29 October, 2011
Today I furthered my making friends mission here in two ways: firstly, the camp chief was flown out for his month off and I was told that an "eve" was taking over. Without thinking I said, "wow, a woman camp leader" - not being sexist, just that they don't encourage women dong contract work in Africa living in camps and here was a female camp chief! With a bit of a glare I was informed that this is a French company and "Yves" is a man's name. "like Yves Saint Laurent". Nice one, Surts!
Then this morning I was preflighting the chopper as the pax arrived and realised I'd left the battery master on the whole night (there was a rush in leaving and being taken to hotels etc and I forgot to turn it off...) Battery was stone dead. As in stone. Dead. Thought I'd get ground power, which I did,and it started fine. Unplugged ground power, no charge so reset generator and everything died (obviously except the engine). Had to take battery out, drive it to fixed-wing engineer's house to boost charge it for an hour... So very delayed flight. Ended up flying5.5hours, arriving back at Port Gentil too late for me to make it back to camp before dark. So I get another nite in the hotel when I should be in camp. :-))
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| Huge open grasslands in amongst dense bush - with no transition |
Can't remember if I already said this but I have been quite surprised at the lack of animals around. Literally the occasional dog or cat and that's it! No cows, goats etc. Possibly a hoof rot issue since the country is practically a quagmire. I flyover hundreds of lakes, mangrove swamps and soggy ground all the time. I was told that there were tons of elephants in the jungle, and hadn't seen any until I flew to almost the bottom of the country along the coastline. There really are elephants everywhere. Nothing else but elephant. I did finally see a few cows and buffalo-like animals (couldn't see them properly). The land near the coastlines is very flat, hence all the water, lakes etc. there are very strange grasslands in patches through the jungle. It's so bizarre. Thick bush and then a few kilos of beautiful, lush green grass fields a la England. I want to get a few pics of them. Anyway, right by the coastlines the elephants come out onto the scrubby grassland areas with pools of water and are thus easier to see.
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| Miles and miles of swamp land near the coastal area (up to 40km inland) |
Other than that, and continuously calling that I'm north-bound when I'm actually south-bound because I'm on the west coast for a change, there isn't much else to tell.
Keep those messages coming - I managed to fix my iPad without losing anything which is GREAT!!
So can carry on watching my
movies again!
Au revoir
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