8/11/11 A Rumble in the Jungle

 

8 November, 2011

 

You could have heard a pin drop it was so quiet in the tiny patch of grass I'd been forced to land in. But I didn't have any pins.

There weren't even birds chirping, I observed, as I surveyed the bush around me. Heavy rain had cut me off and I'd had to land in a small opening in the bush with no cell signal. I was also having trouble raising the Helipad Officer at Onal on the satellite phone to tell him why I wasn't back yet.

 

The bad weather looming up ahead as I fly through sunshine

I had attempted to make a run to Coucal, all of 40nm (70 odd kms). The first 35 from Onal had been trouble-free. Sun shining, clouds high. But as I got closer to Coucal the cloud dropped lower and lower and eventually, just 4nm from the pad I ran up against a wall of heavy rain. So heavy I couldn't see more than about 100m into it. No-one flies into a

 

heavy downpour in this part of the world!

I tried flying along the face of the rain for 5 minutes, but it was a wall that ran about 30km in each direction. I gave up, turned back to Onal, and radioed Coucal to tell them I wasn't coming. I could hear the irritation in the French Camp Chief's voice. The cloud was high over Coucal. What was my problem?! Coucal was in a valley, and with my limited French I didn't feel that I could adequately explain Orographic Relief and its effect on local climatology, particularly cloud development to him, so I simply said in my best French, "Rain everywhere, cloud down. Very bad. I am going to Onal!" He got the message.

Landed at a desolate spot in the bush

However, two-thirds of the way back to Onal I radioed ahead and heard that it was bucketing down in Onal too! I couldn't get back and didn't have enough fuel to hang around waiting for the rain to pass. I had to hurry and find somewhere to put down. So I flew back along the hidden pipeline, to a pump house with a simple helipad nearby and landed. Not a soul (well, human soul) around.

 

 

Hiding behind the chopper. In the bush beyond, King Kong's younger brother scratches his arse menacingly

The bushes 30m away from me rustled as they do in the movies before the screaming cheerleader gets taken out by an axe-wielding psycho in a mask. I think I would have preferred trying my luck with the psycho, because from the edge of the jungle and the bush, I heard a half-growl, half bark. I can only assume it was made by the offspring of the monster that lived under my bed as a child, and the lady who ran the laundry with an iron fist at school... And it sounded hungry. I know there are gorillas all over the jungle, and I remembered a crappy movie I saw recently where a guy ends up in the arms of a gorilla and is only able to keep it calm by continuing to sing the song, "I'm all out of love, I'm so lost without you". All I could think was that I don't know all the words to the song!!!!

 

The Fly Of Death! Two million eyes glaring contemptuously at me!

Finally, after what felt like forever, I managed to get hold of Onal on the satellite phone and was told I could come. I leapt into the chopper, fired it up, and took off. Almost as I cleared the tree line, a fly, which had obviously flown in while the door was open, flew up from behind the dash and started to attack the front windscreen, narrowly missing my ducking and diving head with each attack. This fly was unlike any other fly I have ever seen! It was about an inch long to start with! It had two huge, bright green pods, each with a million eyes. And it was annoyed that I was taking it away from its peeps. I know it was just a fly, but I swear it had fangs. And as I stared at it with mounting horror, one of the pods of a million eyes changed colour from green to black.... It was winking at me!!! With reflexes that one only has during periods of peak stress, I managed to flick it out of my side window and return to Onal in safety.

 

Not a lot of space between tree tops and cloud base

I still had to get back to Coucal to fetch the guys I'd left there this morning, so after refuelling I took off again for the low cloud and rain. Like all true stories, this doesn't have a funny ending, but I did have to squeeze myself out over the trees around Coucal below a 50 foot cloud base to get home. Quite the little experience. And, as if to confirm that my fears in the little clearing were not hysterical, the guy next to me on the way back pointed to an intersection in the mining road below me and said, "That piece of road we call 'Place of the Gorilla'". Apparently he had seen one himself at that intersection just a few weeks before....

So how was your day?