Perspective...

Marianne, off the planet and happy!

29 October 2011...

Even though I would love to the reality is just that there is not enough time in the day; time to write, time to go through photographs, time to share and time to reminisce. Once again I am of sitting at the airport cafeteria and despite not having had a single drop of coffee for two weeks now, I am completely at ease. (The coffee bit has been far easier than I thought – seems like I am lucky – no addictive gene in my bones!).

The last few days have proved to be somewhat disappointing from a whale shark point of view. We have been able to get up and fly for much of the last days but the sharks have just not been forth coming. Today is Saturday and since I only managed a very short flight this morning – Marianne and I could not get around to the west side of the island where the sharks hang out – the bout trip for the afternoon has been cancelled. It means just a normal survey flight and a bit of a reprieve for me at the airport cafeteria.

Hey! Would you believe, David has just joined me sporting a doughnut and coffee, (Yes, I looked at the coffee – it did nothing for me :) David is of course the man behind the MCSS. Founder, chairman and maker of the MCSS, his passion and enthusiasm of late have become highly contagious. He has come to collect Georgia who has been at a Marine seminar in the Maldives. (Georgia lives in the flat down stairs – David calls her the scary one, which is very amusing to all of us – other than a few extra studs in her ears, very short hair that changes colour every now and then, she is of course anything but scary. Georgia is part of the permanent staff of the MCSS and because she has two surfboards in her room, I think she is way more than cool. :)
David and I have a light and very pleasant conversation before he heads off to meet her.

Marianne and I after her flight.

As it turned out (A fortunate turn of events you can call it) Niki, Marianne's daughter, accompanied me on the afternoon flight. We did not see any whale sharks but managed a few fish traps, a couple of schools of fish and of course, the beauty and perspective the view from the air brings. The whole island is cast out before you as if by magic – hours by car is captured in a single glance and dots are finally joined, even for those you did not even know existed. I allowed Niki to pilot the wing for a while – she turned out to be a natural pilot, flying the wing with ease within just a few minutes, no doubt I am sure, bringing new insight to her own abilities as all new experiences seems to lend itself to.

There was a large line of rain moving in from the south bringing a slight sense of urgency to our flight, often so typical of Seychelles. Even so we managed to get to the north and have a quick look for those very shy spotty creatures. On the way back we took a different route. Instead of moving right around the island we flew back up the west coast and dived through some cloudy layers over Anse Royal. It was pretty spectacular to say the least and seeing the endless smile on Niki’s face made me realise that true perspective does not come from being able to look down on our world but rather it comes from within.

These are the moments that define us.

Wish you were here!
:)

Niki high over Conception island...

Niki - a definitive moment...

Emma's clouds...

28th October...

It rained hard and continuous during the early hours of the morning. Of course, being a pilot our minds have an eternal connection with the weather – inevitably sleep was restless. I kept wondering about the odds of flying, the unreliable met reports, staring at break-dancing wind socks, fighting strong winds and then rain in a little dacron and tubing aircraft. Interestingly too, the company of a lovely lady does wonders for a man’s soul and sometimes even succeeds to improve the weather. Whether Emma was empowered with some mystical magic or just plain good luck, we had a great day. For the first time in a while the weather held for a complete flight around the island. The wind was light so we could remain low level for the whole trip. It is a whole different ball game when one needs to climb to 6000ft just in order to clear turbulence. In this case we cruised around Beau Vallon bay at 2000ft. Then, we found a spot of convergence and climbed in the mild lift. A few bits of cumulous clouds had formed here.

“Have you ever touched a cloud?” I asked.
“Never!” She half shouted while I could not help but hear there was excitement in her voice. As we passed through the edge of the wisps I reached out and without saying a word noticed the outstretched arm and reaching fingers behind me. It was warm, slightly clammy but real.
“Wow…” Emma said while I echoed that no matter how many times I have done it, this is so cool. She mentioned that she has a thing for clouds and when I looked back I could see this was definitely a moment for her.

And that of course makes a moment for me.

Wish you were here!
:)

Just after Emma's moment!

In one piece...

Sam and I getting a little bit wet!

Dirk has just arrived back, desponded but in one piece. He said it was his most stressful days flying he has ever had – and he didn’t fly! :) Welcome to the club Dirk! We know those days very well, “Should I fly? Yes! No! It’s definitely not good. Oh, wait. It’s looking better. Yes, it’s definitely better. Let’s go! No! That’s no good. Ah dang!” and on it goes for as long as you want to torture yourself. If you are inexperienced it lasts the whole day and you get back totally exhausted even though your feet did not even leave the ground. There are many days in Seychelles with that possibility which is why you need to be a pretty clued up pilot to make it work.

For holiday makers the weather is absolutely perfect – warm sunny, just a light breeze and they can’t understand why the pilot does not want to fly. Of course if we could take off on that side of the island it would be another story entirely. At the end of the day I support Dirks decision for not flying. It was definitely a pushing the limits kind of day.

The day before yesterday, Sam was my co-pilot. She is a beautiful brunette from Australia, a marine biologists and one of the MCSS interns. We had two flights in the morning – the first we were cut off by rain and on the second the turbulence (and rain!) was too severe. On that day I fell into an old trap – when you look at the windsock long enough and hard enough it will always look better than what it is.

Wish you were here!
:)

Up date...

Season change with rain too!

