Stephen Sorenson's blog

Coolangatta

We have moved on from the Outback and are back to the tropics.  We had a great 3.5 hour flight from Longreach to Gold Coast airport near the surfing town of Coolangatta.  This is kind of at the south end of the Gold Coast which extends up to Brisbane.  The largest settlement on the Gold Coast seems to be Surfers Paradise.  It is littered with huge high rise vacation rentals but even so retains a much more dignified appearance than Myrtle Beach.  The Beach areas are long, wide and very nice with just enough surf to keep the surfers out all day although I suspect it's not so good right now.  It is much cooler there than in Cairns and walking any time of the day is quite comfortable.  We will do more touring today then it's off to Sydney tomorrow where I will say goodbye to Rod on Friday.  He will head home and I'll hang out here in OZ for another month or so.  We will be arriving at Jock Anderson's airport south of Sydney which is pretty short so we have to arrive as light as possible.  The flight down the coast will go through a VFR corridor along the shore of Sydney Harbor restricted to a max altitude of 500 ft.  That should be fun....mixing it up with the hang gliders.  

Longreach

We are enjoying Longreach....a place that less than 24 hours ago we didn't even know existed.  This is a nice little outback town with two main tourist attractions.  The first is the Quantas airlines museum.  This is where Qantas started.  They have a retired 747 and 707 along with a few other airplanes and lots of artifacts.  We toured the 747 today and really enjoyed it.  The other attraction is the Stockman's Hall of Fame.  We may see that tomorrow morning.   It's suppose to be pretty nice.  It is HOT here but at least it's dry.  Our flight today was great....just 2.5 hours.  We climbed out of Cairns and got on top of the clouds at 8000 ft.  The rest of the way was smooth, and increasingly clear.  The Aussies are right, there isn't much out here but since the big rain a few months ago things are pretty green.  There is one area of incredible granite knobs and canyons that is like nothing we have seen before. 
    After a couple of rum and cokes we will walk about a mile into town and try to find a big steak which should not be hard in this part of the country.  Tomorrow we will fly on to the Gold Coast just south of Brisbane.

Time to move on

We have very much enjoyed our stay in Cairns these last few days.  It seemed such a relief to be in Australia finally that we wanted to just enjoy it.  We got a car and did a lot of driving around and more walking around the waterfront to enjoy the tropical climate and greenery.  Our hotel is right across the road from the waterfront and there are a gazillion birds around plus some very impressive fruit bats flying by.  We did have to do a little repair on the plane as one wheel bearing froze up as the result of being covered with water on the parking ramp in Tarawa.  We were able to get parts locally and with the help of our Toyota jack, finished the job in reasonable time.  Today we took a boat out to the Great Barrier Reef and did some snorkeling and SCUBA.  It was a huge sailing catamaran with over 100 people on board so it was a little on the crowded side.  The weather was not too great with clouds and some rain but it keep these two pale white guys from turning into french fries and it didn't seem to bother the reef.  I saw 3 sharks, a turtle, and an amazing cuddlefish that was changing colors right before my eyes just like in the nature videos.  But maybe the coolest thing of all was the giant clams.....some over 3 ft across.  They were everywhere. 
    Tonight we had an extremely pleasant dinner at the home of a local Long Eze builder and flyer.  Their home up in the hills is beautiful and a home cooked dinner was most welcome.  I also got some good advice on how to get out of here tomorrow without causing ripples in the entire Australian air space system.  We have decided to fly to Longreach tomorrow.....where you say?  Well we didn't know about it either but it's a little town over the hills in the outback that is the home of Qantas airlines and has a Qantas museum and other little fun places.  One of the main reasons we are going is we have had about enough of the tropics and are looking forward to getting the plane and ourselves dried out for the first time in a month.  After a night there we will head back to the coast south of Brisbane then on to Sydney on Thursday.  Rod flys home on Friday so I'll be spending the rest of the time in Australia traveling by myself.  There is a whole lot to see and I know I won't scratch the surface.
    The picture downloads just aren't happening with this connection.  I don't know why as it seems to work fine otherwise.  I need to check with the Vox people to see what's happening.  May have to resort to Flicker or something.
    More from the Outback.

