Sitting in our collapsed state in the coffee room we were told that our plane wasn't leaving at 6:30am, due to bad weather at Dumont d'Urville. Possible departure after breakfast. With strict orders not to go out to the AASTINO we stayed slumped in chairs, mindlessly watching people go past for breakfast and talking about what we had forgotten to do...such as checking the door was shut. We were then told that there wouldn't be any news until after lunch but the flight would possibly be held off until the evening or early next morning when a window of good weather was expected at Dumont d'Urville, to be followed by 48 hours of bad weather. Out here when things go wrong or not according to plan no one bothers to complain about it, the usual response is a shrug of the shoulders and the comment "it's Antarctica", most things tend to work themselves out.

We were now stuck in that limbo zone of having finished a job in a rush and suddenly having more time to work but an unknown deadline. We sat around and thought about this for a while and then went and paid the drilling tent a visit. We had been promising to do this for the last 2 weeks but never got around to it. Inger gave us a tour and then we headed back out to the AASTINO. Ah yes, the door wasn't shut properly....dum-de-dum. Jon wanted to finish some scripts and I was sure I could potter around and find some jobs to do. About 15 minutes later Jon was almost asleep at the keyboard, I had had a wave of sleepiness at about 7am and was on my second wind but still sleepy so we decided to head back and get a few hours sleep.

We had decided to meet up again a 4 o'clock in the free time tent...at 4:30 I was snoozing on a table in the free time tent - getting a few odd looks, at 5:15 I came to the conclusion that I would have to go and drag Jon out with a bucket of icy water. Right on cue I heard the tell tale
shuffle of Jon wandering in with a sheepish "I may have overslept..." The latest update on our flight was that we were flying out at 4am. We headed back out to the AASTINO, worked until dinner, ate, went back out and worked again until about 10:30 pm.

Back in the mess hall we found a group of people sitting around having a drink, so we joined them. Around midnight we decided it wasn't worth going to bed as we would have to be up in 3 hours. At 1am we were asked the simple one word question: "pasta?", the obvious answer: a resounding "si!" Into the kitchen I went to help make pasta with the doctor. Apparently pasta at 1am is a common occurrence for Italians having withdrawals...although there is always pasta or risotto at lunch and dinner. After pasta everyone else went to bed leaving me, Jon, Simon the
driller (who was also due to fly with us) and some beers. Around 2:30am the pilots emerged...this was good progress...at 3am the weather report was looking good and at 4am we were on the plane. Flying away from the station I was again reminded about how remote it is, within a few
minutes the station and the 50 people living there were just a tiny blot in the distance and all else was ice. At 4:10am I was asleep.
- Suze