Flying Stories! My First Bahamas Trip - Episode 1

Hi, all!  it's been a while since I've written, I'm finding out how hard it can be to keep up with a regular publishing schedule - hopefully this next series is more on-time...

As the weather gets colder here in the Northern U.S.,  thoughts turn to warmer places..... For many years, our flying club has taken a trip to the Bahamas right about now, for a little R&R under palm trees.  I'm sitting this year's trip out, but wanted to relay a writeup from my very first Bahamas fly-out.  The hubby and I had only had our private pilot certificates for about 6 months, and we weren't instrument rated at the time.  But this trip really showed me what is possible with a small plane, how you can have lots of fun and adventure, and how it can be invaluable when your plans change......

I originally wrote this for a multi-installment in a regional newsletter for the Ninety-Nines (www.ninety-nines.org), an international organization of women pilots, in Feb of 2005.  For this blog, I didn't take the liberty of trimming down the content, so enjoy the long, verbose wording.  Will install in segments;  I'm desperately trying to find the pictures that went along with this by the time we're ready for installment 2!! (Had a couple of computer crashes since I originally wrote it)

Enjoy, Flowerpilot

The Flying Trip – Key West and the Bahamas, Nov. 5 – 15, 2004 - Episode 1

The full trip route: 1C5 – KCTY – KLAL – KEYW – MYCB – MYNN – KPBI – KAHN – 1C5

(Map spots:  Romeoville, IL - Cross City, FL - Key West, FL - New Bight, Cat Island, Bahamas - Nassau, New Providence, Bahamas - West Palm Beach, FL - Romeoville, IL)

The last big flyout of the year for our flying club was somewhat nebulous at first: the first destination was Key West, but who knew where we would end up?  Flights in other years had also included side trips to the Bahamas.  Nonetheless, I was excited; we’d known about it for almost a year, and signed up as soon as we got our tickets.  It would be one of the first long cross-country trips where Grant and I would be PICs.  Lots to plan, not only in terms of endurance, but possibly flying internationally, and over water, well away from gliding distance from shore – yikes!

The trip started on the morning of November 5, at Clow International in Bolingbrook.  As prep for the trip, both Grant and I got our high-performance endorsements in the summer; renting the Cessna 182, affectionately called ‘Whiskers’, would give us more payload and better groundspeed than the 172 we’d trained in.  For this trip, we were sharing the plane with Jim, one of the instructors, but he was only coming along as a third person in the plane this round; he would also be our pilot option if we came across instrument conditions.  The one other plane on the trip, a Cessna 310, had left two days before to attend to previous business in Florida – we’d join them in Key West.

Heading Out to Key West

That Friday morning was clear and cold – We got to the field about 6 am with all of our charts, weather briefing, luggage, everything.  The plane had been fueled the night before, and we thought were ready to go.  One small issue, though; the plane was on the ramp outside....  In the shade of a building....  With a good layer of frost on it!  Knowing how critical it is for safety, the three of us set out to remove the frost from the flight surfaces.  This was no easy task without de-icing fluid on hand.  One of my t-shirts was sacrificed to wipe frost from the wing tops, but the going was slow.  At one point, I was dispatched to the nearest drugstore to buy a hair dryer to speed things up (wouldn’t you know it: the one time I decide to go with low-maintenance hair on a vacation, and NOT pack a hair dryer!…).  But by the time I got back, the sun had started to move around, and the manual de-icing got easier; we were finally packed up and wheels up by 8 am. 

The first leg of the flight south was wonderful; clear and sunny skies, amazing tailwinds (gave us about a 40 knot boost sometimes), great conversation and ample munchies.  After ‘hand-flying’ for a while, we turned on the autopilot, linked it to the GPS, and relaxed a little.  We flew for just under 5 hours that first leg, and though we were using flight following all the way, I think we got all of two calls about traffic.  It was great watching the scenery change, from farm fields to soft hills, then more flat lands of brown and red clay. 

Our first stop was in Cross City, Florida (CTY), to stretch our legs and get fuel.  After the time spent on de-icing earlier that morning, that Florida sun sure felt good! The guy at the FBO was very helpful; even though the fuel was self-service, he gladly pumped it for us.  We decided to go into town for some lunch, and were given the keys to the courtesy car – a very comfortable and  ‘seasoned’ Town Car.  We couldn’t figure out why there were so many people lined up along the main street, until we got to the Subway shop: the local homecoming parade was scheduled to start in about 15 minutes, and that main street (which was the only way back to the airport!) would be closed for a good while.  Rather than risk getting stuck, we opted to take our sandwiches back and eat at the field.

After lunch, we checked weather before hopping back in the plane.  A front was beginning to move across the more southern portion of Florida, and it wasn’t clear that it would be gone by the time we got there.  Rather than take a risk, we decided to make an interim stop at Lakeland, and purchase the necessary instrument charts in case we needed to file.  Good thing Jim was there; checking the weather at LAL, that front was moving pretty slowly, so we switched PICs, and he filed for the last leg into Key West.  Much of the last leg was after sunset, and the cloud layer over the gulf was low, so we flew above it until we had to descend.  I was glad to be taking a break after the earlier leg; never saw so many stars looking up…. 

We landed in Key West about 7:30 that night. A bit breezy, but things were clear after we got out of the clouds.  There were quite a few planes out there already, and we were hoping to find a parking spot.  We got one, secured the plane for the evening, and went to find our friends in town.  We stayed in Key West Friday and Saturday night; lots of merriment and seafood J 

The group had decided to spend a couple of days in the Bahamas; we would be flying to Cat Island, one of the Out Islands, and landing at New Bight airport, which is in the middle of the island, and an Airport of Entry.  Our resort of choice, the Eagles Nest, does have a nicely paved airstrip on the property, but it was awaiting approval from the Transportation board after making some improvements, so it wasn’t open.  I was excited, but still nervous; with the flight into Key West, I couldn’t see the water beneath the clouds.  Sunday morning would be a different story….