Surely as the night turned into another warm Portugal morning, both the Registration Certificate and the Special Flight Permit arrived in the email. That´s it. The initial bureaucratic hurdles are overcome. They will not be the last. Country clearances, customs entries, customs exits, import duties, and other details of the pen-pushing kind will soon be sent to challenge me.
Speaking of morning - a photo shortly pre-sunrise of the view from my room. If you look toward the bridge past the big warehouse you can just see the end of the runway from which I will depart tomorrow.
Last night Jan and I shopped for consumables for the trip at about 9pm. We have to walk through the centre of town to get to and from the shopping centre. Santarem is a classic European town of about 60,000. Big Piazza in the middle. Polished rough hewn stones making up the footpath that have been worn smooth by a century or two of strollers making them a slip and fall hazard that would generate awesome fees for Slater and Gordon in Australia.
It was a hot Monday night and I was struck by the number of citizens aged from 8 to 80 who were out and about at 10:30pm. Sitting on seats outside coffee shops. Milling around the plaza. Walking their dogs through the small number of green spaces in town. I guess the good people of Santarem find it hard to sleep on a hot night. Maybe this sort of thing happens in Surry Hills too. People in the Burbs seem to hunker down in their homes.
Another hot one today - 41 in Santarem. Not as hot as Tank, Pakistan (g´day Dad) but warm enough to broil my shorts.
Spotme (http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0p9dRpemjrQA9a6JSdNckvkiHYDQMqQHe) should start to get busy tomorrow morning but I still have not managed to find Lithium batteries for it so don´t be fretting if it doesn´t.
Congratulations Captain Moff. Wonderful news! I am glad that you are on your way home. Fly safely although I know you will miss your chief navigator and photographer.
ReplyDeleteG'day, Ton.
ReplyDeleteSo departure will be tomorrow and first port of call Sardinia followed by Crete and Al Arish. Suggest you avoid Tahir Square at all costs :-)ETA Broome 30/7 unless you make up one of the two contingency days.
Your flight plan is registered with CASA. How often do you have to let CASA know where you are? And what arrangements do you have to make,say, for your flight tomorrow to Sardinia? Presumably you have to pay for the privilege of landing? Will they know you are coming and when to expect you?
Do you have an epirb on board????? Or relying on Spot? Hope you can find batteries!
No need to answer questions. I'll work it all out in the end.
41 degrees is plenty hot! But hotel looks fine and I hope you've been giving the pool a workout.
Dad,
ReplyDeleteI´ll post separate responses to all of your questions as we go. Plenty of hours to type such stuff for you. Don´t fret the EPIRB story. There are four of them on board.
T
Good to hear about the EPIRBs Ton. Amelia Earhart has been much in the news of late. If only she'd had just one on board!
ReplyDeleteI'd ask you if you've practiced inflating your life raft, Ton; but Mum would probably get cranky with me, so I won't.
I wonder what time you'll take off tomorrow. I'm reckoning 9 am, after a couple of last minute hitches, with arrival in Sardinia at a reasonable 1500 hours???
There up all night here where I live when I hunker down for the night. Happy flying.
ReplyDeleteHey -- want about killing the verification security feature for your blog. you won't get spam. and if you do (unlikely), then you can turn it on again.
ReplyDelete