going to take advantage of this super-duper hotel and have a good night’s sleep.
The Sleep Of The Dead if I can.
