Monday 9^th August, 1937

       A day to be in civilisation, rather than roughing it on the exposed Atlantic hills. We woke to the sound of rain hitting the windows hard; it was not quite coming in sideways but letting us know Summer is short up here. Relaxing in a hotel bed with nothing urgent to get us bouncing out into action is a luxury one could quite get used to after three years of Songmark. I was tempted to order breakfast in bed just because I could – but we had arranged to meet Miss Jenks and her brothers, and were down at eight for a jolly good plate of bacon and eggs. No poi here.

        Our first priority had to be making sure our aircraft were secure; by nine we had our oilskins on and were getting half blown along the road towards Quidi Vidi lake. Whoever came up with a name like that? Fortunately the furs here are perfectly prepared for this weather, and worse, and the Storm Bird was riding well at anchor as was the Dragon Rapide. Helen looked at it rocking in the choppy water, and muttered she was feeling queasy just watching it.

        We decided to put off the maintenance till some better weather and headed back into the wind, very glad to reach the shelter of the town. Saint Johns is the capital of the Province, and a major port besides. Not the easiest coast for shipping – according to the guidebooks in the hotel, a tenth of the occupants in the cemetery are folk lost at sea (though this includes those who were never found). There is a regular airport, which was our first stop in terms of information as to the next leg, and we spent the morning there poring over charts and weather forecasts. The next two days are not promising; strong headwinds and low cloud – but on Thursday there is a bright patch predicted that should at least get us to Greenland.

        Miss Jenks tells us we will definitely have to book ahead – the Danish Government are not keen on having just anyone turn up on their territory, disturbing the Eskimo. Contrary to most Colonial powers, Denmark has a policy of keeping its local population protected from the outside world – definitely no freelance traders turning up wanting wild animal skins and paying in cheap gin! It is an awfully hard life up there by all accounts, and does not mix at all well with “civilisation” and its weakening effects.

        Our new charts carefully stowed in waterproof tubes, we made our next stop the necessary Danish Consulate and were cleared to Inquamvit, a fjord near the Southern tip of Greenland where there is a newly established Shell fuel depot. So new, in fact, that they had to ink it on the map for us – there is no Native settlement there, which no doubt helps in keeping the outside world from interfering. We are not cleared for anywhere else – not that there are many tempting alternatives on that coast, or indeed anywhere with fuel waiting. The airlines’ main stopping point at Disko Island is hundreds of miles up the coast North out of our way, and only really suited to the polar route from Alaska.

        From Inquamvit we can make Iceland, and via the Faroes we expect to be dropping into the British Isles from the North. But one step at a time. A Caproni Ca60 could make the crossing to Iceland in one leap, but I am glad we have the Storm Bird instead. Getting a laden Ca60 triple triplane off some of the lakes we have visited this trip is something for bolder pilots than me to try. (Maria says an Italian pilot would have a go, but even she was looking thoughtful as she said it.)

        Looking at the low clouds and driving rain, I felt myself getting homesick for Spontoon. The Air Races would be setting up about now, with furs getting the course laid out, practicing the crews of crash boats and tenders and generally dodging stout Hawaiian-shirted tourists waddling between Tikki cocktail bars. There are plenty of travelers passing through St. Johns, but I fear Newfoundland will be at a disadvantage setting itself up as a tourist destination – at least for tourists who like to lie around sun-kissed beaches rather than enjoy the keen bracing winds and rugged landscape. Still, it has what we need right now – maps and fuel and up-to-date information by cable and radio links to the wide unfriendly seas ahead. Every British merchant ship sends in weather reports, and there are hardy “Met. men” who crew remote weather stations high in the Arctic year-round. A very different life from running one’s flying boat up the beach of some far Pacific atoll out of range of anywhere, looking at the darkening skies and wondering if a typhoon is on the way.

        We had walked a few miles around St. Johns by lunchtime, and were very glad to find a welcoming “eating-house” just off the dockside Customs post. The local cuisine here would be a problem for a strict vegetarian, with potatoes and (oddly enough) rhubarb about the only vegetables hardy enough to grow outdoors in this climate. The original John Cabot established the colony in quest of fish, and there is still plenty of that on the menu!

Wednesday 11^th August, 1937

       (Evening.) We have been here two days now, and are making the most of the comfortable beds of the Shorelands Hotel before the Atlantic crossing. The forecast for tomorrow still looks good, so today we spent overhauling the Storm Bird and the Dragon Rapide ready for the ocean flight. The Dragon’s starboard fuel pump had a pipe that was just starting to “sweat” fuel – there was no actual leak, but keen noses tracked down rather more of an 85-octane scent than an aircraft sitting for two days should have. Fortunately we have standard piping and tools, and put on a replacement that I think Superior Engineering could not have found fault with.

        Miss Jenks was somewhat amazed at the sight of four Songmark girls in action; she and her brothers are skilled pilots but have not had our workshop training. I still recall the classes in emergency repairs (which are just that – being able to patch up a pierced fuel tank or splice an electrical line enough to get one off a remote atoll and back to better facilities). Then, the Storm Bird carries a toolkit three times the size of the standard one and a far larger supply of spare parts. The great pity is that the spare parts sizes for any Italian aircraft are all in metric, which never quite fits ordinary joints without adjusting a little. Perhaps as aviation helps to make the world a smaller place, the Europeans will take up using natural, Imperial measurements.

        Saint Johns has decent facilities at the land-based airport but less on Quidi Vidi Lake. We had to improvise a little when it came to “swinging the compass” – checking that our aircraft compasses have not drifted off true. As we flew East, we have passed over some of the biggest iron ore fields in the Empire and they can have… unfortunate effects. It would never do to find they have been pulled a degree off North thanks to one of our engine blocks having picked up its own magnetism and end up missing Inquamvit in the fog. Still, all seemed in order, and we carried on with the loading. A maximum of fuel and a minimum of everything else for this trip; the Storm Bird’s five gallon shower tank will be the only water we are carrying.

        So – all fueled and ready. The Dragon and the Storm Bird we left comfortable and well-fed at their moorings while we headed back for a good night’s sleep and a dawn breakfast. Tomorrow, we leave the Americas behind!

continued in “A Tale of Two Lidos"