Tuesday night reality set it. This isn't just something we'll be doing in the distant future; we'll be leaving next week.

Baylor survival suits aren't one size-fits-all. Not quite, anyway. There is a large child/small adult that fits up to 110 pounds. I don't think I can lose 20 pounds in the next week, so that is out. Then there is the 110 to 220 pound suit. Hmm. Jack (5'11", 190#) and I (5'6", 130#) wear the same size. I couldn't wait to try mine on. Blaze orange. Waterproof. Buoyant. Insulated well enough to allow us to survive for 24 hours in the North Sea. Gloves flexible enough (once I managed to pull the sleeves up far enough so that my hands reached the gloves - remember, this suit is made for a person much larger than me) to pull up the zipper, all the way past my chin. Big. Bulky. I don't think I'd be able to don this in the airplane, so I'll have to do what others have done and wear it up to my waist on the trip. Then I need to decide between wearing thermal underwear or a thin tee shirt and shorts underneath. It's going to be really hot inside that suit, but the cotton waffle weave underwear might be more comfortable.

Jack had been trying to find someone adventurous enough (or, as he puts it, dumb enough) to make this trip across the North Atlantic with him for three years. When he first talked about it in front of me, I said that if he did make the trip, I wanted to go with him. Then Bill Cox wrote something in Plane & Pilot about getting a caravan together to fly the North Atlantic. Bill got 150 or so replies. Can you believe there are that many pilots interested in flying their little airplanes to Europe? Bill sent out some more info, good stuff like costs and survival gear. I'm sure some of the 150 were just dreaming, maybe planning something far into the future. The costs scared off most of the others. What kind of costs, you ask? Fuel prices in Greenland ($8/gal). Tanking. HF radio. Survival suits. Insurance ( and that wasn't even on his list, but Jack's Avemco policy's area of coverage only extends to the tip of Greenland). Sea survival gear. Land survival gear. Thermal underwear (just try to find that in central Florida in July). Flares. Die markers. The list goes on and on. We, along with Bill Cox, expected 12 to 20 of the prospective 150 airplanes to make the trip. Jack and I were psyched up by this time, and had decided that we'd go anyway, even if the group didn't. But, of course, the group was going to go. This is one of those chance of a lifetime trips. Jack talked to Bill, who said he had only a couple serious prospects, but he was going to go if as few as 6 went. The cutoff date of July 15 came and went. Bill only had 4 prospects, so decided not to go. Hmm. Hmm.

That 55 gallon ferry tank takes up a lot of room. Now, I've known all along what a 55 gallon drum looks like, but seeing it where the back seats used to be was a shock. It takes up the whole back seat area. Well, that and the HF radio equipment take up the whole space. There went the visions of climbing over the tank to escape out the back door. We'd be lucky if we could find room over/in front of/along side of it for the life raft and the sea survival bag. What else needs to be handy? The portable ELT. Drinking water. Munchies.

I've been thinking about packing. Donn Kerby from Globe Aero in Lakeland suggested using several small bags instead of a large one. Makes for easier stowage, plus eliminates having to drag everything out at each stop. Now if I can just organize my stuff, we'll be set. Jack will probably have two small bags. I'll have more. Women just seem to need more stuff. I can't just grab everything because we do have a weight problem. We received an overweight permit with the ferry tank, but we still need to be careful about the weight. This will take some extra thought.

I've been thinking about the trip itself, too. I'm a Cessna pilot, and this is a Bonanza; I did do my bfr in an Arrow. We have two portable GPS units and a LORAN and VOR and ADF receivers. There are mandatory reporting points along the route; we have those programmed into the GPS units, and will be adding them to the LORAN enroute. AOPA sent us their North Atlantic flight packet. Jack ordered the Jepps charts for that part of the world. Donn Kerby gave us pointers on the actual routes to use. What else?

Bader field is all but closed; there is parking but no fuel or security, nothing but a pay phone. We flew into Atlantic City International instead, which is about 25 miles further away, but where we felt that the airplane, and all the stuff inside, would be safe. We took the GPS's with us anyway. We stayed at a Holiday Inn on the boardwalk and ate hot dogs and taffy. Well, I ate the taffy. We walked to the other end of the boardwalk, and had a cart ride back.

