Outward bound...

After the delights of a drizzly Welsh New Year, wading in a waterlogged Lake District and accidentally finding a Scottish snowstorm on the return to Glasgow it was a bit of a shock to find myself finally on a plane across the Atlantic. I was armed with almost everything I hoped I needed for a couple of weeks in the Arctic. The only extra necessity was a pair of warm winter boots and so I'd built an extra day into my itinerary to allow time to hit the shops in Ottawa. Or not... as the case might be. I arrived in Newark, and then got stuck. Unseasonal fog in Ottawa meant that my connecting flight was cancelled, then the next, then the next. After a night in a hotel the next day was spent in the airport - and making friends with fellow passengers in the same plight. Tifenn, David and I came up with a great plan of driving six hours from New York to Ottawa - but decided that would be a bad idea when Continental staff appeared to say that if we did that, they wouldn't be responsible for getting our luggage to Ottawa! After being sent over to Air Canada, we waited nervously to discover whether we would be allowed to fly as standby passengers on a flight to Toronto. Toronto, not Ottawa - but at least it would be the correct country! We were ecstatic to get on the flight - all three of us had spent more than enough time in Newark airport. Unfortunately, the last thing I heard before getting on the flight was that no bags had been transferred from Continental. I spent the flight chatting to the wonderful lady in the seat next to me who had just spent the last day or two flying from Jakarta where she'd been visiting her daughter. The connecting flight to Ottawa wasn't due to leave until 6:20am, so we pulled some seats together and slept in a cafe in Toronto airport. Then when I got up at 4am, our flight was "on time" - were we really going to make it to Ottawa? Finally? I checked the arrival board - all flights leaving Ottawa for Toronto had been cancelled...maybe we weren't going anywhere after all. I didn't tell the others - let them hope! So I was very surprised to be boarded onto the plane. At this point I was utterly convinced that I would never see my bag again. I knew that I would arrive in Ottawa airport with just enough time to get to my connecting flight to Nunavut. Should I go even without my bag? Turning up in Igloolik without anything warmer than my jeans and trainers seemed to be the height of stupidity. But not to go? That too seemed foolish. So I checked in. "Would you like to check any bags?" asked the check in clerk. "No thanks" I said blythely, "They're somewhere in America". Then, I went back downstairs to rejoin the others. Skeptically, we allowed the baggage service officer to take our luggage receipts and go to "see if your bags are in customs". Yeah right, we thought. Not a chance. He disappeared for ages and I was beginning to get worried as I wanted to go through security for my flight to Iqaluit. Then, miracle of miracles, he came back, with a trolley upon which were sat our bags! Suddenly, everything seemed to be coming together and I rushed off to happily check in my bag and head through security to the gate. Looking outside, it seemed that my haste had been premature. It was properly thick fog. How on Earth could any pilot take off in that?! Nonetheless, amid all other flights cancelling, ours was called, we trouped onto the plane and were pushed off to taxi through the cloud. The guy sat next to me worked for a renewable energy company and lived in Iqaluit. He said exactly the same thing happened yesterday - they taxied out, sat in the plane for an hour, then taxied back to the terminal. It seemed as if history was repeating itself when the pilot said we were waiting in a queue of five, all of us praying for the visibility to increase. Some of the other planes gave up, we stayed. Then, our pilot announced that there was a jump in visibility - hopefully it would last long enough for us to get airbourne. To be honest, from my view through the window there wasn't any better visibility but incredibly we took off. I was on my way to the Arctic at last.