To Barbados

In Punta Cana we had a nice dinner, nice rooms and nice breakfast, all included in room price. So, except for the long and expensive taxi ride, it was a good stay. The bellhops and desk people were wonderful at letting me practice my poor Spanish. They would correct my mistakes and teach me how to say things. It was fun and they truly seemed interested in helping me learn. The people at the resort were mainly Europeans. We heard lots of French and Spanish, some German and the signs were also in English and Russian.

Paperwork, customs and filing flight plans were normal, slow, lots of double checks but finally engine startup was approved by the tower. There was difficulty with the clearance, so I sat idling at the end of the runway for 20 minutes. Finally underway. It’s nice and cool up here at 7000 feet. Four and half hours to Barbados, maybe more depending on winds. I hear Wayne talking with Air Traffic Control behind me. He’ll be up to 9000 feet and overtake me pretty quickly.

I see the shore of Puerto Rico through the haze. There are clouds over the land, but fewer over the water and it’s smooth up here. There are mountains in the middle of the island with houses along the ridge lines. Some are in the valleys. It makes you wonder what they all do down there. Some of the cliffs are shear with no trees, they are so steep. I took some pics but they didn't turn out, I'll check and see what's wrong.

I’m off the other side now and headed out over water again. They’ve amended our route to go direct to an intersection, so no more islands underneath. There is a 13 knot headwind. It’s stronger, 31 knots out of the northeast, but our component is enough to slow my groundspeed to 131 knots. Wayne is above me at 155 knots. He’ll arrive ahead of me by quite a bit today.

I checked in on the ham radio net and both Wes and Rusty were there and waiting. Their signals were strong and we spoke for a while, confirming the next flight dates and communication time. I confirmed no internet connection last night, so no blog updates yet. Hopefully tonight. Will also email dates of proposed long flights when I’ll have time to talk on HF. After arrival in Brazilia, local flights in Brazil and Argentina will be too short, so HF connection will have to await my return . Guess I should have let Wes install the data transfer as I could have sent him the blog updates. There’s much more time available on this flight than the last world flight; oh well, next time.

Just checked in with Guadeloupe approach and now barometric pressure is in Hpa. I have my conversion table at hand. He talks with French planes in French, just as the Dominican Republic controllers spoke with locals in Spanish.

There’s a good size buildup ahead. Wayne thinks he’s high enough to pass over it or only need a slight deviation. He thinks I’ll be in it. I might go higher as I get closer. Well, these build-ups aren’t really “building up,” they are not getting any puffier and aren’t bumpy in them either. Had some rain but now clear again. I see Martinique ahead and to the left. I was thinking of stopping there on my return; I checked and they have avgas. We’ll see; I really need to stop in Spanish speaking islands, not French islands. Sure looks nice.

Wayne is setting up for his visual approach and I’m still 50 minutes behind. Suppose I’d better put my shoes back on for arrival. The clouds look grey and inhospitable, but they are really nothing. Still, after another five hour flight day, I’m ready for a day off. We’re going to look around Barbados a little.

OK, now in touch with Adams approach. They get us on radar, but still want confirmation of distance, radial and altitude. Although good English, I had trouble understanding what she was asking. Finally got it and all is well.

It was a busy arrival with several planes landing and trying to depart at the same time. I don't think they appreciated my slow little general aviation plane increasing the separation.

We were required to use handlers, even though we tried to avoid it. Finally we made it through and are now in the hotel right on the water. I'm looking forward to a great fish dinner and touring the island tomorrow.

To Dominican Repubic

I had an uneventful flight to Ft. Pierce and met Wayne on the ramp just as I shut down. His plane was there and he was preflighting. After a difficult hour with eApis and getting Wayne’s info input, we finally succeeded; what a pain and now relief. I wll be flying slower than Wayne, so gave him my flight plan, HF schedule and air-to-air frequency and I set out to get my clearance and be on my way. I wasn’t sure this would go smoothly or if I’d be back inside with him, so I figured I’d better get going.

The climbout was smooth, but I had lots of vibration early in cruise. Maybe it’s just me. The engine coughed a few times and my heart beat faster. I’d just have to get used to it again. After several ATC handoffs, I climbed to 9000 and everything seemed to settle down. I saw Freeport and the azure blue waters, wow what a sight.

I’d received a full-route clearance before departure and it took me a while to check the charts and get everything entered. Nice tailwinds, at least early in this flight, so should be less than 6 hours. I’ve left Freeport behind, things are smooth and I’m headed for Nassau.

Time to get the HF set up for my noon, 16z, schedule. I guess the propagation wasn’t very good. I checked in and told K9UA the net controller that I’d try to check in every day at 16z as I traveled south. I heard him talk with Wes, but I couldn’t hear Wes. It was nice to know that he was there and listening. At least he knows the HF is working and I’m past Nassau.