Nail biting time; we picked up a little icing on the way. We got free and safe parking overnight on the customs ramp. Here was the beginning of the really good food on the trip. I had a lobster cocktail that evening.

Our appointment with the Canadian inspector was at 10:00. It took until after that before we finally tracked the guy down, but the inspection went quickly once he found out we had been coached by Donn Kerby from Globe Aero in Lakeland. Donn has a really good reputation with these Canadians, and with all the other people we met on the trip. Well, anyway, we had to do some show and tell with the survival equipment, and then we were on our way. We flew to Quebec City and found a nearby motel. We had a rental car, so we drove into the old walled city, and wandered around and checked it all out. That night Jack wanted fish and chips for dinner. We drove around for quite awhile, and then he settled for a fish sandwich at McDonald's.

Our AOPA booklet lists Lebanon as an airport-of-entry, with customs hours from 10 am to sometime in the afternoon, every day. We arrived around 11, planning on picking up Carol at camp around noon. When we'd landed, the controller asked where we wanted to park. Jack told him we needed to go through customs. The controller informed us that there were no customs agents there, and that it would take at least an hour and a half to get one from Toronto, provided there was one available. If not, it could take most of the day. Well... We ended up flying to Burlington, VT, and going through customs there. And then back to Lebanon. We rented a car and drove out to the camp, and picked Carol up by about 1. She wanted to go to the Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream factory, and then to, can you believe this, Burlington, to shop. We stopped for lunch along the way. Carol asked me what Jack did for a living. I told her that he had a junk yard and sold used auto parts. Right then and there, Carol, the little environmentalist, decided that Jack was quite ok. The B&J's tour was fun. Well, for me and Carol anyway; Jack did enjoy the mandarin ice cream. Then we went to Burlington so Carol could shop. It was an enjoyable day. And a long one; we dropped Carol off at camp around midnight, and then had an hour to drive before we got to our motel.

If I don't get enough sleep, I'm grumpy. I didn't get enough sleep. We'd gotten in late the night before, and left early the next morning, and I was less than pleased. We stopped to refuel and go through customs again at Sept Iles, a very pretty area. Sept Iles means seven islands, and there were seven islands in the bay. Then on to Goose, our stepping off point. We took a taxi to the hotel near the airport. The taxi driver told us that the hotel was fine, but the restaurant wasn't, and that we should go into town for dinner instead of eating in the hotel restaurant. We ate in the hotel restaurant. The food was fine. The we went for a walk around the area. There's not much there. We decided that if we came back this way, we'd go into town to see what was there.

