Yesterday everybody got back late because the motor wasn't starting - I guess after about an hour they got it working. Replaced the spark plugs this morning so we'll see how it works today. I'm feeling much better today. I think it was only partially my period and partially intestinal, perhaps my system is revolting against the continued sameness of our daily diet. I'm eating almonds now, nuts really seem to help (no salt of course). It started raining last night and is continuing throughout the morning (now 11:55am GMT) - we'll probably go out around 1 if the weather gets better, but it looks pretty ominous. Today is Wednesday. Tomorrow Peter Kelemen is coming to Skaergaard - he runs an exploration outfit for the mining company, climbing and such to get samples. In the off-season he works as a researcher (post-doc) at Woods Hole, so all in all he sounds interesting and perhaps useful. We need some new blood around here. But it's amazing how many people I've met, I hope I remember them all. It seems almost like there's a special "club" of people that have been to Greenland - everyone discusses Greenland politics and trivia, quite interesting, very cliquey. Well my tent is keeping fairly dry despite all the holes - I patched the biggest ones with strapping tape. DEFINITELY need to buy a new tent (and another pair of pants). More later after we've done something.

Well, we ended up doing something yesterday at 1. Went out in the boat (all six of us) and the motor still wasn't working well. Dick decides its water in the gasoline, so we float to shore and all eat our lunches while he runs back to camp to get more "clean" fuel. Meanwhile some Greenlanders show up in a boat with a dead seal on the back, and ask for Kent Brooks. We explain that he left, so they leave too. Manage to get out to fieldwork by 4:30. John and Jen go look at anorthosite blocks and Dick, Rob, Jim, and I just wander around Lower Zone C (no magnetite!), then go back to camp and drive Rune crazy with our barley fiasco! Yuck! Jim, the "nouvelle cuisine" chef, "fixed up" our barley with Rune's spices and beef bouillon cubes. What a mess. Then we tried to fix our broken oar, but that was a fiasco too. Traded John a tin of sardines for 100gr of chocolate. Yum!

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Today we got an early start. Jim and Rob went out in Rune's canoe and the rest of us took the boat. With my light touch on the fuel pump and Dick's on the gears, we got all the way across without a breakdown, yay! John went off to do anorthosite block stuff and Jen, Dick, and I started building cairns on Jen's map area. Then Dick left and Jen and I and measured stuff, but it quickly got boring and confusing so here I am writing with 1/5 hours to wait until the boat comes back. Peter Kelemen is coming in today, and mail is going out (perhaps in too?).

It's like Grand Central Station around here except there's nowhere to go to the bathroom. All our bathroom sites are now defunct because people have pitched tents too nearby. Doesn't help that there are long clear sight paths in pretty much every direction, this place being completely devoid of vegetation. But Patty says I have mail at Sødalen - probably from Mom but I'm still pretty excited. And Patty said she's also going to work on getting us some more chocolate - whoopee! I seem to be chocolate crazy these days, usually I don't eat it much at all. And I've been doing without bubble gum - last piece I had was at the airport in Isafjörður (5KR, bazooka) and it came with a tattoo - I put it on my arm and it's still there (faded) two and a half weeks later. Show's how much I've been washing. But I don't really feel all that dirty because it's really hard to sweat around here. As long as I wash my hair every 4-5 days and brush my teeth 2x per day (as usual), I feel plenty clean enough. And so does everyone else - none of us get close enough to smell one another so it doesn't really matter. Better go to sleep now, I hear rumors that we're getting up really early tomorrow. Ugh.

Got up at 8:30! The earliest yet, but not too bad. Boat still isn't working, the theory du jour is that the carburetor is all gunked up. Sent to Sødalen for the proper wrenches to open it with, so perhaps tomorrow it will work. Meanwhile we tried rowing but that just didn't work. So we did busy-work today (see field notes). Supposedly I'll be comparing these samples to those from the trough bands. Got mail today from Mom - has been rubber-stamped saying "MISSENT TO IRELAND", explains why it's so late getting here. It's an honest mistake, I can certainly see how a tired postal worker could mistake ICELAND for IRELAND (Our mail comes through an airline based in Iceland:)

Sødalen, East Greenland
c/o Flugfelag Nordurlands Hf
Akureyrar Flugnelli
Postholf 876
602 Akureyri ICELAND

Patty came to visit Jen and I while we were working, brought us chocolate, yay! She lives in Billings, Montana and in Toronto 10 days per month (Platinova is based in Toronto). Talking about future plans, she suggests I don't put off grad school for -too- long, 2-3 years max.

