Day 11 - May 16 2006

Today the weather started out nicer than it had been since we arrived at Flade Isblink. It was sunny and clear enough to see mountains in the distance. Although the temperature was nearly constant all day long (around 14� F), by late afternoon the winds had picked up to 17-20 mph, giving a wind chill of about -17� F. Stefan, Simon and Sverrir continued working on the drill dome and Dennis and I finished setting up the Iridium system and started assembling the radar depth sounder. About that time the main camp generator started to fail and had to be shut down. After considerable troubleshooting, Simon and Sverrir concluded that the head gasket needed replacing, work which would require the space and relative warmth of the weatherport, and the plan was to service both it and the backup generator at the same time tomorrow. This was a major operation that would delay erection of the drill dome for a day. With the weather deteriorating, we prepared a dinner of soup, baked salmon, mashed potatoes and green peas. For dessert we had vanilla pudding and blackberries. After dinner we took a group picture and called it a day.


Andreas preparing to exit the weatherport with Bruce looking on




Flade Isblink field team group photo
(From left to right)
Back row: Sverrir Hilmarsson (Iceland), Simon Sheldon (U. Copenhagen), Andreas Lemark (U. Copenhagen), Bruce Vaughn (U. Colorado), Lars Berg Larsen (U. Copenhagen), and Steffen Bo Hansen (U. Copenhagen)
Front row: Dennis Sundermeyer (U. Kansas), J.P. Steffensen (U. Copenhagen), Claude Laird (U. Kansas)