The Group Splits Up

Four members of our WINGS group are going on to the Pribiloffs with Gavin Bieber as leader.  John Spahr is heading back to Virginia.  I'm staying two additional days.  The Pribiloff group and some others were expecting to leave this morning, but the fog prevented the Bering Air flight from coming to Gambell.  So we all birded some more, had lunch, and those who were leaving got packed up and hoped the later flight would make it.  As the afternoon flight time approached, everyone wondered whether Bering Air would arrive.  An ERA plane arrived and since they had a couple of spaces available, two of the group including John departed early on that flight to Nome.   We then got word that the Bering Air flight had been cancelled, so it looked like the others would be here for another day.  Gavin had to change all the ground and flight reservations for his group.  However, a call came in that a second Bering Air flight that had gone to Savoonga, which is the other village on St. Lawrence Island, was coming to Gambell and was ten minutes away.  So....Gavin resurrected all of his transformed reservations, and everyone got their stuff together and made the flight.  It turns out to have been a good thing that two of our group got on the earlier plane, because the Bering Air plane that did arrive was smaller and could not have carried the weight required to get everyone back to Nome.  Ah well!  The joys of air travel, especially in Alaska.  So John's gone, and I do miss him, and I'm on my own for awhile.