Our big day. Actually, the first of many, but this was to be the day we set out over the North Atlantic in this little airplane. We climbed into our survival suits, and climbed into the airplane. We wore the suits waist high, and put the hoods up over the headrests, and got as comfortable as we could. There wasn't a whole lot of room up there anymore. Take off wasn't a problem, despite being overweight. The climb out was a little slower than normal, but there were no problems. When we'd leveled off at 17,000 feet, Jack switched to the ferry tank. All went well for 6 minutes. Then the fuel flow meter showed a drastic drop in fuel flow at the same time the engine started to sputter. Jack immediately switched back to the main tank and the engine purred. Hmm. That was pretty scary. We were not within gliding distance to land, and that was some pretty chilly water down there. We flew on the main for another half hour or so, and then Jack tried the ferry tank again. This time it fed normally for an hour, then did that scary thing again. Another quick switch, and we were fine again. We decided then to only fly on the mains and the tips for the rest of the trip. We only had to use the HF radio once; the rest of the time we were within range with the regular comm radios. Soon we neared Greenland. The controllers gave us QNH. Oops. The flight bag with the chart to convert QNH in hecto Pascals to inches of mercury had slipped behind the ferry tank, and was out of reach. This will be a visual approach. The approach is to an NDB at the mouth of the fjord, up the fjord (and there are several, so one must be very careful to select the right one) to another beacon, then angle off along the right up the right arm of the fjord to the airport. I spotted a dirt road where the airport should have been. THAT is the runway? There is no radar here, but we'd been told by ATC that the fjord was clear, and so was the airport. The controller gave us the winds, and offered us either runway. Straight in meant a hefty tailwind, so Jack said he'd take the other way. We went around once. Jack's headset was slipping forward, and he was trying to land, so he took it off, and I talked to the tower. The controller asked if we were having trouble getting the gear down. I said no. They wanted a weird approach to the runway. After another try, Jack realized the only way was a straight in, with a downwind landing. I guess that was what the controller was suggesting all along. Oh well. Soon we were down. We were both happy to remove the survival suits, even though they'd kept us quite warm and toasty on the trip. While Jack secured the airplane, I went to find the customs agent. Turns out, we could have had an inspection if we'd insisted. We didn't. We stopped in the post office and got stamps and postcards, and then tried to find a way to the hotel. The shuttle wasn't available, so we decided to walk. The hotel was a lot farther away than we thought. It was a long hike. We finally got there, and checked in. We stopped in the coffee shop for a snack. They had strange soft drinks, and pretty open faced sandwiches of lox and caviar and crab with fancy garnishes. Our room had hard narrow beds and a shared bath. My back likes a hard bed, and there didn't seem to be very many people in the hotel, so the shared bath wasn't a problem. It wasn't a problem, that is, until we heard somebody in the next room go into the bathroom, lock the door, do what ever it is one does in a bathroom, and then leave, leaving the door locked. This could be a problem. Jack went next door, and asked the guy to unlock the bathroom. He was surprised to hear that we didn't have a key for the bath. So Jack and I went down to the desk to get a key. Turns out there weren't any spares. So what do we do in the middle of the night if the door is locked? The hotel desk is open 24 hours a day, and someone would be happy to come and unlock the door. I don't think so. We tried to get a room with a key, but the desk clerk said he didn't know which of the empty rooms had keys (people steal them, you know), and he didn't want to take the time to go look. Finally one of us asked if there were any rooms with private baths, and we were told that there were some in another wing. So we moved. We went out walking for awhile. We could see icebergs in the bay. We'd seen lots in the fjord on the way in, too. And a little fishing village across the bay. We walked down to the water, and across to the end of the runway. Then we headed back to the hotel for a dinner of reindeer and whale. We thought about walking after eating, but the mosquitos were too big and numerous and pesty. We stopped in the lounge for a glass of wine, and had a hard time ordering because the natives speak Danish, but we finally got a couple glasses of really nice wine. Dinner was very pretty. The food came in small portions, with fancy garnishes. Usually Jack and I order appetizers, or one dinner to split, but these portions were small enough for us to finish. We ordered more wine. It wasn't the same. We were told they only had two kinds of white wine, so we ordered the other kind. It wasn't the same as the wine we'd gotten in the lounge, either.

The flight over was mundane. We were in contact with ATC all the way. We had the QNH/inches of mercury conversion chart up in front with us this time, but wouldn't have needed it because the controller gave us both settings. We found out later that that is standard when the airplane is a US registered craft. It was COLD when we landed. Really cold. I unloaded our stuff (and put on another sweater, and got another one out for Jack), and dashed into the agent's building. If we ever go into cold country again, I plan on taking some lightweight, warm jackets along, like the kind Land's End sells. Jack stayed behind to secure the airplane, and have it refuelled. In Iceland, as in some other countries, an agent, for a fee, handles everything including customs, getting weather reports, filing flight plans, and even booking accommodations. We checked into the hotel behind the airport. Now this was quite a nice place. There was a big warm pool, filled with water from deep in the earth, and a spa that was almost hot. We took advantage of both. We had dinner in the hotel restaurant; more pretty food in small portions. I read up on Icelandic names. The phone books list by first names and then last. Lucky it's a small country. A child's surname is made up of the father's first name and the word son or dottir. For example, if Jack's daughter Linda had been born there, she would have been named Linda Jacksdottir. And his son Doug would have been named Doug Jackson. Maybe with two esses. I'm pretty sure that a female who marries takes on her husband's surname because there weren't that many surnames ending in -dottir in the phone book and on the cemetery headstones.

