On to Nassau

Day 9, 15 Feb 2013.  After a beautiful Philipsburg St Martin sunset last night,

we're ready to start a long day of flying, retracing our steps first back to Aguadilla / Borinquen in Puerto Rico, then into the Bahamas for customs at Inagua, and finally on to Nassau.  We called ahead to Borinquen Customs with an estimated arrival time the day before as they requested, so the timing of the series of flights was pretty much set for the day.  Time off at Grand Case was to be 1000.    

I mentioned you cannot get lost for long on St Martin.  Well, we decided to put that bold assertion to the test.  We left early just in case we got lost, and promptly got lost to take advantage of the time allowed ;-).  As expected, all we really did was take a round about way to the airport.  We found the gas station close to the airport, then headed for Avis.  

This time the fella was there and car return was a snap.  After shuffling back and forth trying to decipher our departure instructions for a few minutes, Chris to the rescue again.  Same deal as before, in and out of customs and immigration and right out to the ramp.  Chris was a real help with everything, and made the point that he makes the extra effort because he want's more folks to visit (oversized hint ;-). 

While Ann heads for the plane with the bags, I head for the tower to file.  Grand Case requires you to climb upstairs and fill our a paper international flight plan.  As I've noted elsewhere, when you file for a departure time they seem to be making a departure slot available for you so you need to hit it.  Chris said it takes about 45 min for the plan to be approved over at Julianna, then back to Grand Case so our being at the airport on time was a good thing.  

After the pre-flight, we're about 5 mins to our filed departure time, so we crank her up and call the tower.  Unfortunately, they have nothing back yet and estimate another 15 - 20 mins, so we shut down.  Good thing too because I finally get to use my backup hand-held radio to monitor tower.  The wait stretches to a bit over 30 mins before we get approved to taxi.  After another short wait, we're finally cleared to back taxi Rwy 12 and wait for clearance to depart.  We're finally wheels up about 30 minutes later than planned.  I've read somewhere that US Customs works with about an hour leeway so we should be alright.  

Finally in the air, we're initially vectored further south and get this view of the northeast end of the island.

As we make a turn, we get a look at the entire length of the island.  I'm pretty sure that's Great Bay at the far end.  

We finally make it back over Grand Case headed northwest to the northern coast of of the Dominican Republic and Haiti.  

Like everywhere else we've been down here there are islands everywhere.  Pretty sure that's Anguilla off the right wing to the north of our route . . . 

. . . and other nameless islands . . .

. . . but there is a lot of water as well.

Not a lot of company . . .

















. . . but there are some extraordinarily beautiful sights along the way.







Borinquen is right where we left it, but this time we know exactly where we're going.  

We repeat the US Customs procedure with an immigration card and passports, drag bags back to the x-ray machines, and we're done.  In the meantime, we called for gas and they're waiting outside when we depart customs.  After the top off we taxi back to Rwy 08.  

Unfortunately, the ICAO flight plan is not available.  Borinquen ground says someone in what I assume is San Juan clearance says the FltPlan.com clearance we filed from the Holland House earlier is no good -- something about there not being an agreement of some kind.  The guys in Borinquen are very helpful.  They take a clearance over the air, giving it back to us about 5 mins later, and we're off to Inagua with mostly full tanks.  

This is a replay in reverse of the long flight to Borinquen from Inagua a few days ago.  We even managed to duplicate no contact with Port au Prince.  

This time, however, as we are approaching the same mandatory reporting point where we lost Miami before, we contacted CACTUS 876 who had been in contact with PaP (at least we could here their part of the conversation).  

We asked them to let PaP know we were about to the reporting point and shifting to Miami.  Probably did not need to do that, but this time wanted to close the loop.  

