Yes, Ebbie: Some experiences seem limited to the young. The three months I spent on the Ice Island depended on youth, and that dumb youthful conviction of invulnerability. All the time that I was there, we were completely inaccesible to air support, as our runway was the surface of the iceberg, which was rife with potholes from melting, during the summer. If we had a medical problem, our "Doctor" was a botanist who fainted at the sight of blood. We had all the surgical equipment and were told that we could do emergency surgery, being walked through it by a Doctor on the mailand, 800 miles away. And yet during the time when we were first there, we'd lose radio contact with the plane as it left, before we lost sight of it..

The summer after I was there, someone had appendicitis and died on the Island. There were also two plane crashes on the pack ice, over the years. But, when you're young, you don't give much thought to those things, and the staff who recruited us made very little mention of the danger involved. Even being out on the pack ice, where there were polar bears, without any weapon to defend yourself was stupid.

Ah, to be young and stupid again.

No thanks...

Jerry