We went on a bus tour to the Blue Lagoon. This is an artificial lake in a lava bed, with water that is runoff from the geothermal power plant that abuts the lake. The air temperature was about 45F; the water, about 45C. For you non metric types, that's about 110F. Of course we had to go for a dip. Let's see. I peeled off a wool sweater, a cotton sweater, a turtleneck, and my thermal undershirt, then put on my suit. One can't just run into this pool because the bottom is rough. Remember, it's a lava bed. So we very gingerly walked in and squatted down so as to get under water as quickly as possible. The water is milky white and opaque. This is due to some substances leaching out from the lava. The Blue Lagoon water is reputed to be very good for skin diseases, particularly psoriasis. Getting out and heading to the locker rooms was a real blow to this Florida body. We went into town later. Jack had heard that there were some great buys on sealskin parkas in Iceland, so we went looking. We finally found someone who told us where to go, and ended up in a fur shop. Not quite what we had in mind. So we didn't get any. Not a really big tragedy because they're illegal here anyway, and what would be the point of having a sealskin parka in central Florida? We found a little tiny restaurant that had this great fish. We enjoyed that with a bottle of Black Tower wine and some deep fried camembert. Luckily we were doing a lot of walking or we'd both have gained a lot of weight. Jurassic Park was playing at one of the local theaters. We'd decided that if we were kept there by weather, we would go see it the next day. It would have been interesting to see it with subtitles in whatever is Iceland's local language. Turns out the weather was just fine.

This was another pretty uneventful leg. Except for the icing, of course. We stayed in radio contact all the way across the water, so we felt pretty comfortable. It was raining as we came in, but stopped about the time we landed. Jack taxied over to the transient parking area, where we were met by our agent. About this time the heavens opened up. Jack had been busy shutting down the airplane, then told me to get out so we could stretch. I could see the deluge, so I told him I wanted to wait a few minutes. He told me he wanted to get out and stretch right then, so I opened the door, climbed out of the airplane and started climbing out of my suit. Apparently this was when Jack noticed that it was pouring, so he told me to get back in. I quickly decided that it would be quicker for me to finish removing the suit and run to the waiting van than to try to get back in there, so that's what I did. He says he told me to get back in while I was still in the airplane; I say it was when I was already out and halfway out of my suit. What do you think? Would he have said get back in if I was still in, or would he have said stay in? So anyway, I sat in the van with the agent until it passed, and then we secured the airplane and got our stuff and headed to the office. The agent handled all the arrangements for our planned trip to Paris the next day, giving us suggestions for selecting a Paris airport, and airports in London and Dublin. He also handled booking us into the Glasgow Hilton, at half the normal rates. Then he got us a taxi. If we wouldn't have had any local currency, we could have charged the taxi ride, and paid for it along with the handling fee when we came back the next day. We went into town later on and just wandered through the stores. I think we bought some calendars, and a few munchies. Was this the place where we had fish and chips in the mall food court?

We headed off early the next morning. We had a slot time reserved. This is necessary if one wants to fly anywhere near London. The whole trip was a series of IFR flights. Once we left North America, the flight levels began at FL060, so VFR is restricted anyway. We both found it hard to understand the controllers, and they couldn't understand us. English is the aviation language, but the accents were difficult. We ended up communicating by phonetically spelling things back and forth. The route was pretty strange. We were vectored around everything and everybody. We finally landed at Toussous Le Noble airport near Paris. We parked in the customs area and went into the customs building. There was no handling agent here, so we were on our own. The only person we could find was a police officer, who told us to just fill out the form, and go on. So we did. Then I tried to rent a car over the phone, using a French for Travellers book. That didn't work very well. Jack wanted to get the oil changed, but when we finally communicated this to the mechanics we met, they didn't have the right oil. So we gave up that idea. We finally found a place that had a rental car and an English speaking person, and were soon on our way in our rented car. This rental car didn't have a map, so we were heading to Paris just following the signs. We drove into Paris and found a place to eat. We liked where we were, so checked in at the hotel across the street. We walked around and ate and relaxed and bought maps. We took a drive to the Eiffel Tower, and went up in it, then tried to find our way back. We got lost and drove many miles, oops, kilometers out of our way before we finally found our way back to the hotel. We had dinner at one of the little restaurants in the area, and relaxed and had a good time.

