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I just received notice that an article I submitted to African Hunting Gazette will be published in the upcoming September issue!  It's a story of my week long kudu hunt high in the Waterberg mountains of the Limpopo, South Africa, near the Botswana border, where my guide and I hiked some thirty kilometres a day chasing the elusive grey ghost.  The end result is a Rowland Ward Record Book kudu rack on my wall, and memories of long stalks through gorgeous countryside, wading through herds of impala, zebra, wildebeest, waterbuck, blesbuck, and red hartebeest, as klipspringer flushed from the foliage, my tracks mingling with those of leopard, and evenings were spent dining on fresh game roasted over hot coals.  I'd love to go hunting in Africa again, but my disposable income is presently tied up with more pressing matters.....


To add to the excitement, my kid has flown the coop!  She's picked up her stakes and headed West for work as I did when I was but a year younger.  I was anxious to get out and find my own place in the world, and I wasn't surprised she followed suit, but I am sad I was overseas when she left.  I'm sure a visit out West is in the cards next time I get back to Canada.

But I'm still here in Tanzania, well into an eight week tour.  I've signed off one new commander and there's two more in the works, plus with some OPCs, SAR Training and line checks, I've been getting airborne quite regularly.  Line flying has increased as well, and it all amounts to doing more of what I love.  All the recent fears over security seems unjustified, as I go about my business as I have here since the beginning.  The National airline departing Mtwara yesterday returned in short order with one engine obviously given up the ghost, so there is excitement, but to be honest, as my concentration is interrupted yet again by the intermittent yet incessant "Allahu Akbar" call from the loudhailer adjacent to my window, I'm ready to head home and just chill for awhile.

Eat Sleep Fly

Some iPhone footage of some night rig training.  Don't fret, I'm not flying, I'm recording from the jump seat behind the crew stations, checking out a new instructor.

I'm still plugging away here in East Africa, and having fun to boot!  The weather has been relatively cool, making the mountain biking pleasant, and I've managed to avoid the machete welding thugs that mugged the last guy to ride my bike.....so far anyways.  Life is good.  We've been warned that the local environment has changed due to a stupid bar brawl some of our compadres stumbled into, but I refuse to change my modus operandi.  I still wonder about the brazen stares from the majority of locals, as if I had two heads, but my local friends laugh and tell me it's because mzungus generally don't walk around so freely, nor in the areas I tend to frequent, generally preferring to sit in the air conditioned comfort of the omni-present white Land Rovers that crawl the landscape like locusts.  I'm on foot in a quest for fresh mint to share the "Moroccan Whiskey", or sweetened mint tea, that I fell in love with in Morocco, with my friends here.  I finally discover an East Indian shop owner whose neighbor has some growing in her garden, and he closes his shop and we head off to pick some!  Hand shakes and smiles and I'm off again, when I hear a scream and turn to see aformer base security guard running towards me,  then giving me a big hug, proudly sporting the "CANADA" t-shirt I handed out to all our staff for Christmas one year.  I give her some fresh mint.  As opposed to being a Moroccan social lubricant, I discover that in East Africa mint is used as medicine for a bad stomach or dental problems. Ah, life in Mtwara, taking it day by day to the sounds of cows mooing, roosters crowing, goats baying, calls to prayer and school bells, hawkers yelling indecipherable gibberish selling their wares, in cheap plastic bins balanced precariously on their heads, and music everywhere, always far louder than the speakers can handle.  Mtwara really hasn't changed.  Fuel is still being stolen at the airport, and I think it always will be.

The threat of ebola hasn't reached this side of Africa, and it's a BIG continent, but still our corporate headquarters expect us to be prepared, and we couldn't resist trying out our ebola suits!  Stylin!

Goats in a tree

After a morning's flying off Morocco's Atlantic coast, we took a drive up into the Atlas mountains, and there they were; goats in a tree!  I wasn't aware that goats could even climb trees but again and again you'd see them in the highest branches of Morocco's Argan trees, nibbling on their berries.  Hand shakes and a few dirham passed to the shepherd and everyone's cameras start clicking.  Then there were the little cafes nestled in mountain passes where small fish nibble at the dead skin of your feet, sipping sweet mint tea while our guide relates sad stories of loved ones lost on vessels of dubious caliber trying to cross into Europe.

It was a lot to absorb in the few days I was posted in Agadir.  I hope I get back again.....

But alas, I'm back in East Africa.  Tanzania, down on the Mozambique border, where the modern world struggles to take hold.  I was in the depths of a local market, dark stalls made from twisted tree branches tied together, floors of the very earth, amid unabashed stares at the odd mzungu venturing deep, to buy meat and vegetables and rice for a meal with locals.  Various rough hewn parts of cattle hang from hooks amidst clouds of flies, voices are raised and deals are struck, a bloody slab is thrown down on a table that would make the sturdiest Western stomach gurgle, an axe is swung violently, breaking bone and cutting meat, scooped up with bare hands that have not seen water recently, then into the rusty metal bin of the scale, another piece thrown in, another...the lead weights start to lift, and the mass is unceremoniously dumped into a thin plastic bag and handed over.  I have to admit I quite enjoyed the company, the cooking and the meal that evening, and my stomach is still sound a few days later.  As I sit at the airport planning this evening's training sortie, another Captain's upgrade underway, I'm thinking I'm pretty damn lucky for having this opportunity to experience Africa.  Our days here are numbered, and I have no idea where I'm headed next. 

