30 05 99

Position: 66° 04' 40" N 40° 25' 34° W

Diane's note: excellent transmission today. In spite of the difficulties they are experiencing, Laurie sounds in really good spirits.

Our elevation is about 5750 feet. We woke up this morning to really calm weather for a change. When we went out we found the tent almost invisible with drifts all around it and the sleds totally buried. It took us a while to dig everything out. Even in spite of that we were still underway by 9:00 a.m. Sunniva was up early and made breakfast. She was up early. Of course we all had a day of rest yesterday even though we didn't want it.

Visibility was not very good when we set out but we made fairly good progress. It was nice and cold in the morning, perfect for travelling. Then it started, if you can belief it, to snow again with big, beautiful crystalline flakes. These are the types of flakes that have all the sharp angles and points on them and make the surface quite sticky. We did our best and tried to power through it, hoping to reach probably 20 kms. for the day.

Then we hit the real muck, some sticky, heavy, wet snow that would ball up under our skis in heavy, wet slabs. Each ski weighed about 12 lbs. or more and we had to lift them up one at a time and step...rather than slide... not the normal ski action. It felt like the sleds were being hauled through really heavy, sticky putty or something like that.

It was quite discouraging at the end and quite brutal after a while. Somehow we managed our longest day yet. We began to get a sense of our potential. We know that once this island gives us a real break, we can really put out some mileage

It's been a good day; we really sweated it out for a lot of the time and we were ready to stop by the end of the day. We stopped at 6:00 p.m. There's no wind around; there's been quite a drop in the wind. The tent is calm although the barometer is dropping quite rapidly so we don't know what will happen.

End of transmission

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