Sanibel Island is located on Florida's Gulf Coast, a few miles west of Ft. Myers. It is famous for it sea shells and white sand beaches. Susan has wanted to visit the island for years, so this year, I decided to make it happen and planned a flight.
After days of planning and anticipation, the day of the trip arrived, foggy and gray. Not to be defeated, we packed and drove to the airport anyway. If anything, the fog was even thicker at the airport. We decided to wait it out. While we waited, I checked the weather again and noticed that the forecast was getting worse for the afternoon. Two hours later, the fog was thinning, but the airport was still basically shut down. Finally, I decided to scrub the flight.
A week passed and the weekend weather seemed to be against us. I decided to plan an alternative destination to St. Simon, Georgia. Last weekend, the weather once again turned sour in Melbourne. There seemed to be a thunderstorm parked over us, leaving both of our destinations scrubbed.
Today turned out to be pretty nice - actually almost perfect. There was the usual chance of afternoon showers, but the forecast was for visual conditions all day. The flight was finally a go. Our flight plan was to fly southwest to intercept the 231 degree radial from the Vero Beach VOR at the CUSMO intersection, then across the La Belle VOR, then direct to Page Field in Ft. Myers.
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The flight didn't start off as smoothly as I would have liked. After starting the engine, I retracted the flaps, then set them back to 10 degrees for take-off. They retracted, but would not extend. I shut down the engine to investigate. I pulled and reset the flaps breakers and listened for the flap motor whir as I applied the flap lever. This time they worked fine. I decided that if this problem occurred again, I could safely make a no-flaps landing and we resumed the flight as planned.
The flight was nice, cool, and smooth up at 6,500 feet - above the occasional puffy cumulus cloud below. As we approached Ft. Myers airspace, the clouds below thickened. That's when the controller told us to descend to 2,500 feet. I found a large gap in the clouds, reduced power, and started a rapid descent. Airspeed increased as I S-turned my way through the opening and below the clouds, which started around 4,000 feet. The controller turned us directly west along the Caloosahatchee River to avoid commercial traffic leaving the International airport. I asked for a diversion out over the islands before returning to land.
On the ground, the folks at BaseOps met us with a large golf cart and hauled us and our stuff back to the FBO. Susan called Enterprise for a pick-up while Andrew and I checked out the FBO. I was impressed by the P-51 hanging from the ceiling.
The Enterprise driver soon arrived and we were on our way. We dropped him off, filled out the paperwork, and headed for Sanibel. On the way, we stopped for a quick bite to eat, then continued along. I was surprised to find that there is a $6.00 toll to cross the bridge to the island. On the island, I was again surprised to find a $2.00 per hour parking fee at the beach! Geesh.
The beach was lovely, as expected, but was much more crowded than I expected. The wind was pretty strong, creating more waves than I expected on the Gulf. Due to our later-than-planned start, our long detour over the islands, our wait at the rental car dealer, and the slow traffic on the island, we only had about an hour and a half to play on the beach.
After washing off the salt and changing back into dry clothes, we headed back to Ft. Myers to drop off the car. We arrived at 6:15 and they were CLOSED! Luckily, one employee was still there, but she couldn't take us to the airport. While I scrambled to find other transportation, she came out and told me she arranged a driver from a different location to take us to the airport. Phew.
Back at the airport, I checked the weather and flight restrictions, paid for fuel, then headed to the plane. There were thunderstorms and showers in the area, but they were spread out wide and were easy to see and avoid. Once in the air, the controller called out areas of strong precipitation and we diverted around most of it. We only hit rain for a couple minutes the entire flight. As we continued northeast, the sun slowly lowered behind us, turning the sky orange. As we approached Melbourne, I asked the controller for an update on the scheduled rocket launch. He said it was still 45 minutes away. I decided to go ahead and land rather than wait for the launch. As I turned final and lowered the gear, I got the usual gear warning light, but no green down and locked lights. I was about abort the approach and troubleshoot the gear when one light turned green. A moment later, the other two illuminated. I applied the first 10 degrees of flaps and they worked fine. With a little trepidation, I continued the approach and landed uneventfully. The approach was so glassy smooth I thought the plane could have landed itself without any input from me.
On the ground, we unloaded and covered the plane. As we were about to head inside, Andrew yelled, "There it is!" We all looked up and watched the rocket climb and head east over the Atlantic, its smoke plume glowing orange in the twilight. What a nice ending to a great day.
Later, I found these on FlightAware.
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