An hour or so later we're back on the ramp at Inagua (Matthew Town).  Rico is there again.  He really is a great guy and a joy to chat with.  This time he's in uniform and not washing his car.  A young lady comes out to escort us to Bahamas Customs and we get another cruise permit.  There is also a young man representing immigration.  When the paperwork is done, they want to look at the plane, so we walk back out, pull one bag, and that's it.  The whole thing takes maybe 15 minutes. 

Before we depart I double check with Ann to see if she wants to make a 1:10 hour flight to Stella Maris, followed by another hour or so to Nassau, or just head straight to Nassau for a two hour + flight.  There are some storms out there and I don't want to get stuck somewhere with a tough decision.  

We decide to go direct to save a little time lost earlier.  I'm happy with this because it's getting late.  The sun is not exactly setting yet, but Nassau is one of a very few airports in the Bahamas who have lights for night landings.  We don't want to dawdle.

Once up in the air, Miami picks us up for VFR flight following, and gets us on radar about 50 nm North of Inagua.  

As we fly to the northwest, we can see some storms that appear to have broken up to the north.

This part of the flight is incredibly beautiful.

The rest of the flight is routine except for some insight by Ann.  We're finally cleared into Nassau Rwy 32.  

Now I have to admit I've had better landings than during this trip.  The first few places we landed were very gusty and I set her in a little more firmly than I prefer.  

The good news was I did not see or hear any reports of earth tremors in the region corresponding to our arrival times.  At Grand Case and here at Nassau, however, there were a lot of witnesses.  Both cases were "squea, squea" touchdowns.  

After watching me for the past few days, Ann has decide all I need for text book landings is an audience of guys in business and commercial jets on both sides of the runway.  

Anyway, I decided to use Odyssey FBO vice Executive in spite of a big difference in fuel costs.  The reason was I needed to get some gas but Odyssey waives a lot of fees while there are a lot of additional charges at Executive.  The cost of those charges would have been higher than the difference in fuel.  Odyssey also did an outstanding job on service and customs.  They met us at the plane with a cart, Ann walked into the FBO with our customs folder, handed the gal at the counter what she needed, and that was it.  Same experience outbound.  They just took care of it.  

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Departing the airport, this time instead of renting a car we took a taxi to the Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island.  The taxis to and from the airport were among the most relaxing parts of the next few days.  It was a chance to chat with someone about what was going on in the area.  It's dark, so we're about out of pictures for today.

If you're looking for a thrill, Atlantis is the place to go.  Atlantis is a lot like some of the major resorts in Vegas.  After getting settled in the room, we headed out for some dinner.  There is a lot of action and noise everywhere - a constant assault on the senses.  Lot of people moving to and fro.  Many of the hotels in the complex are linked with mall-like segments filled with jewelry, clothing, knick knack, and other stores.  In between are areas with restaurants, watering holes, live entertainment, music, and so on.  

This is a big change from Staniel Cay.  Even Philipsburg on St Martin, although crowded, had a fluid pace, much like Hawaii.  When we lived in Hawaii we noted everything outside of Waikiki shut down at 1630 Saturday evening and did not open again until Monday.  

At around 1700 in Philipsburg the streets start getting deserted.  All the shops closed and the only folks moving about were hotel tourists foraging for dinner.  Ann thinks maybe they'd stay open longer if people on cruise boats stayed ashore longer.  Whatever the truth might be, like Hawaii the hustle and bustle everywhere gave way to what is basically a small town where most of the local folks go home to be with family in the evening.  

This is clearly not so on Nassau.  Don't get me wrong.  Nassau was nice, just a very different experience.  There is a lot to do in the casinos, restaurants, and shops, and there were a lot of people having a good time.  They just did not interact very much or as easily as they did at Staniel Cay, Vieques, or to a lesser degree even St Martin.  All the resort people were very courteous, but generally not inclined to engage in a conversation.  Most of the visitors were tightly involved with their own parties and the numerous events around them.  It was just that there was such a stark difference from other locations we'd visited where there was a lot of relaxed chatter among locals and tourists.  I enjoyed the experience, but I missed the interaction.