Every year we enter a time when the seasons change. Here in Seychelles it is marked by change of the trade winds that swing from south-east to north-west. During this change over period the winds can be light and variable and when it is the flying is as good as it gets. Ironically, it is also during this change over period that the winds can swing to the south- west and bring with it turbulence that make flying as bad as it can be. This year, we seem to have skipped the calm bit and jumped straight into the as-wild-as-can-be bit. Not only is it unpleasantly turbulent but there comes a time when it is just down-right dangerous. The trick is to know when to draw that line.

I know that back home I would not fly in these conditions. It should be an easy decision then but when it comes to work and knowing what is involved – all the bookings of people wanting to dive with whale sharks and the bit of money the MCSS makes during this time of the year to help with conservation projects – it becomes a bit more difficult to say no. This of course is the wrong way of looking at it. It should be easy to make the decision not to fly because the real issue at stake is not the people wanting to dive on whale sharks but it is the life of the pilots.

Dirk is getting his fire baptism so to speak – it is his turn at flying and he has to make all the decisions. Of course I have been getting a lot of phone calls from him – what do I think? This morning was too strong for this wind direction and rightly he decided not to fly. This afternoon he has decided to ‘give it a go’ while I am not convinced. This dice can role so many ways…

Wish you were here!

:)

Update...

Dirk is flying today. A large rain storm has just passed by, so I tried to call him. He did not answer his phone which might mean he is still in the air. Hhhmm.

He got a whale shark this morning and the boat went out for the afternoon.

I had a hard time the whole of this week. Dirk was off to the Island of Ladigue with his new wife to be - they got engaged on the islands - very cool Dirk and Jana! :) I generously agreed to fly for the week while he tried to dust off - perhaps tried to find is more appropriate! a romantic bone in his body. (Jana said he did OK, which for Dirk is amazing! ;) So, the fact that he was off gallivanting the islands with his soon to be bride and that the whale sharks are scarce and the weather was particularly bothersome made for a bit of a tough week. I am glad he is up there flying and having to make the thousands of calculations while I can up my legs a bit - catch up on the blog and so on.

Last week we got just three sharks. Luckily the Aqua-firma group managed to dive on two of them.

This was what I had to contend with while Dirk was sunning his butt! Spectacular out flow cloud from a large CB cell. To fly or live to fly another day?

Wish you were here!

:)

Which way..?

“Honey, why don’t you just ask for directions?”

It is human to err.., get lost should I say and if science is to be believed then there are more people that suffer from topographical disorders than we care to believe or admit – which kind of explains a lot of things, I mean what man dares to say, “I am lost!”!? (Perhaps that is why so many resources are being thrown at the problem of navigation – so no man needs to say, “I am lost”! :)

Of course I have no problem in admitting I was lost, once. Thankfully just momentarily and I have to add, it was at 18000ft in my hang glider, high above a very flat landscape with no identifying features and I must have been suffering from hypoxia too – for a brief moment I couldn’t figure out why the sun was now on my right instead of the left before I realised that it probably means I am flying in the wrong direction! Many of my hang glider friends concentrate so much on circling in the rising updrafts that by the time they are high they have lost all sense of cognitive features. (I admit. That must be the most ambiguous sentence I have ever written! :)

Of course for aviators, getting lost it is not a new thing and the seriousness cannot be overestimated – it is no coincidence that billions of dollars have been spent on aviation navigational equipment. The industry is high tech probably second to none. In the hangar that we operate from there are two coast guard survey aircraft with survey and navigational equipment on board that are more than the value of the aircraft alone. (Using sophisticated infrared radar they can read the name on the side of a ship from 10 000ft at ten miles at night!). Around airports you will find even more high tech navigational stuff, VOR’s, Secondary Radar’s, Tracking beacons, transponders etc. But every now and then I get surprised with the ingenuity of man.



Wish you were here!
:)

PS: A friend said, because our little orange plane lacked navigational equipment they did that especially for us.

Cranky...

Driving over the hill towards Victoria and the airport, the sky towards the east becomes visible. Living on the North of the island does not afford that luxury and even though this is the hip and happening part of the island it often has very little bearing on my world of flying. For me it is the sky to the south and east that counts. It is from there that all our weather systems come from – bar a few exceptions of course and being able to see what’s coming helps in making our local short term weather forecasts. After the change of heart from the weather reports (from dismal to good) I was quite cheery driving to the airport. The ocean on the north showed signs of light winds with flat and calm water making the prospect of flying even more enjoyable. Of course as I came over the hill the dark clouds to the east put paid to the happy ideas of flying. The forecasts have got it wrong, again.

The weather coming in...

Writing this makes me even crankier – I am sitting at the airport cafeteria and have made a pledge not to have one cup of coffee until I am back in SA. It is a kind of experiment, to test my resolve (of course I believe if I put my mind to it I have plenty resolve, so do I really have to prove it? Come on take that coffee, just one! ;), and also just to see what happens. The idea is to find out if my coffee habit is detrimental to my health and overall wellbeing – I am healthy but can I be healthier? And I know one can dig up many arguments about that lot but for now I have decided to head my gut. And even though my gut is wrong at times, l have been around long enough to know it is right most of the times. So it is no coffee for me.

Cranky! (It’s harder than I thought..!)

It has stopped raining. I am going to head down to the hangar again to see what the sky looks like toward the south. As we have become used to saying, “fingers crossed!”

Wish you were here!
:)