At briefing time the computer model looked promising, but the radar and satellite showed only minor areas of showers that seemed to be dying. We saw this kind of pattern about a week ago and got embarrassed because we cancelled the flight just before the weather became active. So, we decided to risk a different mistake this time and go for it. Sure enough, by the 7:00 a.m. flight time there were some good radar echoes off to the east, and by 8:30 or 9 a.m. there were rainstorms going off all over the radar scope. This lasted most of the day, allowing "back-to-back" missions (four hours, followed by refueling and another two and a half hours in the air, until the airplane crews hit their limit on permitted work time). Great! But I had to puddle around in the rain getting ready to leave. Terrible!

Sunrise was quite interesting. It was nearly clear except for the burgeoning storms to the east. The sun rose behind them, throwing off brilliant sun rays (formally referred to as crepuscular rays). These formed because the distant cumulus clouds were throwing shadows on the haze and thin clouds at lower levels. From the ground, it looked like the illuminated streaks were pointing up from the sun. The apparent spreading apart as you go away from the sun is due to perspective, like the closer parts of a railroad track appearing further apart than distant sections. When the sun rays extend more than halfway across the sky (at which point they become "anti-crepuscular rays") they appear to converge again because they are actually getting further away as you look down toward the horizon opposite the sun. The sunrise featured another bonus. The cirrus clouds that the storms were starting to create had vivid blue, green, and pink patches. This optical effect is known as irridescence, and results from different amounts of refraction of sunlight by ice crystals in the cirrus, depending on the thickness of the cloud layer. The display was pretty enough to keep a group of us watching long after we should have been back to the Operations Center and our jobs.

Brad and I spent parts of the morning and afternoon getting as much information transferred as possible. We joked about him looking like a deer caught in the headlights, but I felt the same way a month ago. The modern computer facilities that KWAJEX installed really paid off here. We each plugged our laptop computers into the network and he pulled all the files that I'd inherited from Jeff (in the same way) and/or built. Just a few years ago this would have been a really painful process out in the field. We went to the Yokwe Yuk Club for a transition lunch with Glenn Trapp (head of local Aeromet operations) and J. Mark (everyone uses the "J" to differentiate him from the other Mark in Aeromet). The club name is Marshallese for "welcome", but it sounds pretty strange to hear someone say they're going to the Yuk Club for dinner! Apparently there will be additional attempts to fix the Meck radiosonde system. This typifies the "can do" attitude that pervades Kwaj - folks are used to producing results, one way or another.

As the afternoon wore on it occurred to me that the gray drippy weather made it easier to leave, from an emotional standpoint, even if some pictures I'd planned to take had to be left undone. Departure isn't quite like an airport in the States. You're expected to check in four hours ahead, then are free until an hour before takeoff. This allows them time to calculate the mix of passengers, baggage, and freight as carefully as possible. Furthermore, flights are always overbooked, so the Project Office always makes sure you're there even earlier. In one final twist, there was an unusual stiff wind from the west at takeoff time, so we just taxied the few hundred feet from the terminal to the east end of the runway and headed into the clouds.

George Huffman