We went to the Louvre and got lost on the way. How we could miss something this big is beyond me, but we did. We did get to see a lot of Paris this way, so it wasn't a problem. The Louvre is huge. There was a really long line when we got there, and these people were standing in the rain, so we decided to wander around the area and get something to eat, and come back when the crowds had thinned. It was pretty nice once we got in. Later we took a boat ride on the Seine, then headed back to our hotel. We got lost again, and had to ask directions along the way. I pointed out where our hotel was on the map, and the other person pointed to the right direction, and we headed that way. We found a nice restaurant that evening. Kind of an open place. The mosquitos got me, of course. We ordered off the French menu, using the few words we knew, and got pretty much what we wanted. And then when dessert time came, the waitperson gave us a menu in English. I ordered all you can eat chocolate mousse. I expected to get a dish, and if I wanted more, I would get another dish. Well. It took forever to be delivered, but when it finally came, it was huge. It was served in a dish that was at least 12 inches across and 5 inches deep. We couldn't eat it all. Jack took a picture of me with this bowl of mousse in front of me but it was one of the pictures that didn't turn out.

We flew to London in the roundabout way that is the norm there. We went through customs quickly. The customs agent even gave us some suggestions about getting around in the country. We took a taxi to the train station. There we found the accommodations booking people, who booked a room for us in town where we wanted to be. We took a train to the station (Victoria Station, I think), then a taxi to our hotel. We were walking distance to Oxford Street. We went to Westminster Abbey, but it was closed to tourists because it was Sunday. We went back on Monday and toured it. We got a peek at Buckingham Palace but didn't see any royal people. We went to Madame Tousaud's wax museum. I was impressed. We also went into the planetarium that abuts the museum. The show put us both to sleep. We went to the British Museum. There were so many mummies there that I can't believe that there are any mummies left in Egypt. I also saw green 'L Plates'. These take the place of the P's that one sees in Australia. The ones I saw were red on one side and green on the other. When we were getting ready to leave the country, we saw N3102C on the departure board! Can you imagine how big the board would have to be if all small airplanes' arrivals and departures were put up on the boards?

The flight over was uneventful, but long. What should have been an hour and a half flight took two and a half because we were vectored all over the place. When we arrived the ground controller was very busy. One ground controller seems to handle all movements on the airport, including start up permission for everybody, and push backs for the airliners. We ended up parking in the wrong area and had a tough time getting taxi permission to go to the right area. We got a taxi and told the driver we wanted a room someplace with a private bath, and close in town. He stopped at several before finding one with a room available. This was in a 200+ year old building which used to be a house. Our room was huge. It had a double bed and two single beds, and room enough for another three or four beds. It was across from a park (St. Stephens Green) and walking distance to the downtown area. I wanted fisherman knit sweaters for me and my girls, so we hit all the stores until I found exactly what I wanted. And then we got a walking tour map and walked. We found a mall with a tee shirt shop, and bought Kelly green (well, we were in Ireland, weren't we?) tee shirts and had Jack & Diane's 1993 Grand Adventure added. Later, when we were at our hotel, Jack thought it would save time the next day if the plane was already refuelled, but when I called, I was told the crew had to be present during refuelling.

Back to Scotland. This time we rented a car and drove up around Loch Lomond and Loch Ness. We looked pretty hard but didn't see Nessie. The perimeter of the lake is lined with bed and breakfasts. Someone told me later that the government won't allow hotels to be built in the area. Loch Ness is a lot bigger than I expected. It took us a couple hours to circle it. It's rough, too, and cold. We saw some boats out on it that were getting tossed around quite a bit. We stopped and walked down to the edge and touched the water. And we brought a couple rocks back as souvenirs. Then we headed back to Glasgow, and our hotel. The Glasgow Hilton is right in the center of town, so we didn't anticipate any problems finding it. Don't you know it, when you don't anticipate problems is when you're most likely to have them. We drove around and around, for at least an hour or two, stopping strangers and asking for directions, and we finally found our way there. And then drove in the exit to the parking area.

We climbed back into our survival suits and headed back. About a half hour into the journey, we turned around and headed back because the turbo quit working. This meant, of course, paying another landing and handling fee, even though we'd left an hour ago. The agent arranged for a mechanic to look at it. Jack authorized overtime for the mechanic so that he would continue working on it past quitting time. We finally headed back to the hotel for the night after leaving instructions for the mechanic to call if he found anything.

