There's Worse Places to be Stuck

We delayed our departure from Lord Howe Island by half a day yesterday to let the weather settle at Norfolk Island.  That resulted in us having a lovely 3.1hr flight with steady tailwinds all the way.

Although there is nothing but water between Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands the flying was spectacular.  Most of the time we were flying within a few miles of each other and could see each other in the distance.  On our route there was scattered cloud at about 4,000ft with tops around 8,000ft.  A few rebellious puffs extended down to the 3,000ft level where we were flying and it was fun to blast through them and blow them to bits to punish them for daring to venture toward our track.  We passed amongst several lines of cloud and showers that were no more than 1 - 2nm thick which I guess were shallow fronts.  On each occassion it was easy to steer a little left or right of track to pass between clouds that were building and there was nothing more than a harmless bump or two as we did that.

I'm sure people who are not as obsessed with flying as I will find it hard to understand that I could spend all day flying in this way.  I never tire of looking at the sky.

 

Thunderbird 6 is performing sweetly and she seems as happy as I. She feels "light and free" and purs along.  Dave, Bill and I have all come to conclusion that the best thing we can do for our aircraft engines is to take them on long trips like this where they are running at reasonably high but constant revs.  You can certainly feel the difference.

Enroute we passed over a container ship, fishing trawler and yacht.  Although the sea looked reasonably calm when you got close to them you could see their bows ploughing into large swells.

Dave ducked down to circle the yacht and got a wave from the guy who was on it.  He was about 100nm west of Norfolk Island and must have wondered what he was seeing.  Dave reckoned he was naked!

We were planning to leave Norfolk Island today on our final over-water leg to Kerikeri.  Although the weather is lovely here the north of New Zealand is subject to low cloud and strong North East winds that won't ease until late today.  Although we're all now looking forward to getting home, flying into forecast bad weather is not an option so we've delayed our departure 24hrs.  There's worse places to be stuck!