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.