It’s a very special day for Nicki and myself: 40 years of marriage! We’ll go out for a meal together this evening to celebrate. I am grateful for those 4 decades more than words can ever express.
:-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)
This week I’m writing for Goroka. Nicki and I came here on Friday afternoon and will stay until next Wednesday afternoon so that I can retrain Volkher Jacobsen on the Twin Otter.
Volkher flew in PNG from the late 1990s to the late-2000s and is currently the MAF International Flight Training Manager based in Cairns. We’ve known each other a long time! In order to keep the Twin Otters flying while we’re short of captains, Volkher will come to PNG for three tours, the first of which, this one, is focussed on getting him used to flying the aircraft again.
***************
It’s been a saga getting him here. For reasons not entirely known to us the application for his PNG visa wasn’t made as promptly as it should have been. The result was that instead of arriving last Monday and starting his training on Tuesday, he finally arrived on Thursday. The flight schedule was pushed around to make things work so, providing the weather cooperates, his training should all work out in the end.
***************
Since I couldn’t fly with Volkher, on Wednesday and Thursday I did some flying at Mount Hagen. On Wednesday I completed Glenys Watson’s (she’s our newest First Officer) routine base check and then we did some charter flights. It should have been more flights than it was, but the weather didn’t cooperate. All around the mountains there was a lot of cloud and rain, which stopped all bar one flight. Back in Hagen, this is on Wednesday, we prepared the aircraft for an early departure on Thursday morning – a load of building materials for a new teacher’s house for the primary school at Ambuluwa. So far so good; everything was ready.
On Thursday morning, also so far so good. The weather was OK and the report from the community was that it was good there also. We arrived overhead, landed and started to unload. During this time cloud came up over the airstrip and later on it started to rain. Having landed before 8 o’clock in the morning, it was at 4:52 in the afternoon that we were finally able to take off. The rain eased off and the cloud dispersed enough so that we could see the mountain ridge off the end of the airstrip that precludes anything other than a strictly visual take-off.
Nine hours waiting at an airstrip because of weather is a new personal best. I’ve been caught later in the day and stayed overnight before, but never on the first flight of the day and then had to wait nearly until it was too late to leave. If we hadn’t departed when we did, then we only had a maximum of another 40 minutes before it would have been too late and we’d have had to stay overnight.
Glenys and I had made arrangements with the community to have somewhere to stay overnight, and were fully expecting to stay there. Getting back was not only nice since a night in a bush hut isn’t as comfortable as we’re used to, but it did mean I could start Volkher’s training on Friday.
***************
Yesterday, Saturday, and today has been brilliantly hot and sunny in Goroka, quite a contrast to earlier in the week. I hope that the good weather will continue so that I can complete Volkher’s flying during the next three days while we’re here.
***************
We’ve let relevant people in MAF PNG and MAF UK know our intention to return to the UK next year, though details still need to be talked through. We don’t know yet whether there’ll be any requirement for short visits back later in 2019 or not. My flight schedule at the moment isn’t giving me enough time on the ground to sit down and discuss any of this with Todd Aebischer, our Country Director. Hopefully that will be possible soon.
Already when I fly over areas I don’t go to that frequently I am very aware that it could easily be the last time I’m there. We are well aware that after 25 years leaving is not going to be easy.
***************
During the week I had Tuesday off so that I had duty time available to fly with Volkher on Saturday. I completed the second crate for shipping our stuff back home. Probably another two or three to go. We’ve also begun mulling over our trip home via Australia and New Zealand; at only 7 months away it is coming up quickly.
***************
Looking at the UK news the weather there is as hot, or hotter than here in the tropics. I’m sure that our garden, like everybody else’s, will welcome some rain when the heatwave does eventually break.
