St. Kitts carries jet fuel for the kerosene crowd, but nothing for the piston bangers. As a result, piston aircraft travelling the Eastern Caribbean have to plan their fuel stops carefully. The closest source of avgas is Antigua, 54 nm to the southeast or St. Maarten, 56 nm to the northeast. I knew I would need to travel to one of these airports to fuel up.
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| DKX on the ramp in St. Kitts. Extinct volcano in the background |
My buddy Ken kind of freaked me out when he told me how busy Juliana airport on St. Maarten can be at times. It's the hub for all the European flights coming into the Caribbean and according to Ken, the frequency can be rapid fire ATC instructions to all the 747's, Airbus 340's and other heavy iron lined up on final as far as the eye can see.
As an aside, short final to runway 09 at Juliana goes right over the main downtown beach. There is a classic shot, which you may have seen, of a KLM 747 with wheels almost touching the sand and all the startled bathers looking on.
I elected to fly to Antigua today for gas. I'll need to go into Juliana tomorrow anyway as I'm booked to fly with a French flight instructor tomorrow morning for my endorsement to land at St. Barths. I'll be picking him up at Grand Case airport on St. Martin (on the French side) and we apparently will need about 2 hours to fly to St. Barts (20 nm or so) shoot a bunch of landings and return to Grand Case.
At that point, I'll need to refuel (for the flight to St. Barths with Kath on Thursday), so I'll go to Juliana at that time. If I end up getting centre punched by a Lear on short final, you'll be able to read about it in the papers.
St. Kitts Aeropuerta straight ahead!!
So-o-o...where were we? Oh yeah, I loaded up all the gear in my backpack (including the new gyro which arrived via Fedex yesterday) and peddled to the airport. It's quite a hike, up and down Bird Rock hill and I was perspiring heavily when I arrived. I chained up the bike and began the Caribbean customs ritual dance.
First you go to the lady at the Departure desk and pay your landing and departure tax fees--$21US. You then take this receipt to Immigration along with 3 completed "Gen Decs" or general declarations. The Gen Decs are essentially the legal currency of the whole process. Immigration keeps one outbound, stamps one outbound for Customs and stamps another inbound for presentation at Antigua.
You then march back outside and into Customs where they keep 1 one, and stamp 2. THEN, you walk back to Immigration (passing the Loo where you take a leak and splash some water on your sweaty face) present the stamped Customs Gen Dec to Immigration (AGAIN), go through the x-ray machine and then try and convince someone to let you onto the airside because "I am the pilot and I OWN THE AIRPLANE". Usually this takes a couple of conversations with security personnel before you are finally set free onto the ramp.
As I was walking to the plane, I had a brief nano second of absolute terror thinking that I had forgotten something and would have to go back and go through the whole process again. But thankfully it was a false alarm.
DKX was still sitting on the ramp, appearing to be in good condition after baking in the sun for the last 5 days. I pulled out the tool box and after carefully switching the AN vacuum fittings from the old gyro to the new, I installed the new unit by lying on my back on the floor under the instrument panel, my head jammed against the rudder pedals and my feet drapped over the pilot seat.
It's not a particularly tough job (I've done it twice before) but it's awkward and the sweat kept running into my eyes causing them to lose focus. Memo to file: scrap all the "extended length" open ended wrenches that I got on sale at Crazy Tire and only bring "stubby" wrenches. There are just too many cramped places in an airplane for regular length wrenches.
Once installed, I did a quick walk around and fired up. The new gyro worked! I called clearance/ground/tower/approach/centre--it's all one guy in the tower and blasted off VFR eastbound to Antigua.
Once airborne the panoramic view of the island is spectacular. It was nice as I could see the route that Kath and I had taken the day before on the scooter. I struck out over the water with the large central mountain of Nevis off my right wing tip. The weather was good with scattered cumulus based at 2500 with tops that looked way up there. I decided to stay low.
There were a few towering CU around with some rain showers underneath which I flew around. You can see clearly the area where the rain is hitting the ocean beneath the cloud. Very cool.
Nevis Island.
Nevis and St. Kitts are part of the same federation. Nevis is to the south of St. Kitts, separated by about 2 miles of water.
St. Kitts approach told me to call 15 miles out (which corresponds with "the boundary" of their airspace). I did that and was told to contact VC Bird approach on 119.1. VC Bird is the airport on Antigua and their approach facility controls the whole area.
Antigua hove into view after about 20 minutes over water and I was cleared to land on runway 07. The island is larger than St. Kitts but not as mountainous. There appeared to be a lot of white sand beaches a different points around the island.
Antigua from 2500 feet approaching from the northwest.
The landing was uneventful and ground told me to park in a distant corner of the main ramp which was huge. On the way in I noticed there was a large thunderstorm that looked about 10 miles north east of the field. I couldn't tell what direction it was moving, but elected to lock the controls just in case it came through while I was there.
After a long walk across the ramp, I walked into Immigration and...the dance began again. I won't bore you to tears again, but believe me it is painful. The only redeeming thing is the people are uniformly pleasant and easy to talk to. The key is to take a deep breath, double or triple the time expectations you have set for yourself and enjoy the experience.
The highlight of the trip was actually the fuel guy from Texaco. After a phone call from the AIS office (where I had to go to file a flight plan back to St. Kitts. Flight plans are mandatory, even VFR, which seeing you are crossing a lot of water, makes imminent sense), he showed up at the airplane.
As he pumped in 27.1 USG of avgas (at $5.18US a gallon) I started up a conversation with him. His name was Cyrus Nicodemus Samuel (no kidding) and he was a sweetheart. I commented that his parents obviously liked Biblical names and we had a laugh about how he was called Nicodemus as a kid which he hated. I knew he was a born again Christian when he told me how Nicodemus had come to Jesus by night, but that he, Cyrus, had come during the day. It blessed my heart when he told me that.
We were having a nice chat about his church when I paid him for the gas, but learned that they don't carry any cash in the truck. Go figure, no credit cards allowed, but no change in the truck. We climbed into the truck and he drove back to the depot (meanwhile my ETD on the flight plan was ticking by) to find his boss who I guess kept the all the cash. He wasn't there, so we drove over to the terminal building where he got out and left me in the truck (which was a good thing because I didn't want to go back in) and he went to the bank to get change. After a 15 min or so wait he was back and everything was straightened away.
The CB to the east hadn't moved and I was going west, so I fired up, took off on runway 07 and steered towards St. Kitts. On the way back I had to fly around a small thunderstorm but it wasn't a big deal.
Approaching the island I got permission to descend down to 500 feet and overflew the resort. Kath happened to be sitting outside in the restaurant working on her Nugget book, and saw me fly over. Oh yah-h-h!!!
The St. Kitts Marriott and Royal Beach Casino Resort (whew!) from 500'. Kath and I are in the red roof villa complex on the far right.
I circled the south of the island at 500, well below the hills and took a few pictures. I then climbed to 1000 feet and entered the downwind for runway 25 (opposite winds to Antigua). I landed and taxied to the same spot on the ramp.
After clearing customs (not quite as bad this time), I climbed back on the bike and peddled the 1/2 hour ride back to the Marriott. Once there, I stripped off my soaked clothes and fell into the pool.
Another great day. It was good to be back in the air. Tomorrow, Lord willing, I get checked out for the exciting landing in St. Barths!!
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