TOUR DE BAHAMAS - June 2002

I am in a single engine propeller airplane flying with three friends over the ocean. We took off from Andros Island in the Bahamas near sunrise this morning, and are heading NW toward Florida. My friend Frank from Jackson Hole is at the helm, and the bumpy runway we just left had no less than six crashed airplanes scattered around it like warning carcasses strewn about a sleeping lion. The strip was small and had no lights, and Frank guesses that they are casualties from nocturnal drug runner landings.

Puffy cotton clouds and a few immense thunderheads hover about in the sky. Frank threads our aircraft like a gnat between these looming giants. We just passed directly through a rainbow.

This short, but eventful escapade to the tropics began three days ago somewhere in New Jersey. With little planning, and nothing more than some snorkel gear, a suit, and my fly rod I managed to rally one of my hometown best friends Chrissi and a girlfriend of hers named Darcy from their responsibilities in Brooklyn to meet Frank at a bus stop in Flemington, New Jersey. The four of us got a lift to his plane by a Harvard rugby friend of his, loaded up, and charged into the air heading south.

We were not sure how long it would take us to get to the Bahamas, but the wind and weather made sure that it wasn't quick, but instead a circuitous journey with starts and stops all down the Eastern seaboard.

Frank's plane is beautiful and small. The engine roars up every time, the craft itself flies like a purring kitten, and, thanks to Frank's adept piloting skills, it can handle rough weather with drive and tenacity. At 4,000 feet above the aqua blue Bahaman waters we reach a broad thunderhead heavy with gray rain. There is no blue sky slit to sneak through this time, so Frank steers straight ahead into it. The cloud envelops us and nothing can be seen outside the windows except a dimensionless white glow. It then darkens, and hard rain pelts the plane. Turbulence jostles us around and the rain rittles the windshield blind. The side windows are streaked; drops smear across the wings to the lee side, then peel off with the wind. In less than a minute, though, we pull out of the cloud into clear blue sky, and can see high risers along the Florida coast 30 miles ahead.

Our first leg in the air during this adventure, from Flemington to Allendale, South Carolina, was smooth and one of the most beautiful flights I have ever experienced. The landscape was hardly visible; instead, it was our flying through and inside a 3-dimensional forest of clouds that was incredible. Frank guided our little single prop amidst the towering cumulonimbi like a fish navigating intricate caverns of a bleached coral reef. The four of us, buzzing through it all in our vehicle that is no bigger than a VW beetle with wings and a tail, were utterly insignificant compared to the volume and power of our ethereal surroundings. Frank knew this, but he managed to lead us south with a balanced consciousness of being humble, yet determined - belittled by the clouds, yet emboldened by smooth aerodynamics and a jet-fuel powered 6 cylinder engine.

We landed in Allendale, South Carolina mid-day. The airport consisted of a single runway and a mobile home for an office. Surrounding that was a sleepy rural southern landscape. It felt like we were truly in the middle of nowhere. The local weather was beautiful with benign clouds, but to the south in Georgia and Florida thunderheads were building. Larry, the only man working at this outpost, lent us his supped-up truck to go into town for lunch.

The weather built up all around us. Back in the mobile home office, Frank made a few phone calls to find out that we were walled in by thunderstorms. We waited - almost bored, barely content. Walking around, I stepped into the woods to listen for birds. I stood silently in the subdued, humid southern forest for about a minute, when, right at my side - literally three feet away at the base of a tree, camouflaged by flashes of forest canopy light and shadow - a fawn deer stirred, rose to its feet, and galloped off on awkward legs. It had been right there next to me and I hadn't even noticed.

