5 January, 2012
And a Happy New Year to all!!
I know I’ve been very quiet on the blog front, but the honest truth is I have been sitting quietly in my little container for 5 days now without any flying!! So my mind is starting to turn to jelly, with nothing but Facebook, Whatsapp, and a ton of movies on my laptop to keep me occupied… Last flight was on the 31st December! The reason for this denial of me applying my trade is because the permission from the Gabon Civil Aviation body for the aircraft (which are registered in Tanzania) to operate in this country, expired at the end of 2011. And so they are not allowed to fly until a new permission letter is issued. Why this wasn’t sorted out in advance is anybody’s guess. Especially mine as my boss has literally not mentioned a thing to me. Apparently (I hear from my helipad official chap) the engineer is coming up here sometime this week to service the helicopter. He was told by his boss. And yet I am being mushroom treated, so have no idea when exactly. Or when we will be able to start flying again. And the fixed-wings are grounded too. They fly personnel into and out of Onal back to Port Gentil. I would have flown back with them when my tour ends next week.
 |  |
| Slowly going mad…. At least the jocks are clean… | Lopé, in the north of the country and due east of Libreville, looks very much like the KZN midlands |
Now that the fixed-wings aren’t flying the only other means of moving personnel is by boat. And so since the start of 2012, everyone is being transported to and from camp in a speedboat which seats between 24 and 28 passengers and does the journey (which I guestimate is around 350-400km) in 6-8 hours!!!!!! I am most likely going to spend an ENTIRE day on a cramped speedboat to get to Port Gentil, and then start my 2 day journey to get back to SA! I’m so excited!!! Not.
 |  |
| The “dock” near Onal from where I can expect to begin my epic and painful 8 hour boat trip to PG :-( | Post-rain mist. Pretty to fly over – until it forms a sheet of low cloud! |
Anyway, but apart from that little horror story I really have no news. I have literally been stuck in my container for 5 days straight. So I have added the last few pics I have taken over the last week.
 |  |
| Aaah, now THAT’S a Squirrel! Twin-engined and looking all Airforcy | My little heli hides in the background, feeling very threatened and insecure… |
One interesting thing I learned is that there is a bird here (incidentally, all the birds look very different to the ones I’m used to seeing – only eagles/hawks, parrots and hornbill-like birds are familiar) which has a bright red belly and pointy face and flies around much like a swallow, that has a call that apparently it makes every 30mins. My heli guy explained that his parents generation would tell the time by this bird, as they didn’t have watches. He said when you hear the bird it is either half past the hour, or on the hour. Not sure exactly how accurate that is, but interesting none-the-less. I don’t have nearly the right sort of camera to get a decent pic of the birds here. They are all quite small (the ones that come remotely close to the camp) and even the ones that sit on the fence outside the window at the back of my container are too small in a picture to really see properly.
 |  |
| At the new Chinese camp again – walking through the jungle | Security has been beefed up since I was last here! |
 |  |
| Ha ha!! Like THAT’S ever used!! Lonesome hut about 50m from the other camp buildings. Who’s going out there at night time?! | Lunch with the Chinese. Everything except the watery soup is deep-fried… |
One other tiny bit of information I have noticed is that the elephant here are way less upset by a passing helicopter than the African variety. Clearly because the elephants here are left alone, so a passing helicopter is just a noise. Sometimes the youngsters start to panic a little, but the adults generally just watch you go past. The African elephant, on the other hand, is usually spotted from the air because it is already running for all it is worth! Presumably they remember the last time they heard a helicopter they woke up a few hours later with a helluva hangover…
 |  |
| Heading back to Banio2 I passed this interesting mound | 35°C plus and these poor buggers are fully kitted out for fire-fighting on the Banio2 pad |
And that, dear friends, is it. I’m sure I’ll have an entertaining story of how I got back to SA, so maybe if I have some time whilst there I might add a last page… Thanks for reading and keep in touch.
