[R] read file problem

[Luis Ridao Cruz]

R-help,

I have the following file I want to import to R (some lines
removed)


Calibrated CTD data for station:00280001
Calibrated:23/8  2001, Salinity Unsmoothed,  Fluorescence Uncalibrated
Maximum observed depth:    36 m                                       
QUAL has one digit for each of pressure, temp., sal. and fluor.       
QUAL=1:Uncal.,  QUAL=2:OK,  QUAL=6:Interp.,  QUAL=9:No data           
  
DEPTH  CTDPRS  CTDTMP  CTDSAL  RAWFLU NUMB. QUAL
    M    DBAR IPTS-68  PSS-78          OBS.
      ******* ******* ******* *******
    1     1.0                               2999
    2     2.0  5.9793 35.1629    .107    17 2221
    3     3.0  5.9797 35.1631    .101    17 2221
    4     4.0  5.9809 35.1631    .118    12 2221
    5     5.1  5.9811 35.1629    .115    42 2221
    6     6.1  5.9810 35.1631    .116    18 2221
    7     7.1  5.9797 35.1631    .116    15 2221
    8     8.1  5.9798 35.1630    .102    13 2221
    9     9.1  5.9792 35.1629    .113    11 2221
...............
................
.........


If I use :

read.table(file, skip = 10)

it works fine but sometimes the missing data are not only
in line number 1 ( 1     1.0                               2999)
but in lines 1,2,3,,, and therefore R fails to import the data file

How can I fix it?
I have tried with the arguments 
strip.white = TRUE
, fill = TRUE
, blank.lines.skip = TRUE

but still not get what I want


Thanks in advance

> version
               _                           
platform       i386-pc-mingw32             
arch           i386                        
os             mingw32                     
system         i386, mingw32               
status                                     
major          2                           
minor          4.0                         
year           2006                        
month          10                          
day            03                          
svn rev        39566                       
language       R                           
version.string R version 2.4.0 (2006-10-03)