Skubies Blog 2014

 August 23rd Saturday

After a period of waiting around outside of Iringa at Trevor's place (still awaiting Licensing and  C of A for the aircraft), we finally got the chance to visit Ruaha, the largest National Park in East Africa, where we will be spending most of our summers for the next few years (all being well!).   This was a lightening visit, mainly to check on the airfield and, more importantly, to meet with the Chief Warden, (who also happens to be the actual Chief!).  However, we still managed to see loads of wildlife that evening and the next morning before we left.

It is a 3 hour drive from Iringa to the main gate of the park, most of which is on dirt road.  Being the dry season, it was in pretty good condition though.   Almost immediately we stumbled upon an Elephant bachelor group of 7 or so.  Initially we thought they might be a female group, because there was a youngish calf with them, who normally would still be with the maternal herd, but after much discussion between Trev & his native helpers (in Swahili), it was decided that in fact, it was a bull group with a 10 year old calf which must have been just ejected from the herd, as is normal for young male elephants.

Our accommodation is at the tourist Bandas near the river from where we have an absolutely incredible view of the river, with tons of birdlife, Elephants, impalas and crocs, only a few hundred metres from us.  Of course, the downside is that all these animals wander through the Bandas after dark, so you can't walk around without an armed ranger.  Anne had an incredible day yesterday with Trevor & Jo when they went to observe Elephants.  They came across a young Bull Elephant which had been killed by Lions.  (there are a group of Lions here that specialise in hunting young Elephants which is unusual).  They probably got the taste for Elephant from some killed by poachers, and are targeting young Bull elephants who have been expelled from the herd, and are too small to defend themselves from a pack of lions.  

There were a pack of 5 Lions hanging around protecting their kill from vultures, two of which were a mating couple.  Anne got some great pictures and video.  Then, to cap off a glorious day, a young female leopard walked right past the Landy.  A highly unusual sighting, because leopards are normally nocturnal.  This of course, while I had the "boring" task of flying the park vet low level along the great Ruaha river!  Life is tough sometimes!

 Fabled Zanzibar!  That emerald isle set like a jewel in the azure blue of the Indian Ocean. (Ok, OK, so I'm laying it on a bit thick!).  Originally an Arab outpost, long a centre of slave trading and the place where Livingstone set out from to explore the "Dark Continent"..  This was also where Stanley departed on his journey to deliver those immortal words, "Dr Livingstone I presume".  More prosaiclly, it featured in the 1941 film with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, "The Road to Zanzibar", which I remember watching as a child on TV, and thinking it hilariously funny.  Even though I am sure not a single scene was shot in Zanzibar, it made me yearn to visit the place.  So now I am going there next week.  Not as a tourist, but to visit the Flying school there to acquire my Tanzanian license.  After arriving in Dar es Salaam, Anne & I are going to part ways, she, heading off up to Iringa to help Trever, the director of STEP, with his researches, and me, to Zanzibar to get my Tz license, and also to get checked out on a Kitfox aircraft that Trevor will be a part owner in, and which I will be flying at Ruaha National Park.  In fact, if the sale comes together in time, I could be flying it up to Iringa from Zanzibar, which will be a helluva trip! .

 Finally got back into the air for the first time in a few weeks.  As part of the Tanzanian license, I had to get checked out on a Tz registered LSA aircraft, which sadly, wasn't the Kitfox as yet.  The kitfox, which STEP is buying in part ownership, does not yet have a Tz airworthyness certificate, so can't be flown.  However, I do need to have a successful checkride under my belt so that I can take it to the Tanzanian CAA on Thursday and have my license issued (aftar I have passed my PPL theory exam).  I also have to pass an English proficiency exam (another 100 USD), but that is another story.  Anyhow, I had a very pleasant hour and a half, flying around the tropical island of Zanzibar, doing some practice force landings onto some stunning beaches, in (yet another aircraft I will probably never fly again), the RANS Coyote.  I have so far flown 3 of these in the past 6 weeks.  Now that we have the Kitfox, there will be no need to fly the Bathawk up at Ruaha, but I may fly it to help PAMS out if necessary.

