First hiccup in the campaign.

Two of the more important things I learned during my first fieldwork trip that were reinforced each subsequent trip is that a good plan is only good until day one in the field and then everything changes. Number two is that if it can go wrong, it's a fair expectation that it will go wrong. Oh and maybe third, it's usually the little things.

Yesterday was a waiting day. I worked a bit, picked up the last minute equipment we needed, and relaxed a bit. We met up with pilots from Great Slave Helicopters who will be doing helicopter work for other scientists in the MIZ and who are to fly to the ice camp tomorrow or maybe Saturday. They fly a big Bell 412, a helicopter that can carry 9-13 people if need and is instrumentation flight capable, that is they don't need to be able to see the ground at all times.

Last night we contacted the logistics party who are already in Sachs Harbour and who have the colossal task of setting up the MIZ ice camps.  The original plan was for them to come and pick us up with a Twin Otter but either that information was not passed along well enough between the planners and the field personnel, or it slipped the minds of the field personnel.

In any event, it is no big deal, everyone has millions of things on their plates before and during a campaign and there is not much to be done about that. Occasionally something could slip, unfortunately this time it was not "bring a screwdriver" or an "bring an extra battery" but "send a plane to pick those scientists up".

It's really no big deal yet. They could still send a plane but it would delay other things further.  The advanced camp and as a result another science team are a few days behind because of weather and that is something no one has control over. If they sent the plane for us, that would just push the entire campaign, including other science parties, further back. Since each sea ice camp has limited space and several teams want to go to the same one, we would need to wait. But they had an idea, and a backup idea:

Last night we contacted the pilot from Great Slave Helicopters to see if maybe they can give us a ride.
We waited for a while to see what was sorted out but nothing was before I finally went to sleep around midnight.

If GSL can fly us to Sachs Harbour we can then sort through our gear and maybe tomorrow go to one of the other camps established for the MIZ camp (camp 3) for a couple days while the other science party works at Camp 2, then when they are done at Camp 2 they will come to Camp 3 and we will go to Camp 2.

IF GSL cannot fly us, we will look into renting our own plane just to take us up there, besides sitting around until Monday, that is about the only other option.

The weather forecast for Sachs Harbour looks great, highs around -20C. With the sun, that will be just fine as long as the wind isn't too terrible, and if it is, well then you just make sure not to work facing into the wind.  This morning at 7:30 the radar image looks pretty good over the study area.

AVHRR image courtesy of the Canadian Ice Service showing the beaufort sea study area. Image is from 0518MDT on March 14, 2014.