The Puffin has landed.....In OZ

Today was the completion of the first half of the great adventure, and it was a bit of and adventure in itself.  The day started with a 7:30 take off from Pohnpei having obtained special permission to take off before the normal 10 am opening. The 2.5 hour head start was  needed for us to arrive in Cairns before dark.... we took off and headed south. 
When we got near Cairns we had to hold 50 miles out for 20 min while the mini evening rush cleared.  The flight was difficult from the weather standpoint.  We diverted up to 40 miles both left and right during the day to keep out of the rain as much as possible.  The worst weather was over New Guinea where there were not only clouds but mountains.  We climbed to 13,000 ft to clear and flew through about 10 min of intense rain to get by.  And for those of you who don't think that Ellison throttle bodies need induction heat.....try flying across the equator.  I had the induction heat on for 3 hours just to keep the front engine happy.  First time I ever used it.  We also had radio adventures but in the end we were happy to hear the Aussie accent guiding us in. 10.5 hours.... 1600+ miles.  When we got here we were handed a can of spray to kill the critters from Micronesia and after a 5 min wait...thank goodness the sun was down, we cleared quarantine and customs in 15 min.  Nice people.  Then we taxied over to the gen aviation side of the field where we met Jock and Ian Anderson who spend the evening taking very good care of us with a dinner of Mud crabs (kind of like a cross between a dungeness and  maine Lobster.  Way too good and way to much drink and this message is being typed under the influence so forgive typos.....I'll edit tomorrow.  So the flight of the Puffin has reached it's first major milestone and we are feeling about as good as you would think.  Who knows what tomorrow will bring.

And then the rains came.....

Well the internet says that Pohnpei is one of the rainiest spots on earth…..Today it lived up to that reputation.  We were at the airport at 8 getting ready for a 10 am departure and it was a beautiful morning.  We got the gas loaded….3 drums and were just heading off to see the nice Customs folks when the sky opened up.  We managed to get the cover on the plane but got completely soaked in the process.  The Customs people and Immigration people all were very nice and got us all fixed up with the right documents but the rain just kept coming.  We stood in the Caroline Air hangar for over two hours waiting for a gap big enough to safely take off with our heavy load.  It didn’t happen until it was clearly too late to arrive in Cairns before dark.  So the decision to stay another day was simple from the safety standpoint……not so simple because of all the phone calls and emails we would have to do to reschedule and I felt bad for our friends in Cairns made special trips to see us arrive.  But weather is weather and it’s not worth pushing more than we have too.  Up till this point weather has not been a factor on this trip amazingly enough.  So now it’s keep our fingers crossed for better tomorrow and just enjoy being stuck on a truly amazing tropical isle. 

      We had an unexpected surprise last night after I wrote the blog entry.  There were three young sailors from a Coast Guard boat sitting near us and they were ready to leave about the time we were so we offered them a ride back to their ship to save them a taxi ride.  They took us up on the ride and in return gave us a very nice tour of their ship which is a buoy tender and is about 200 ft long with a crew of over 50.  They were great kids and we really enjoyed the tour.  I don’t think any of them had been born when I started building the Defiant.

      Tonight we have no car but Rod discovered a restaurant overlooking the harbor a couple of blocks from here.  Who know about the food but it’s worth checking out the view over a beer.  We are hoping to get an earlier take off tomorrow than the 10 am opening.  The Caroline air guy has a scheduled 7:30 take off and we will be ready if they allow us to follow him out.  That would be perfect but we have been defeated by the powers that be in the past so we may have to wait till 10.  In any case tomorrow should be the day and we will post as soon as possible after our arrival.

Tomorrow it's OZ

We are enjoying a last evening here on Pohnpei at the same place as last night.  Pretty special place.  We spend the day getting ready for the flight to Cairns tomorrow.  The plane passed inspection and got some new oil.  We filed our flight plan and dropped faxes to two different Australian agencies and called two more.  I think I have all the bases covered but I have been wrong before.  We have been told that before we get out of our plane they will hand us some bug bombs and we have to set them off in the plane for 5 min before we can get out.  I told Rod to just take a couple of deep breaths to make it all easier on both of us.  Our Defiant friend Jock Anderson will be meeting us after we clear customs (morgue?) and taking care of us for a couple days so our entry into the country will go well.  This is pretty special treatment and we are so looking forward to settling into the Aussie lifestyle.  The flight tomorrow is about 10 hours, 1600 NM, short by the standards of this trip.  Weather will be a factor but we are ready.  Take off is at 10 am as that is the time the Pohnpei runway is open.  Arrival about 7 pm.  That's GMT +14.....not in Kansas anymore.  We will send out message on our arrival if we are not in jail.  Thanks for all the good wishes and encouragement.  It means a lot to us.