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Later, time to sleep now. Bob is sending us over a new outboard to use until we can get ours fixed. And Patty is sending us even more chocolate, so we're all set for now. Drillers are coming in about a week, with their 24-hour-a-day drilling AND their HOT SHOWERS, so it's a toss-up whether we should move our base camp especially since it will be for less than a week. We'll see. 12 more days of fieldwork.

Woke up at 9:30, ate breakfast and WAITED for the helicopter. Thought it would be along very shortly but it's 3:45 and we're JUST starting on fieldwork. The reason we were waiting is because we needed the new outboard motor that Bob was sending over. It works well. Now that we have it, it will make things much easier. So now Jen and I are here on S. Kraemer's, mapping in her pyroxene replacement structures. I'll be taking samples for her. Nice and sunny today. Sort of grumpy from just sitting around all morning, thinking about school starting. Ugh. More later, time to start sampling.

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Later. Best day in field yet! Just put my walkman on and collected samples all afternoon, no strenuous thinking involved, just strenuous arm-work. Peter Kelemen left today, told me to look him up when I'm looking for a job, he'll give me the inside scoop on what's up at Wood's Hole. So we'll see about that. Greenlanders stopped by today, this one guy kept giving me funny looks but I tried to ignore him as best possible. 11 more days of fieldwork.

Saw some wildlife this morning as I was washing my hair Looked like a pheasant or quail of some sort, with 5 young ones with her. Later found out it was a ptarmigan. She walked in a very odd manner, usually if birds are frightened they will fly or at least run with their wings spread for balance, but this bird never opened her wings. Some of the babies did at times though. Very interesting. Also saw a mushroom yesterday - a lone mushroom growing in this harsh tundra climate. It was enough to make me sit and think for a few minutes, especially since I almost stepped on it. Had a good day today, just sampled some more for Jen but we were joined by Rune and Dick on the outcrop. Tomorrow we start (again) the dreaded strat column. This evening we were visited by Greenlanders once again, gave them tea and were, once again, showered with gifts - a beaded necklace and beaded doilies for both Jen and me. We also exchanged American and Danish money (Quarters and Nickels for Ore, which are 1/100th of a Krone). Then, learned to rappel! What fun!! Went down a small cliff, just 30-40 feet, four times. It was very fun, I could really get into this climbing stuff. Sara will be shocked. Tomorrow we are going back to visit the Greenlanders after our fieldwork. The ship to come get them (and bring the drilling equipment) is leaving Angmagssalik tomorrow and will get in Wed or Thurs (today is Sunday) so that might be one day we don't get much work done.

Rained today, all day. Went to visit the Greenlanders around noon because they had invited us for coffee, but no one actually offered us any coffee so we just hung around in the rain and then left. Obviously some miscommunication there. So we came back after helping them unpack their boat. Thomasine shot her first polar bear (Isbjorn in Danish) and was quite proud. So it kept raining, had lunch in the supply tent and then went and visited with Rune - he taught me how to play Whist, quite a good game. And we talked about Denmark vs USA. It rained all day and is still raining tonight, hopefully tomorrow will be better. Dick told me that the next thing he wants me to sample is on a cliff. Oh lovely, I said. Perhaps this is why I've been taught how to rappel.

He said he'll take us climbing in the Shawangunks sometime - if his wife will let him away for a weekend - with two kids age 2.5 and 5 months it might be difficult. We'll see. Time to sleep now. 10 more days of fieldwork, assuming no more rain.

Still raining. and only 9 more days left to do fieldwork. The rain is supposed to let up sometime today, I hope. If it doesn't, we'll have to start doing fieldwork in the rain. Yuck. It makes it difficult to orient samples because the marker just washes off. So for the time being, I have very little to do: read, sleep, peel the dead skin off my nose. I think I'll read. Dreamed about bathtubs for the second time this week. I really want to take a shower.

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Later. Got so bored reading just sitting in my tent (the reading is all photocopies of articles on the Skaergaard from geo journals), I got out and paced around in the rain. Rune finally rescued me from eternal boredom by offering to play more Whist. I won two, he won one, and we tied once. After dinner everyone had our usual alcohol-drug conversation and I'm back ready to sleep. With the rain still pouring down.