Home Stretch

Just one day left on the line, then it's homeward bound.  I hope.  There's always that little bit of "what if" that could send plans awry, but I'm hopeful.  Nothing is for sure.  Even returning.  What to leave and what to take is always a concern, and as I now have a guitar, a mountain bike, snorkelling gear, hangars (you can't buy 'em here!), a variety of toiletries you can't get locally, a tea kettle and coffee press, bags of coffee from Mombasa, tons of granola bars and electrolyte mixes, bug spray and medicines, soccer gear and cycling gear, flying gear, going out stuff,  swimming stuff, hiking stuff, and a myriad of odds and ends collected after two and a half years of the same posting (despite a few forays up into Kenya), you get to the point where you just have to walk away from some of it.  It all depends on how confident you are of returning.  After this tour I'm not too sure I want to, and I've made it known.  After making this place a second home new blood has brought about changes that are rather silly in my opinion, and my options as I see it are to smile and accept the new order, or request a change and hope there are other opportunities.  I've not yet had responses to my queries so I'm pondering how to pack....

I've been spending more time at the "rustic" Msemo, a popular restaurant/hotel situated on the beach, with an enviable vantage point allowing one to watch the sun rise or set among gently swaying palms, as heavy offshore support vessels chug past, small fishing dhows with home made plastic sails navigate the shallow channels, or timeless dug out canoes, as often as not in from dynamiting the gorgeous reefs of Tanzania's coast, glide past riding the tidal currents.  It is a very far cry from our accommodations, the Laso View, oft referred to as "soul sucking", situated in the heart of town, across from a noisy truck yard and a Muslim school, with thee loudest speakers in East Africa (blasting a prayer presently!), now so much the better (sarcasm) with security concerns raised by paranoid newcomers thinking we need to be living in a compound not unlike our Nigerian counter parts.  Hanging out at the Msemo is a nice break.  Ah, but enough whining.....back to packing.

Pluggin away.....

Night decks, SAR hoisting and line flights, VIP flights hanging around on the rig all day, the big wigs asking when we need to be wheels up to make their flights back to Europe, then totally disregarding the answer, blaming us for having to spend another night in Africa, wee hours Muslim call to prayer from loud speakers mounted twenty yards from my window, mountain biking, snorkelling and seaside BBQs watching the bedazzling crimson lightshow as the African sun creeps below the horizon.  I'm a quarter of the way through yet another forty-two day tour, plugging away.  My shoulder injury from my first week's mountain bike crash is still keeping me up at night, as I can't seem to avoid rolling over onto it as I drift off into never never land.  I somehow managed to take another spill a few weeks later and do pretty much the same to my other shoulder.   It's an injury I've never encountered in a lifetime of off-road biking and now twice in one tour?   Thinking hard about unloading this bike locally, as the devil seems to taken hold of her. I'm hurting and feeling old.  We're just back in from a perfect low tide snorkel on the Msemo reef, with the usual cast of characters in pretty much the same spot tour after tour after tour.  I especially enjoying swimming through the tightly packed schools of silver iridescent fish resembling a single entity as they fight for the centre of their mass, watching them shape shift and gracefully take form around my movement.  Too cool.

There's been a few night training sorties, a couple OPCs, and I'm proud to have upgraded yet another SAR Captain, as well as certify another TRI, so the tour has been very productive.  The manager eventually returned and was handed back "the Bat Phone", forever ringing and beeping with incoming emails that require an immediate response, decision, feedback, before the whole enchilada comes crashing down.  It's a hot potato that every manager can't wait to hand off to their back to back after six weeks attending to the damn thing's beckon call.  I hope I don't have to carry it again any time soon.  Work doesn't get many down, as we all love flying, but the situation, the being away from home, striving to kill time, personality conflicts and dramas, the conditions and cultural adaptations, does weigh one down, and you need to slap yourself at times, to remind yourself just how good you've got it.  The steady stream of over laden bikes, relics from the fifties in various states of disrepair, with bags of coal precariously balanced over the rear tire, stream in from  the forest, riding into town over the rough roads, precariously avoiding the dilapidated trucks, weaving Chinese motorcycles, kids, cattle and goats, then cruise amongst the mud huts ringing their bells, much like an ice cream truck, to sell their wares a bag at a time for a pittance, so local women can heat their pots and pans to cook for their families, before riding back up into the hills for another load.  We ain't got it so bad.

Playing with my Go Pro

A little taste of mountain biking in Mtwara, Tanzania.......

Miss Mtwara

"Take it easy and fly helicopters".  Some good advice given me as I whined about the recent changes in base policies, paraphrasing a t-shirt logo.  Surprisingly it works.  Everything just seems to gel when I actually get behind the controls and get airborne.  Flying does get in one's blood.  Thankfully I should be getting a fair bit this tour.  I've got lots of training to do; an upgrade to SAR Captain underway plus numerous recurrencies will see me airborne quite frequently in the next few weeks, with two hoisting sorties after lunch today.  Yes, I'm smiling.  I've got a very capable Captain I'm taking through the instructor's course as well and that is almost as much fun as hoisting off decks.  Earlier this week we had our night deck recurrencies, as three landings at night on a platform every ninety days is required by the authorities.  I miss the night operations of EMS, and even offshore out of Nova Scotia in years past, and it's nice to get out and be challenged once in awhile.

Otherwise still putting lots of miles on the new mountain bike.  I did go cheap and after pounding out a few miles on Tanzania's hard packed dirt, I am wishing I had gone up a few price points.  The East African weather has been ideal.  The rains are over, the air is dry, and one wakes to  temperatures in the low twenties (Celsius), as opposed to the early morning mid-thirties where you broke a sweat just walking to breakfast only a few months ago.  I'm still looking at other options, but I know I'd miss Africa.  A few headed to the Miss Mtwara pageant last night, as usual the music blaring at insane volumes, speakers clipping with distortion, drowning out any chance of a conversation.  My V.I.P. ticket had me seated right in front of the speakers, so I stuffed Kleenex in my ears and ignored the curious looks.  One of the local waitresses we knew placed third and we cheered loudly.  Many drank far too much and I'm glad I was drinking water.  We stood out as mzungus and I had to issue a strong "F##k off" last night to get rid of one pest, and pushed off more than a few overly drunk well wishers, but it was a fun night nevertheless.  I do love Africa.