Beautiful Pohnpei

Two days on Pohnpei and we have decided that this is what a south Pacific Island is suppose to be like.  Yesterday we rented a car and drove around the island.  It is a big jungle.  There is a wet side and a not quite as wet side, with beautiful  mountains and some incredible rocky out croppings.  The Island is surrounded by a barrier reef and I spoke yesterday about a Lagoon we flew over coming into the airport.  Well that lagoon is huge as the barrier reef is from 3 to maybe 5 miles off shore.  We really enjoyed the drive but didn’t find any place to go snorkeling along the shore as most of the shore is lined with mangrove swamps.  So we booked a day on a dive boat for today through the Village hotel.  There were 3 of us on a small outboard skiff, one Army officer from Hawaii and Rod and me.  Rod doesn’t SCUBA so he snorkeled and Mr Army and I dove with the guide.  The first dive we saw two huge Manta Rays hanging out at a cleaning station.  Probably 6 foot wingspans.  Rod was able to see them from up near the surface too.  Then we motored over to a small island for lunch and more snorkeling.  The second dive was along a beautiful coral wall where we ran into a huge variety of coral and sponges, fish, and other creatures.  The Village hotel where the trip started was almost as interesting.  The restaurant there is called the Tatooed Scottsman and is a huge deck on the side of the hill essentially in the top of the jungle.  It looks out over the lagoon where we flew around coming.  It is one of the most beautiful views you can imagine.  It was so impressive we decided to go back for dinner.  We got there about half hour before sundown and had a nice sunset but I suspect it is usually better.  Most of the patrons tonight were US military…..I could tell since I had the longest hair in the joint.  As the sun went down a large fruit bat flew into a palm tree just off the deck adding to the ambiance.  Oh, and the food was terrific. 

      Tomorrow we will get to the airport early and change the oil in the engines.  The fellow who runs Caroline Islands airways has offered the use of his hanger, oil pans, and to dispose of the old oil.  He is the source of fuel on this island and we will be purchasing 3 200 liter drums.  Assuming the plane passes it’s inspection we plan to depart for Cairns on Tuesday.  The flight to Truk just will not work because the runway is closed till afternoon every day next week and we couldn’t leave in time to reach Cairns before dark.  So this is our last south Pacific island till the return trip but we are anxious to reach Australia and meet all of our new friends there.  Tomorrow afternoon is devoted to gathering all the documents that Australia requires for our arrival.  Probably 3 faxes, two phone calls and a couple more emails ought to do it.  I hope we don’t ruffle too many feathers when we arrive. 

On to Pohnpei

It's 7 PM and we are on the beautiful island of Pohnpei.  The fire drill round our landing permission was finally cleared up this morning about 10:30 and we wasted no time heading out across 1000 miles of warm water.  The weather sucked along our direct route but about 30 miles north it was fine so we just hung out 30 miles north of the line enjoying a smooth ride.  Landing here took longer than anticipated because they were resurfacing the runway and there were trucks on the runway as we approached.  They asked us to circle for 10 minutes which was actually very nice as the barrier reef off the north side of this island and the lagoon inside is simply magnificent. Rod took a bunch of pictures.  Landing was smooth but into a bad cross wind.  I got lucky.  We were met by the guy who sells gas who I had been talking to on email.  He took us to a nice hotel and we just can't wait to get out to see the island tomorrow.  It is such a contrast to Tarawa.  Mountains, big reefs, roads where you don't disappear into holes and puddles.  We will likely do an oil change on the engines on Sunday as they need a little TLC.  They have been performing like champs and deserve it.  We just starve those little Lycomings to get good fuel flow.  They seem to be just fine with their treatment and we are averaging about 14.5 gallons an hour for both engines.  We have been landing with 3 to 5 hours gas remaining which makes me feel good.  I'll attempt some pictures tomorrow but this connection is a bit flaky. More to come.

Looking at options

It's 7 am here in Tarawa and we are preparing to go to the airport for the flight to Pohnpei soon but I don't have much hope that permission will come through today which means that we will likely be stuck here for the weekend.  Could be worse I guess.  We are looking at going to Vanuatu instead and have made contacts there for permission.  I don't know how long that would take but it's worth exploring.  For those of you who may have tried contacting me at my regular email address I can not access Comcast here so I am using a temporary email of defiant_10@yahoo.com.  You can reach me there probably until I get to Australia.  I was right......this is an adventure.

Extending our stay

We were all set  to head out to Pohnpei this morning but there was a snafu with customs clearances in Pohnpei.....we didn't get any.  Customs said they never received the form......grumble.  So we called it off for a day on a day when the weather was perfect for our flight.  Disappointing but you have to roll with it out here.  I send the form back to the customs people a total of 4 times so perhaps they will have it by now but at 3:30 their time I still don't have approval.  Rod and I spent the afternoon touring south Tarawa looking at all the old Japanese gun emplacements and other relics old and new.  We had a driver which made it a more survivable trip as they drive on the wrong side of the road here you know.  So tomorrow we have a flight planned filed again and if it doesn't happen then we will like head south to Vanawatu.  That will take at least another day to plan so we are a little behind on the schedule.  Wait, we don't have a schedule....  With no rain or clouds today it's HOT and humid.  But we do have an air conditioned room so we can retread once in a while for survival.  Oh, one bit of really good news, the sat phone is working......seems the antenna was not put on properly at the store and was loose enough to cause reception problems.  Much better.  More from Pohnpei tomorrow I hope.