So, the plan is to get all this licensing stuff out of the way, then to fly commercial up to Iringa on Friday or Saturday to reunite with Annie, and wait out the certification process of the Kitfox.  We do not really know how long this will take, but at least another couple of weeks, maybe more.

Meanwhile, when not studying, I am wandering around Stone Town absorbing the unique African-Arab culture here.  THere are quite a few characters here you would find nowhere else!

Whilst we were waiting for a rental aircraft to be organised between Trevor and ZRP pilot training, we had a few days off in Udzungwa, staying at the UEMC Research centre.  Not luxurious, but basic & clean accommodation.  There are a few other researchers here and we met some from Italy, Flavio and Sylvie.  Strictly speaking, Flavio was not a researcher, but an Architect who was working on the new visitor centre.  He and Sylvie were having dinner at the Twig hotel just across the road when we arrived one night,  We had decided on a night out for a change.  The Twiga is famous in the local area for it's amazingly slow service and indeed, it is spectacular (not).  Flavio had an unexpectedly dry sense of humour, and when I suggested that we should order some more Chapatis, he observed that he would never get to eat them since he had a bus to catch at 5 am the next day.  Surprisingly, they arrived fairly soon, well in time for him to catch his bus!  He went on about his initial reservations of getting the visitor centre built at all, and waking up in a sweat at night.  He kept saying that he just wanted the walls to be straight!  

As I have said before, it is fairly basic here.  Last night we went to the Twiga (Swahili for Giraffe) Hotel again and they informed us that they had run out of red wine.  Since the only people who had been going there for the past 5 days were Anne & myself, the finger of suspicion was pointed immediately at us, (well me actually - since I had spent more time there than Anne).  So beer it was then!  

The local hotels by the way,  go by some interesting and evocative names.  For instance, there was the "New  Linas" hotel, which, considering the state it was in, makes you wonder what the "Old Linas" hotel must have looked like.  Then there was the "Half London" hotel, which again, left you longing to see what possible extra amenities the "Full London" might have had.  Every day is a new discovery.... :) 

August 30th Saturday

Sanje Mangabey monkeys were only discovered in 1979, and they are endemic to Udzungwa National Park in Tanzania.  They were only discovered because a researcher stumbled into a village where one was kept as a pet.  The "owner" made identification of this entirely new species of monkey even more difficult because he had shaved the monkey's head on the top, thus making him look like an an old man..   (If you look at the photo, he looks like an old man anyway, even without the shave job!).  We are having a few days off here, in between waiting for things to happen with the aircraft.  Though we are here with Trevor's researchers, when we visit the park, we have to do so as private tourists; and the park is certainly worth visiting!  There are many species of animals, birds and insects which are only found here in the 10,000 sq km's of the reserve.  Nowhere else in the world.  It contains 11 species of primates alone.  When you realise that the whole of South Africa contains only 3 species of primates, you start to get a picture of how incredibly diverse this small park is

Whilst we were waiting for a rental aircraft to be organised between Trevor and ZRP pilot training, we had a few days off in Udzungwa, staying at the UEMC Research centre.  Not luxurious, but basic & clean accommodation.  There are a few other researchers here and we met some from Italy, Flavio and Sylvie.  Strictly speaking, Flavio was not a researcher, but an Architect who was working on the new visitor centre.  He and Sylvie were having dinner at the Twig hotel just across the road when we arrived one night,  We had decided on a night out for a change.  The Twiga is famous in the local area for it's amazingly slow service and indeed, it is spectacular (not).  Flavio had an unexpectedly dry sense of humour, and when I suggested that we should order some more Chapatis, he observed that he would never get to eat them since he had a bus to catch at 5 am the next day.  Surprisingly, they arrived fairly soon, well in time for him to catch his bus!  He went on about his initial reservations of getting the visitor centre built at all, and waking up in a sweat at night.  He kept saying that he just wanted the walls to be straight!  

