10/2/12 I need waterproof shoes in Gabon!

 

10 February, 2012

So I gently opened my eyes to greet the early, 06h45 dawn, then closed them and smiled contentedly as my body began booting up and getting itself ready to wake up. Suddenly the door to my container was banged on loudly and the boot sequence accelerated rapidly with a quick 2 foot levitation. I stumbled to the door wondering who the hell would wake me like that. We only started flying at 8:30 so this was inexcusable!

Emergency! Someone injured at one of the drill camps and I had to leave immediately! My helipad guy stood watching me as I took off my Spongebob Squarepants pyjamas and pulled on my tighty-whities and then my flightsuit. Well I wasn’t awake, but I was ready to go. He had waited for me because I had special, VIP transport to take me to the pad… Now why can’t I have that every day?! Quick pre-flight and then a brief fumble as we had to pull the seats out of the chopper to make room for a stretcher. Then into the air for the 45min flight to Ethekamba. Upon arrival I was told that the patient had a suspected heart attack and couldn’t talk. They then drove him up to the chopper, whereupon he climbed out, gingerly to be fair, and climbed into the chopper chatting quite ably in English (an Indian guy). Perhaps he wasn’t in the mood for French and the medic took that as a symptom of loss of speech…

Stretcher installed and ready for drama!	Look how the bushes on the beach grow in a slanted wedge due to the onshore winds

The weather the whole day has been shocking and we ducked and dived around and under massive rain showers and thunderstorms. I dropped him off at Port Gentil where the rain was pouring. And as I stepped off the skids of the helicopter I felt my shoes step into little puddles on the tarmac. And these shoes love water. So much, in fact, that they suck the water up like sponges and I spend the rest of the day risking foot rot as I squelched around everywhere…

As I landed back in Onal, looking forward to some coffee and hopefully a bite to eat (it was now 13h30 and lunch is from 12h00-13h00) I was informed that 5 passengers were waiting to be flown back to Port Gentil! Well they could wait, I could feel the grumpiness starting so food was a priority! Grabbed a very quick bite to eat before loading up (seats, then passengers) and heading all the way back to PG (an hour each way). Even more thunderstorms building, and this time I’d left Onal with 40% fuel, which is a realistic 1h20 endurance. Within 20mins of leaving Onal I was hit with a massive headwind and again had to duck and dive around tall trees and low clouds and rain and raced as straight as I could for PG. The cloud was lower than the tops of the transmission towers in the town and it was raining hard!

Building foundations noticeable in what is essentially a quagmire	And this isn’t special flooding – this area has looked like this every time I’ve flown into PG! Still fully inhabited.

So I’m learning more about the crazy weather in this country all the time. Can’t be scared of flying in heavy rain here! And I’m impressed at how they manage to still build houses etc where the ground is so waterlogged most of the time that many people have large pools of water for gardens whenever it rains.

Boats in gardens and floating rubbish