Chillin' with Bob

Home sweet home!  The Nova Scotia weather has been absolutely stellar, with only one major storm to speak of in the last week, so I joined my best friend Bob, a very experienced "been there-done that-many, many times over" helicopter pilot, living just around the corner from my place, for brews on his deck.  I'm laughing as he tells me he was actually out flying in the storm that took out most of the power in the province earlier this week.  Stories of days of yore and lamenting dealing with persnickety, fastidious, impractical, pedantic pilots of today is always good fodder for conversation over locally brewed hops.  I've had more adventures with Bob in venerable old S61s two hundred miles out into the North Atlantic in brutal winter mahem than I'd care to remember, and they just could not kill the two of us when we flew together in the Norway simulator.  I truly miss sharing a cockpit with my ole buddy.  An ex-bush pilot as well, he started touring Internationally long before I took the plunge so we have quite a bit of common ground.  I often join Bob on errand runs around town, a remnant of an earlier friendship when we were both starting our offshore careers on Canada's East Coast, and somehow I tend to spend an inordinate amount of money whenever I'm out with Bob.  Today I ended up coming home with a fairly high end blender that I just used to crush some ice for some daiquiri recipe I found of Ernest Hemingway.  Chillin' with Bob.  Life is good.

He's got it figured out.....

One more weekend.....

Do I look like I'm enjoying myself?  We're prepping for yet another SAR Training sortie in East Africa, and loving every second of it.  I just can't get enough of actually flying a helicopter once again.  SAR flying involves plenty of low level shenanigans with steep turns and flares and precision hovering, hoisting folk off heaving decks or cliffs and rock outcrops, and requires experience and dynamic decision making skills, and it all adds up to some seriously good fun.  SAR flying is very far removed from the numbingly sterile offshore support flying role, which to be honest, is getting more and more sterile as North Sea "experts" bring about even more restrictions and inflexible procedures.  If I could shenaggle a full time SAR posting......

I've been getting in plenty of flying this tour, with over six hours airborne yesterday with a surprise trip to Dar es Salaam, so I'm as happy as a rooster in a hen house.  I've got one more Mtwara weekend ahead of me, then I'm homeward bound yet once again.  Many contractual rumours have everyone wondering just where they are off to next, myself included.  While the best course of action is to just go with the flow, as in most everything life throws at you, it is frustrating not having more control.  I love flying the AW139, but it wouldn't break my heart to find myself back on Super Pumas, or perhaps even a new endorsement?  I really don't have a clue what the future holds, which isn't really a bad thing.  Considering the possibilities provides one's imagination with plenty to keep it occupied, plus providing plenty of fodder for conversations over sundowners at the Msemo.   I've made a good life here in East Africa, with the snorkelling and mountain biking and good local friends, and if I'm not back,  I will seriously miss it.  But ever upwards and onwards!

Two Weeks

Two weeks left, and counting.  The forever blue skies have given way to foreboding clouds building on the horizon, the jungle darkening beneath as their tops climb for the heavens.  We skim over the turquoise seas now morphing to sad grey in our Italian steeds as unimpressed humpback whales frolic and splash.  The winds howl unabated raising dust devils and causing my cheap single pane and ill fitting hotel windows to rattle and trumpet like an odd musical instrument while I attempt to sleep.  One can feel the change of season as the prevailing winds shift from South to North.  Seasons do change here as they do in Canada, but the temperatures never call for nary a sweater, swinging slowly from pleasant and dry to hot and muggy, and stormy.   
    

This tour has been long, and I find eight weeks away to be a bit much, even though it's been broken up by stints in Italy, Morocco and Tanzania, with stop overs in Zurich and Johannesburg.  It was hectic and fun, but back in Mtwara time is just creeping along, mostly due to changes brought about by people I'd really rather not work with ever again.  I'm smiling as we are flying a fair amount but the constant bombardment of noise, either incomprehensible Islamic sermons blasting over loudhailers at all hours, brimming with self righteous and pious tone,  to Tanzanian rap far exceeding speaker capacity everywhere one goes, and the unabashed staring that seriously wears on one's nerves.  It feels like it's time to move on.  Rather than complain too much, I thought I'd share some images of this past tour.  At the top is my vintage leather briefcase/flying bag (Buffalo Jackson) on the seat of our SAR AW139 prior to a training sortie.  Perhaps not the most practical but I quite like it. 

This cool view is from the waiting area at the Tanzanian Civil Aviation Authority's "Aviation House" in Dar es Salaam.  One just has to lean back and look up while waiting to write their bizarre licensing exam from the fifties.

I had to share some interesting East African construction techniques.  This is in Mtwara but I've seen the same on high rises in Dar es Salaam and Mombasa.  Where else will you see electric conduit for water lines, and wonder why they leak in the walls?

And despite warnings about how dangerous Africa is, from the afore mentioned folk making all the unwarranted and unwanted changes, I still head out and have fun.  After almost three years I think I've pretty much sussed out the risk involved.  Below is a short clip of FM Academia, a band from the Congo, playing at the Makondi Beach Club.  I was thee only mzungu in attendance, and I had a blast!