As I have said before, it is fairly basic here.  Last night we went to the Twiga (Swahili for Giraffe) Hotel again and they informed us that they had run out of red wine.  Since the only people who had been going there for the past 5 days were Anne & myself, the finger of suspicion was pointed immediately at us, (well me actually - since I had spent more time there than Anne).  So beer it was then!  

The local hotels by the way,  go by some interesting and evocative names.  For instance, there was the "New  Linas" hotel, which, considering the state it was in, makes you wonder what the "Old Linas" hotel must have looked like.  Then there was the "Half London" hotel, which again, left you longing to see what possible extra amenities the "Full London" might have had.  Every day is a new discovery.... :) 

September 27th Saturday

Phew!  Finally in Ruaha and operational!  After the false start on Tuesday, when Adam, ZRP pilot and mechanic (who Cedrick insisted on sending along - turns out we really needed him), got a bad case of food poisoning, we finally took off on Wednesday morning.  On Monday night Adam turned down an invitation from me for a few beers in Stonetown, as he had been invited to dinner at a local friend's place.  It was "beer chicken" on the menu and I would argue that they didn't use enough beer!  Well, he was sure regretting that decision by Tuesday morning.  I saw him at 6 am in the sick bay at Zan International.  He was lying with a blanket over him in the foetal position and looked absolutely terrible.  

This of course was a disaster for our plans to depart around lunch time that day. I still had to do my checkout with Cedrick that morning on the Savannah, and that would go ahead, but the trip to Ruaha was canned, at first glance for a few days.  It was a testament to Adam's recuperative powers that he was in the flying school by that afternoon, flight planning, and announced that he would br OK to fly the following day.

Just to toy with me some more, it was raining heavily, as well, with some ominous clouds out towards the west, the direction we were going in.  However, we gave it an hour or so time to clear up, then packed the gear in the aircraft and got ready to depart.  We had flight planned 3.5 hours to Dodoma, (quite a long time without bladder relief), so I asked to be walked back to the terminal to the loo there, (as I didn't have a security pass).  Adam said, no problem just go behind the 44 gallon drums over there, indicating vaguely towards the runway.  Unfortunately, as I was standing there without a care in the world, a Boeing 777 taxied past.  Karibu (Welcome to) Zanzibar!  I smiled and waved....

 From Zanzibar to Msembe airfield, refueling at Dodoma  (Can't go through the Red bit!)

As you can see from the arrows, we had quite a handy tailwind, from Zanzibar, which is nice!

We were ready to depart Zanzibar by 8 am, but so were about 5 other aircraft.  Scheduled traffic, 3 Cessna Caravans and 2 big jets.  Hence, we were delayed for another 10 minutes, waiting on the ground before tower gave us clearance to taxi.  We finally lifted off, heavy with 6.5 hours of fuel and probably 40 kilos of bags, the prop clawing at the rapidly warming air.  Turning right off runway 18, after takeoff, we were soon over the impossibly turquoise Indian Ocean, with small islands and sandbanks below us, heading for the mainland 20 miles away.  The 3.5 hours passed surprisingly quickly, and because I had avoided coffee before the flight, I was perfectly comfortable and didn't feel the "urge" to go at all.

As we descended on the run into Dodoma, the clouds thinned out and the air got very bumpy.  The bumpy air preceded us all the way to Msembe, as we cruised along at FL 065 (6500 ft).  The clouds were just above us, with the result that the turbulence was quite bad under them.  When Msembe came up, an hour and 42 minutes later, surprisingly, the wind was calm.  We had been dreading yet another crosswind landing, but no, it was light and variable.  Afterwards, we learnt that Dodoma had a reputation of being windy.  No kidding!

I have done a few surveillance flights already, mostly flying along the river Ruaha, (from which the park named and also happens to be the Eastern boundary of the park). The first flight was with Dr Alex the park vet, who is a charming person and absolutely loves flying.  Then I took the warden flying the next day, and we did a boundary patrol, 120 K's, all along the river to the North Eastern boundary, where the Elephants were getting hammered by poaching.  We saw some large herds, but no unusual activity.  It was great to be finally back in the air again, doing something useful!