The mechanic said that the turbo needed a part, but the part wouldn't be available for several weeks. He also said the airplane would fly just fine without it, so we decided to head back and just plan on flying lower. Jack offered to buy a ticket on a commercial jet for me, but I turned down his offer. The mechanic said that the airplane would fly just fine, so what's to worry about? Off we went. We were flying at about 10000 feet, and the turbo appeared to be working. We encountered nasty headwinds. At one point we thought we'd have to turn around again because our groundspeed (can you have groundspeed over water?) was 102 knots. At that rate it would have taken us 7 hours to get to Iceland. Luckily the wind shifted a bit, and we picked up a little speed. We encountered icing, so called ATC and told them we were climbing to 12000. The controller told us to wait for our higher clearance. Right. We were still picking ice up at 12000, and the turbo was still working, so we climbed higher. And higher. We ended up at 16000 or 18000 feet before we got out of the icing.

The handling agent got our weather for us. Narsarsuaq had three fronts in the area. The agent suggested flying across the icecap to Sonderstrom, and then on to Frobisher instead. So that was the route we took. He said there was fuel at Frobisher Bay; there hadn't been earlier because the bay was full of pack ice, and they wait in the summer for the ice to break up, then they get the supplies for the year. He gave us a computer printout showing our route of flight and our reporting points. There was a ferry pilot there who didn't have approach plates for Sonderstrom. Jack knew he had them because we'd just looked at them. He offered to let the other pilot make copies, but he declined. So we climbed back into our orange suits, and headed across the water again. At one point during this leg we were out of radio contact with ATC, but a friendly Air Canada pilot relayed our position reports for us. We could have used the HF radio, but that was awkward to use, and hard to understand. He also told us that the weather was clear over the icecap. This was good to know, since the icecap is about 12000 feet itself. We picked up ice along the way several times, and climbed out of it. There was a ferry pilot about a hundred miles behind us. His name was Chris and he was flying a cabin class twin. He had oxygen, too, so he could climb out of the ice. At one point he had to get off the radio with us and open up the 5 gal fuel jugs he was carrying to relieve the pressure in them. He had bought about 20 of these jugs and filled them with fuel in Iceland, where fuel was about $1.65/gal. He would use them to refuel in Greenland, where avgas was about $8. The ferry pilot we'd met in Iceland didn't. He was a hundred miles behind the other ferry pilot. His options were to fly at 15000 without O2, or to fly below the icing level, which at that point was below 5000 feet. Not a pleasant thought when in the middle of the nowhere. I don't think he had an HF radio, either, so he would have been out of radio contact for much of the trip if he'd have flown down that low. So I think he climbed up. We chatted with Chris along much of the route, and met him when we landed at Sonderstrom. We confused people on the frequency because usually I talked (I understood the foreign controllers better, and they understood me better), but sometimes Jack did. When I reported icing the first time, I got a lot of responses. I don't have the biggest voice around. Later on, when we met Chris, he said I'd sounded like a little girl lost over the North Atlantic. Then he thought about it, and realized I had to be older than I sounded. Funny thing here. We couldn't find the approach plates. Where could they have gone? Chris offered to read off the important info, but the weather was VFR so we could make a visual approach, so we declined his offer. At Sonderstrom, we tried to spend all the Danish coins. We probably looked liked kids in a candy store. Then we walked over to the weather office. We didn't want to spend the night there because there are hefty fees for takeoffs, landings and parking on Sundays in Greenland. One of the agents along the way said it is $500. Well, anyway. On the way to the weather office, we saw an outdoor meat market. One of the natives had caught an animal and butchered it. He was selling chunks of meat to passersby. We tried to find out what it was but we couldn't get past the language barrier. It was small deer size. When we got ready to leave, Chris was busy pouring avgas into the tip tanks of his airplane.

The trip to Frobisher Bay was quiet. Very quiet. We made a position report but didn't get any reply so we tried using the HF radio. The controller said he already had it; he could hear us but we couldn't hear him. And then, as we neared the airport, we couldn't get anybody to talk to us. We were probably 20 miles from the airport before we could even get a response from approach. We landed and climbed out of our survival suits for the last time (for this trip, anyway), and were met by the customs agent. She told us one of the three hotels had a shuttle, so we called and were picked up almost immediately; the hotel was only a few blocks away. We got a room with funny beds. They were wedge shaped; the head was double bed size and the foot was twin bed size. We got settled, then walked down to the beach; it was low tide, and a lot of the boats were aground. There were numerous icebergs scattered about, both in the water and on the shore. Now remember, this is in August. We both had to taste the ice; it was fresh as we expected. This is glacier ice that breaks off the icecap. Then we walked down to a restaurant, where we had Arctic Char, a nice white fish, and caribou. The fish was good, the caribou was interesting. It was kind of gamey, like venison. Then we headed over to a supermarket. Iqaluit is an Eskimo village of 3500 people. Because it is small, and because most everything needs to be brought in, the prices are high. Ritz crackers were $4.60 per box. We'd had a long day so we headed back to our hotel.