Late in the afternoon, a thin ephemeral corridor of clear sky opened up above us heading east. The corridor represented flyable air space and led all the way to the coastal island of Hilton Head. Frank decided to seize the opportunity, and we jumped in the plane. He fired it up, but something was wrong: the gyroscope was not working. This dashboard instrument is very useful when one is flying in the clouds and has no ground in sight for reference, but it was currently sloshing all over like a little sailboat in a horrendous ocean storm. Frank thought that there might be a small particle in the gyroscope's vacuum, and that some high-speed air would flush it out. As we taxied to the strip, a bolt of lightning struck land nearby, thunder rolled overhead, and a few fat raindrops fell upon the plane. This wasn't looking good. Frank lined up the plane for take off, and then tried to flush the particle from the gyroscope vacuum by stepping hard on the brakes while simultaneously flooring the engine to full throttle. The propeller roared, skidding us forward on the locked wheels. The gyroscope continued to swirl and undulate wildly. We were skittering down the runway, eating up this short bit of pavement like a plane all ready but frightened to take off. It felt like being on the losing side of a tug-o-war, where the power of the propeller pulled you forward no matter how hard you scraped and skidded your feet against the ground. We had used up about a quarter of the runway, and the gyroscope was still totally haywire, when Frank released the brakes. We catapulted forward, zoomed down the runway, and lunged into the air. Frank immediately banked right in order to avoid a sheet of heavy rain just ahead, then climbed in altitude and sped down our navigable corridor of sky flanked by towering thunderheads.

For half an hour Frank threaded us down this cloud-lined canyon. About half way there, the gyroscope suddenly sprung into center position - back to normal. Over the headphones Frank burst out in elation, "We're back in business baby!" As we banked in for landing, the sky above us closed in and heavy rain collapsed upon us. Despite it all, Frank smoothly touched down onto the drenched, but smooth Hilton Head Island runway. Terra firma never felt so good. We immediately caught a taxi to a tiki bar on the beach. The rain, apparently frustrated at not stemming our travels, lifted and moved on. The cab dropped us off, and we ditched our clothes mid-stride and ran into the warm ocean.

Frank, Chrissi, Darcy and I were flying again early the next morning, and the clouds were ever-present obstacles all the way to our next stop for customs at Fort Lauderdale. But Frank piloted beautifully. It rained so hard during that flight that water was sputtering into the plane through the air vents. With impressive skill and agility, Frank landed us that afternoon in the heaviest downpour yet. We picked up the mandatory life raft, and contemplated the final leg of our journey. There are 156 nautical miles of open ocean between Fort Lauderdale and Andros Island in the Bahamas; Frank had never flown over so much open water and was not going to do it in questionable weather. Patience paid off: we got out that afternoon for an incredible ocean flight and landed safely on the Andros strip with the six airplane carcasses. Upon arrival, everyone kept asking in that classic island accent, "So, you came for the festival, man?"

We had no idea what they were talking about. Luck have it, we had showed up for the last day of the biggest party on the island - the annual crab festival. Thousands of Bahaman locals had come to this small island town for the festival, and it was a fun and raucous night. At one point, they released hundreds of crabs over the town square, and everyone dashed to catch one for prizes. A colorful parade marched through with drums and brass horn instruments. We ate crab soup, crab salad, baked crab, crab fritters, and crab and rice, and drank Bahaman kalik beer.

The next day we commissioned a rather strange and arrogant French man to give us a ride out to a deserted island in his boat and leave us there. The Andros Island reef is the 3rd largest in the world, and we snorkeled over it all morning. To swim and glide in the warm ocean water, watching fish dart about the coral like birds in a forest, was truly incredible. We snorkeled again that afternoon right off the shore of our rented villa. All told, we saw countless forms of coral, dozens of fish species including parrot fish, trumpet fish, grouper, and a five foot barracuda, a dozen sting ray (with which we could swim alongside, that is, until they turned on us), and many invertebrates, including a hermit crab in a basketball-sized conch shell and an octopus. I tried fly fishing, but could not catch any of those beautiful fish (oh well). After so much time living land-locked in the Northern Rockies, it was wonderful to float in the aqua blue Caribbean waters. Darcy pointed out the irony of our trip's activities, most of which involved being several thousand feet above ground, or under sea level. The tropical experience called for rum cocktails that night. Jimmy Buffet would have been proud.

We are now at 7,000 feet over North Carolina amidst the clearest blue skies we have seen on this trip so far. We just left Allendale, after having fueled up and given Larry a conch shell as a gift. Our little bug in the sky is humming along at 130 knots and Chrissi, in the co-pilot's seat, is steering the plane. She can't keep it as steady as Frank, but, all in all, she seems to be doing fine. Don't worry, Frank isn't asleep.