The guy who ruined it for everybody

Morocco was a very welcome experience.  As in most jobs, it's the people you work with that make or break a place, and the Morocco crew were some of the best people I've had the pleasure of knowing, creating an upbeat and positive environment, where everyone worked hard but were having fun and living life to the fullest.  The base manager has the biggest influence on a base's persona, and his positive attitude carried everyone along with him.  It was a very good place to be.  I've been on quite a few good bases, but I've also seen just one person bring a base to it's knees.  Numerous personnel changes in Tanzania have changed the base dynamic drastically, as it used to be one the best bases I had ever been on.  One person, relatively new on the base, ranting about unrealistic security concerns to all who would listen, brought about numerous changes that took my favourite East African posting down to someplace extremely dark and unpleasant, spreading rumours and dissension and having little regard for others, continually spouting a never ending racial diatribe that grated one's nerves.  I wasn't unhappy to hear that he'd been kicked out of the country for roughing up a local that may not have had all his wits about him.  Of course not before he created further damage by being chased back to our hotel with thirty angry locals hot on his trail, making our hotel and employees a target for the irate nationals, and thus making all his security concerns something to actually worry about, but for us, not him.  What an idiot.  I do not wish him well.  His arrogance and negative energy brought the entire base down, but luckily he's taken his baggage elsewhere. 

Trying my best to recover whatever positive energy this place had, mountain biking single track in the hills, snorkelling the reefs and hanging with locals, is keeping me sane.  Of course it's different; cultural values vary significantly from those of the West, but respecting your fellow man, allowing for those differences, and keeping your wits about you, will carry you much farther than forcing your concrete views on those around you.  I still love Tanzania and it's people, but the base is not the same. 

I now have some spare time to sort through photos, whittling some six hundred down to a few favourites, posted in my web albums with the link at the upper right of this page.  Trying to see and experience as much of North Africa as my short visit and work schedule would allow left me with little time, but here I have it in spades.  I spent a few days in Dar es Salaam, recovering from two solid days of travel, lounging poolside at the beautiful Sea Cliff hotel, hanging out in some dodgy East African hospitals getting chest x-rays and ECGs for a national medical, and writing one of thee most bizarre aviation licensing exams I have ever seen. With over thirty years as a professional aviator I had never heard of a Janus array, ionization wave skip propagation or worked with Doppler radar, but the exam was thick with theory questions of no practical value, with long forgotten formulas that hurt my head.  Somehow I managed to pass.  Two licenses in two weeks, time to chill..... 

Waitlisted my ass....

It's been a whirlwind!  First order of business was to get my Cayman Licence so I could give some training and check rides to a few of our boys flying Cayman registered birds in Morocco.  There was some study and an exam, then with two weeks left of my time off, which I was quite enjoying by the way, I jumped on a flight to Milan, grabbed a cab to Sesto Calende, and hooked up with some old flying buddies I hadn't seen in awhile.  Meals are always an experience in Italy, and we soon found a quaint basement haunt, ordered some squid ink pasta and smoked salmon, polishing off a few glasses of fine red wine, Italian of course, over stories of daring doo that held at least some sliver of truth.  Near midnight I pulled the pin figuring I'd been travelling all day and I had to be up at five for a check ride, when fireworks started going off just outside my room.  With a towel around my waist I opened my balcony doors and a few hundred faces looked up at me, as the band who was just setting up hadn't started to play yet....then the drummer started pounding out some riff, the guitar and base soon joined in and soon some Italian CCR was blasting at insane volumes, and the locals lost interest in the half naked Canadian.  It seems the last Saturday night in July is quite an event in Sesto Calende.  I snapped a photo...

I figured sleep was a lost cause, but I laid on my couch and woke to my alarm going off at 5 am, my balcony door still open!  Guess I was tired!

Check ride done and twenty-four hours to kill, we grabbed the train up to Arona, and spent the day walking, taking photos and drinking cappuccinos on Lac Maggiore.  Next morning I was Morocco bound, dealing with the typical headaches of insanely long lines and rude Europeans.

There was little time to search out a piano player named Sam in Casablanca as I was just connecting through to Agadir, were work beckoned, and I soon had the pleasure of meeting the cheeriest Spaniard on the planet.  His task was whisking me through the security pass boondoggle which is common in most airports, wherever in the world you may be.  He handled the irate police with aplomb and I was soon in my hotel and pondering whether to bother unpacking or not.  I didn't.

Flying duties started in earnest the next morning,
and my new Spaniard friend and I flew around the Moroccan desert, having more fun than should be allowed considering we are getting paid to do this.  He was soon signed off and set loose.  I gave a few more line checks and some night training, not really minding the twelve hour days, evenings spent walking the long beach of Agadir, thick with local families celebrating the end of Ramadan, sipping Berber Whisky, as heavily sweetened mint tea is known in these parts, and eating slow cooked Moroccan cuisine with good friends, old and new.


But low and behold, I got everyone done and signed off with two days to spare.  I was still covering shifts but was able to manage a few half day trips into the countryside, the most memorable being a two hour camel ride in the dunes, the donkey ride in the Atlas mountains, or perhaps laughing so hard it hurt as my Spaniard friend negotiated carpet prices with frustrated Berbers...

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Too much to write and not enough time, and I have yet another plane to catch, sitting in the business lounge in Johannesburg.  One more quick story and I'll save the rest of Morocco for later.  I couldn't get all my boarding passes in Agadir so I had to go to the transfer desk in Zurich to collect them, and buddy at the desk told me I was waitlisted because the flight was oversold, to just show up at the gate and if they had a seat....totally unacceptable I said, I'm a Star Alliance Gold member (for having flown some 85,000 miles with them last year), I believe I take priority.  He shrugged his shoulders so I asked to see his supervisor.  His boss was there in five minutes and his reaction made me smile...."He's a Gold Member! Of course give him a seat!!" and he slapped the guy in the head.  I got my boarding passes.....

Waitlisted my ass....