The Adventure Begins

J

jtheune

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John T
I've been flying for about 12 years and have abut 1000 hours. I make a yearly flight out to Oshkosh from the DC area. I've been as far north as Montpelier VT and south to Myrtle Beach. But tomorrow I set off on a grand adventure. 3 couples in 3 planes will fly down to Stuart FL and stay overnight then Saturday morning we will fly to Marsh Harbor in the Bahamas. I've never flown out of the country before nor been this far south. I've done the research and have the proper instructions for dealing with the authorities in both countries. Now the fun starts. The weather looks great. I'll file IFR because of the MOAs and such but it should be clear the whole way. I see rum drinks in my near future!
 
Yeah!

Pictures, and report on your trip!
 
Fantastic John! Have a great trip and Spike is right we want photos when you return. Safe Journey!
 
Have fun! Something I would love to do over the next few years
 
That sounds GREAT John! Enjoy!

BTW, the "Heavy Metal Jet Team", moved to FL, and change their name to The Black Diamond Jet Team. :rolleyes: Say Hi to them for me!

( I am sure everyone is confused why I put that in here, but John knows what I am talking about)
 
sounds like a blast.
 
Nice!!! I been planning a trip for a long time now, but up to northern Cali. I fly frequently into mexico and everytime is quite an adventure. Wish you tail winds and try not to "sweat bullets".
 
Been there five times and loved it each time. Was just there in August. Have never flown myself, but plan to in the next couple years. Lots of GA planes at MHH. By far the best way to enjoy that area is to rent a boat and go island hopping. It's very easy. Buy the "Cruising guide to Abaco" from www.wspress.com. I rent the 26' from either Dorado Boat Rentals or Blue Wave in Marsh. The ferry is OK too.. but it's much more fun on your own. You don't need a captain's license to rent one, but you should have boating experience. The most traditionally tourist island is Hopetown. If you stay, it's much more economical to just rent a house than stay at Abaco inn ( which is nice) or the Hopetown Lodge (which is older). The most extravagant (and controversial) area is on Guana Cay called Baker's Bay. Singer George Strait lives there, and Lance Armstrong is building a house. It's new and gorgeous, but the locals hate it. The flight should be very short. You'll meet a ton of great and adventurous people. You'll love it - I'm super jealous.
 
Well I'm back and made it in one piece. The Customs/EAIPIS/International flight plan went smoothly. Biggest complaints were having to file a flight plan, a EAPIS form and notify customs 1 hour before scheduled arrival time. Each item had all the info needed but I still had to tell them 3 times. And this was to go into a designated port of entry. That and having to unload the plane and haul everything into the customs building to have them say don't bother with xray just take it back out and reload plane. Oh well. We went VFR across and because of clouds were not able to go as high as planned. We went over at 5500 and came back at 6500 as a flight of 3. I had wanted to fly around a bit after we got there but ran out of time so it will have to be next time. Weather was good for the most part but on arrival we had some serious wind and wave action and all our stuff got soaked in the boat ride from Marsh Harbor to Elbow Cay where we stayed. We snorkled and scuba dove and that was a blast. People were all very nice. I ended up flying IFR both on the way down from DC and back because looking at the route of flight it was littered with restricted areas and MOAs and it just made it easy to let ATC deal with it. I was presently surprised at how often I was offered direct routing over 300 to 400 mile legs. I'm so used to flying into the north east where you can't get direct to cross the street. :)

It was a great trip and I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
 
jtheune said:
I've been flying for about 12 years and have abut 1000 hours. I make a yearly flight out to Oshkosh from the DC area. I've been as far north as Montpelier VT and south to Myrtle Beach. But tomorrow I set off on a grand adventure. 3 couples in 3 planes will fly down to Stuart FL and stay overnight then Saturday morning we will fly to Marsh Harbor in the Bahamas. I've never flown out of the country before nor been this far south. I've done the research and have the proper instructions for dealing with the authorities in both countries. Now the fun starts. The weather looks great. I'll file IFR because of the MOAs and such but it should be clear the whole way. I see rum drinks in my near future!
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Sounds like a lot of fun! Good luck! Keep us posted.
 
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