Just talked with Wayne on frequency 123.45. He’d had his volume turned down, so hadn’t responded to my earlier calls. Anyway, he’s 80 nautical miles behind and 30mph faster. Of course, he’s burning 4 gph more than me. Lunch time. Mmmm oatmeal bar and raisons. Yummy. Three hours and 20 minutes to go, plenty of gas and I’m finally relaxed. There’s a high overcast which is keeping the cockpit cool; that’s a good thing.

I took lots of pics of the islands and azure blue waters. Some are shown above.

As I pass close to Crooked Island, I look out the the furthest point I’ve been in the Bahamas. It’s all new territory from now on.

I’m over the Turks and Caicos. They are more populated than I would have thought; some areas look like Nassau, very conjested. Less than ½ hour to Grand Turk, then 45 minutes to overflying the coast of the Dominican Republic and less than an hour to Punta Cana. Almost there. There are some buildups ahead, but widely scattered, so we will be able to deviate around them.

OK, we’re down and at the hotel. I had to do a VOR DME approach through rain. They kept Wayne around the coast and he went in visually. Oh well. It was VERY hot on the ramp; we just had to gas-up for the morning. Customs was easy, just five copies of the General Declaration. I only had two copies, so I had to return to the plane to get three more.

Getting a hotel was next to impossible. We finally got one night at a resort $75 with a $40 cab ride each way. Oh well, we’re here and I’m going to have a beer. There’s no internet in the rooms, so this won’t get posted until tomorrow when we arrive in Barbados.

Loading is almost complete. Camera is IN. Ditch bag and life raft are IN. Tools, oil and spares are IN. Clothes are packed. Charts, paperwork and flight plans are packed. Wes installed the HF radio two days ago and we tested it in flight. Great reception and transmission.

Think I'm almost ready. I'll fly to Ft. Pierce early Thursday morning, April 29th, and meet Wayne there. He should have arrived today, from TX, in his Bonanza. We'll finalize flight plans and depart at 10am. EApis is filed... I won't say more about our customs and immigration requirements or I might start swearing.

Tomorrow's flight should be about 6 hours from Ft. Pierce. We're going into Punta Cana on the southeast coast of the Dominican Republic. I'm going to be on HF radio, 14,300 at noon eastern time, 1600 zulu, each day that I fly.

Map of the route

Some friends, Chip, Jan, Nancy and Rusty, gave me a kick in the pants and I finally produced a map of the route. You can click on the map to zoom in and see more details. Here's where I plan to fly:

April 30th Dominican Republic

May 1st Barbados

May 2nd Boa Vista, Brazil

May 3-5 Alta Florista

May 6th Brazilia, Earthrounders' meeting

May 11-12 National forest

May 13-16 Pantanal

May 17 Foz de Iguacu

May 18-19 Buenos Aires, Argentina

May 20-23 Coronel Suarez, with Eric

May 24 not sure yet

May 25-26 Lencois, Brazil

May 27 Belem

May 28 Cayenne, French Guiana

May 29-30 Caribbean and return

Planning: the major stops in South America

We're almost off again, me and my Mooney. The planning is reaching it's final stages and we're headed to Brazil and Argentina. We'll head to the Dominican Republic in late April. I should be meeting another Earthrounder, Wayne, in the Dominican Republic and we'll continue together from that point. We'll fly to Barbados for a quick stop and overnight, then go around Venezuela and into Brazil at Boa Vista, in the north.

After passing through customs and spending a night at Boa Vista, we'll overfly Manaus, where the two main rivers join to form the Amazon and continue to Alta Floresta. In the planning stages we found this to be an interesting eco-tourism place in the rain forest, so we've planned two extra days here to learn about this ecosystem. Leaving Alta Floresta, we have a 4-hour flight to Brazilia to arrive on May 6th for the start of a five-day Earthrounders' meeting. See www.earthrounders.com for more information.

Following the meeting, several additional earthrounders will join together in our two planes to visit Alto Paraiso, the Pantanal and Iguacu Falls (on the border with Argentina) over the next seven days. The we'll each head our own direction.

I'll continue south into Argentina where I hope to do several stops, including visiting a friend, Eric, who is doing a year abroad, following graduation from high school and prior to starting university this coming fall. I'm looking forward to staying with his family, trying to speak Spanish and taking his new friends flying in my Mooney.

Leaving Argentina, I'll return north following the coast of Brazil, making several stops in Lencois, Noronha and Belem before visiting Cayenne in French Guiana then proceeding around the Caribbean for my return home. Overall the flight should take five weeks and about 80 flight hours. I'll keep you updated on my progress.