We were up with the birds. We'd gained four hours yesterday, so by 6am we were more than ready to go on. Jack went to the front desk to see about the shuttle. There wasn't anybody there. We then tried to call a taxi. The phone book said 24 hour service, but we couldn't get anybody to answer the phone. We were all bundled up (remember the icebergs from yesterday?), so we decided to walk to the airport. We lugged all our stuff over there, then found the gates and the terminal all locked up. I suggested climbing over the fence, but Jack thought that was a bad idea. We were freezing. We tried all different doors. Finally I found one with a doorbell, so I rang it. A man came around the side of the building wondering what I wanted. I said we wanted to get inside. He asked for a pass. Hmm. I said we had an airplane there, so he let us in. And then we were off. That was a very cold airplane. Jack set the autopilot as soon as possible so he wouldn't have to touch anything until it warmed up. As usual, we ran into some icing, but climbed above it. We stopped at Sheffordsville to refuel. I was complaining to the attendant about the cold, and he said it was nice that day; it had snowed the day before. This is August! We were soon on the road again, so to speak. It started to get warmer, and we started shedding clothes. We were each wearing sweaters and shirts and thermal underwear. By the time we got to Maine, we were dressed normally and quite comfortable. We taxied up to a phone and called the customs agent. He needed to know all our stops from the time we left the US weeks ago, but we came up with something that satisfied him, so we were then free to do what we wanted. We got a taxi to a motel, then decided to go out for Maine lobster. And then a taxi ride past Stephen King's house.

We headed back, VFR I think. The weather ahead deteriorated so we headed west towards Gainesville for a potty stop and to refuel and check the weather. We had decided to take the equipment back to Globe Aero on the way home, rather than keep it another day. The weather between Gainesville and Lakeland was nasty. It's only a short hop, but we ended up climbing almost to 10,000 feet to stay above the clouds, then decided to go under, and finish this leg at about 1500. And what a surprise - Lakeland was perfectly clear and nice. We dropped off the suits and radio, and of course talked about what we'd seen and done, then headed to Orlando. When we landed, Nellie Belle (that's Jack's Bonanza) held her head up high when she taxied past the other airplanes.

This trip was so much fun. We're already planning an around the world trip. Jack's having deicing equipment put on the airplane. I've gotten some information from AOPA, including some good contact names. And some very interesting information, like no avgas in Russia. How will we work around that? But the trip will be fun. We plan on two to three months, starting with the trip up the east coast of the US, through Canada, then across the pond to Europe. Then touring Europe, Africa if we can arrange everything there, and India, Southeast Asia, Australia, and China, Japan, Korea, Russia, and across to Alaska.

There are a lot of things to think about. Immunizations. Visas. Weird navigation in Russia; a navigator is required for almost all flights. And then there's the fuel problem. 71 Octane gasoline is available, but that isn't even enough for the airplanes with the auto gas STC, much less a Bonanza with a turbo charger. We'll work it out!

Home / Dedication and Mission / Preparation / across the US to California / First ocean crossing to Hawaii /

Ocean crossing to Samoa / Ocean crossing and flying in New Zealand / Crossing and flying in Australia /

Multiple jumps: Singapore to South Africa / Multiple Jumps: South Africa to Greece / Europe /

Crossing the North Atlantic / Last leg home / About the pilot / About the plane / Supporters /

Overview / Women / Kids / FAQ / Lessons Learned / Family and Friends /

Flight reports: FL to CA / CA to HI / in Hawaii / HI to Am Samoa / Am Samoa to NZ / in NZ / NZ to AU / in AU / in AU2

AU to Singapore / Singapore to India / India to Seychelles / Seychelles to S.Africa / in South Africa / Zambia to Ethiopia /

Djibouti to Greece / Greece to France / England, Ireland, Scotland / to Iceland / to Greenland / to Canada / last legs home

New: Presentations / Book

I'm happy to hear from you, please email me at cagarratt@gmail.com any ideas, suggestions or flight tips. Thanks.