Off to Morocco!

No, it's not easy to look cool riding a burro, but perhaps I can pull it off with some more practice.  I got the call last night, with just over six weeks home and no idea of what the future held, to pack my bags and hop on a plane back to Morocco, to manage the base for the month.  I'll be covering flying duties as a Captain as well, and may be faced with some training duties depending on present staffing, but I know from experience. having managed exploration support helicopter bases in Turkey, Romania, Tanzania and Kenya, that I'll be very busy with a cel phone permanently attached to my head sorting out an endless variety of frustrating and inane issues.  Being the boss sucks.  At first I found the challenges rewarding, especially when faced with mobilizing and setting up bases across International borders, dealing with all sorts of logistical nightmares and dizzying bureaucracy, but then there's all the tedious and time consuming administrative tasks that fall on you as these sorts of things typically operate very bare bones.  There is just so much to do that is very far removed from joys of aviation, and it takes so much time away from the reason we sought pilot licences in the first place;  basically to fly and then sit by the pool.  It is not an enviable job, but they needed me, and I know I can muddle through. Besides, it's only for the month, and it's Morocco!  After I've tackled this job, it's looking like I'll be saying goodbye to the Italian steed I've been using to blast around the skies of Africa and saying hello again to the heavy iron.  I must admit, I have missed flying the heavies and I'll be happy to be pulling pitch in an old friend once again, but then things could always change.  In the meantime...off to the airport for another adventure!

Hoisting

Well, I actually have a pretty good idea of where I'm headed next, but nothing is written in stone.  There's now three spots on completely different corners of the globe where I've submitted paperwork on the company's behalf as they sort out where I'm most needed, all interesting and some better than others, but I best hold my tongue until the dust settles.  In the meantime, I've been mountain biking, lunches with Bob, and hunting white tails with my Bear bow, and quite honestly, having a blast with all the time off.  I thought I'd post a little GoPro footage of some Search and Rescue training in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Kenya last year.  I've had the footage for awhile but my new MacBook can actually handle processing the video....

Basically as a SAR pilot, you need to maintain currency, as well as the rear crew and first officers, so we do these little training sorties with some regularity.  This was a very, very calm day but higher sea states actually make it far more interesting.  Throw in some squalls and it gets quite entertaining.  Unfortunately the AW139s we had in Kenya were not fitted with the optional SAR kit, so we have no autopilot hover modes, restricting us to day time hoisting where we can actually see for hover reference, but hand flying these sorties is no big deal, it's just takes a little practice.  Generally once we've done our recee, we move to a stand off position with the nose of the helo into the wind, in this case, a standard deck just off the port stern.  We complete some checks then lower the SAR Tech to a safe height, then quickly move him over the deck, avoiding the anti-pirate razor wire all around the vessel, drop him off, then move back to the stand off position.  We'd then move back in to lower a highline, to facilitate quickly lowering and recovering gear, and then lower a medical bag and perhaps a stretcher, then eventually, recover the works.  Throughout we practice various emergencies, as this is a training sortie, so we'd have comm failures and equipment failures and simulated engine fires and whatever else I could think of as an instructor.  Then we'd request the boat to change heading and do it all over again.  I'm actually concentrating pretty damn hard as I have a good friend on the line below me, but the conditions on this day were pretty benign.  I'd like to get myself on a serious round the clock/all-weather dedicated SAR post but I'll take pretty much anything that keeps me airborne....

Spider Lake

Well, almost six weeks off and still no idea where to next.  Not overly stressed....just jamming on my Les Paul and hitting the trails with my Norco.  Playing with my GoPro and my new MacBook, I found the bar mounted video I shot of mountain biking in Tanzania to be very choppy, so here's a test run with a chest mount, camera upside down and video flipped.  It rained last night and didn't break ten degrees celsius, but I had fun.  I always do.  Tunes are my own!

My favourite bit of single track in Nova Scotia, and only a twenty minute ride from my house!

Banff

Damn, this is some beautiful country!  I'm out hiking around Banff, Alberta, my Sony NEX-7 around my neck, thoroughly enjoying the thin high altitude air I'm sucking into my lungs at an alarming rate.  My daughter, anxious to get out and match her wits against the world, flew the coop while I was away in East Africa.  After a few days reconnecting with home in Nova Scotia, I was westward bound for a visit, a resupply and to deliver her snowboard.  Supporting local micro-breweries in the evenings, and scoping out spectacular vistas during the day, I'm doing a fine job of keeping my mind off of the ever changing uncertainty over future postings. 

While sipping a cappuccino in Zurich awaiting my next leg home to Canada, I received the first email that I was headed to a dream posting in the Far East which featured a much desired new endorsement, but it meant turning around twenty-four hours after setting my foot in my own door for the first time in over two months.  My indecision was for naught as the offer was rescinded by the time I actually did get home, as it seems Tanzania wasn't quite finished with me yet.

Then of course that changed, and soon came the thank you emails for a job well done with base closure photos, with all the good bye emails that go with it, and my future was once again in the air.  With my hours, time with the company, plethora of endorsements, TRE and SAR Captain/Instructor/Examiner status, I'm not worried about having a job, but I have far less say over the "where".  One side of me wants to just roll with it, to go where I'm sent and to make the most of it, to be the provebial leaf floating on the stream, my sense of adventure and the potential possibilities ever at the forefront, while the other side of me wishes I had some control, wondering why someone else is getting this or that choice posting and you're thinking about sending me where???

As always, the only certain thing is uncertainty, the only constant is change.  In the two weeks I've been home contracts have been won and lost, contracts extended and contracts cut short, people have moved from A to B to C and back to B and I've been convinced that I'm probably headed to four different locales with varying degrees of uncertainty.  I know full well that until I've got my ticket in hand and am boarding the plane, and sometimes even then, you just don't know.  My choice?  Well there are some very attractive bids out there, and plenty of existing work as well requiring my skill set, but my fingers are crossed for a return to someplace in East Africa.  That place has seriously gotten under my skin.

And then, there is also the option of giving up this touring life.  There are plenty of attractive options right here at home. Trade adventure for stability?  Tough call and one I'm struggling with.  We'll see where they send me next, as that will certainly help me decide.  In the meantime, I'll chill and enjoy the mountains of Banff.