While I haven’t written anything here in a very long time, it doesn’t mean we haven’t been really busy. It started back a few months ago when the second Glastar plane that Jon had found as a potential fell through during the pre-buy. While everything seemed like the plane was going to be a great one, a closer look at the engine showed significant rust and corrosion that killed the sale. Feeling frustrated, and no other prospects on the market, we decided to plan a month long trip to places we’ve never been. Of course immediately after we got everything booked in our usual non-refundable manner, a guy Jon had been in contact with last February who wasn’t quite ready to let his Glastar go, re-contacted him out of the blue saying he was ready to sell. What timing! Over the coming weeks, as we traveled through Sweden, the Baltics, Luxembourg, Germany and France, the picture of us having our own plane and learning to fly it came into focus once again and the pre-buy on this one didn’t show anything ominous. We continued with our travel plans and stored the Vermonster in Paris for a few months as planned and left just before our European visas expired. We were pretty excited to fly on Etihad Airlines in a fancy A380, the largest and quietest passenger plane available. We would start with a couple of weeks in the Maldives. We did a 10 night liveaboard scuba trip on the Carpe Diem boat exploring a deep north itinerary. It meant we had few other boats, more exposed anchorages, plenty of sharks, mantas, big fish life, some beautiful sections of reef, current and one pinnacle after another. We got good at using reef hooks to watch the show swimming by. We did all 26 dives offered and met some really nice people. Because this trip requires more experience, everything went smoothly and there were no bad divers to interfere with our dives or enjoyment of each dive. Nitrox continues to deliver longer bottom time and we did everything we wanted to and felt good physically. Because of deep water and current, this itinerary only had one night dive which was fantastic. We don’t usually do night dives at 80-90 feet but in the Maldives, everything is deeper. No problem, the water is bathtub warm and feels like a massage getting into it. I just love to dive. We did miss the near nightly night dives in Egypt and for me, 4 dives a day. I don’t like much down time but I could see how in the Maldives it would be harder for the staff to pull off more than 3 a day due to logistics and current.
We didn’t see any whale sharks which was a bummer. Two guitar sharks were new sightings for us. The food was great and the staff were really exceptional. We spent a couple extra nights after the liveaboard was over on a small island and did more snorkeling including all the way around the island one day negotiating an unexpected outer reef break which brought back great memories of other silly things we’ve done that no one else would do. We had a serious sunburn on the backs of our legs afterwards that did peel but I loved it that we can still set out on something with everything we need (which isn’t much) and have a great time just like old times.
All the while, the purchase of a 2013 Glastar with an impressive performance upgrade was moving forward and Jon was lining up the final details. We had already found a hangar in Oregon, the insurance looked promising for full coverage, the owner David was personable and helpful in every way so we had a good feeling about the imminent transaction and Jon discovered a CFI who was not only willing to do accelerated flight training for us both, but also was willing to ferry our plane to his hangar and flight school in Chehalis, WA and let us park our camper close so we could live near to not miss any opportunity to fly. Things were looking up as far as these logistics go.
Next, we flew to Kyoto, Japan from the Maldives. While we definitely plan a longer trip at a later date, we thought a week would help us get an idea and we really enjoyed visiting a whole different place and culture. It was very green and lush, the people were very kind to us and welcoming. Everything is clean and organized, modern and cared for. We stayed in a nice Airbnb for travelers and had a mini apartment convenient to the train station. We visited many temples with their green, manicured grounds, parks, awesome museums, neighborhoods and tasted lots of different foods. We rafted down the river to Arishiyama in a traditional boat and walked the riverside paths. We saw many wanna be geishas ( tourists in the outfits for pictures) but never a real one. Ramen was a big hit for us while interestingly, we never stumbled upon a sushi restaurant that was good compared to other places we’ve been. Paraguay, you still top the charts for best sushi!! We often walked for hours just taking it all in. We even met up with an old school friend John Westover. He’s lived in Japan for years and turned out we weren’t far apart so we spent an afternoon and eve together not having seen each other since college. Jon went to Sacred Heart with him too. It was nice to see a face from long ago in a place far away. We really liked Japan and can’t wait to get back to see more and climb Mt Fuji in season.
Then it was time to continue Eastward to Hawaii. It felt like everyone had been except us. When we sailed the Pacific we never went north and when we were saving for early retirement, we rarely ventured to any of these places since we were saving it for later. We rented a car and explored both sides of the “big” island over 9 days. Hawaii island was where we decided to visit because initially we wanted to do the “black water dive” that they offer from this island. After booking it, it kind of dawned on me that we love night diving and have done a bunch of it and while we don’t swim in the blue at night because we prefer to look at a reef, there is plenty of plankton around and we’ve seen it. So, I changed the dives to a day charter that was supposed to take us to sites further afield for more challenging diving. This really didn’t happen because the two dives we did were rather tame but we saw some nice baby gray sharks in a small canyon nursery and we saw some beautiful brown coral landscapes on the second dive. The snorkeling we did was mediocre and the vis wasn’t great. Plus we had to deal with a lot of swell. We are good in the water and just dealt with the small breakers that passed over us as we explored the reef.
I was really looking forward to seeing Hawaii Volcanoes NP which was also a bit of a disappointment because so many trails were closed except the really short ones and the volcano was quiet so not too exciting. The best part about Hawaii for me was just being in the water so much even if not impressive, the temp was fantastic and any little fish faces make me happy. Also, the green turtles that haul themselves out onto the ledge and sandy beaches to rest is totally new for us, unique to Hawaii and it was great to witness that. We were there during Ironman so not only did we see many fit people strutting around with their oil based marker numbers gracing their arm for days afterwards, it was also a subtle reminder that we are now past the age of ever doing anything like that which is sad in a way.
Getting more and more focused and excited about the plans to come, we didn’t really mind leaving Hawaii to get started since while it was nice enough, the parts we saw didn’t impress us like so many places we’ve been. We expect more adventure than that because of what we’ve done.
We flew from Hawaii to Boise on a small bag of chips and a piece of chocolate, forgetting that domestic travel is quite different than international! Then we hit the ground running. One night in a hotel to sleep and have a drop in visit by Mark & Anne to say hi, then over to our storage to get our US based camper out and commissioned, then a night along the Snake River meeting Gregg & Susan, some new Glastar friends that Jon got to know on the forum. They sold us a wheel for our plane that would come in handy and we enjoyed a nice dinner together. Then to my sister Mary’s house for a very brief visit that included a nice dinner and a hike the next morning, then off to Chehalis to meet Isaac, our CFI! The following day, Oct 20, we rode together in our truck to Grants Pass, OR to meet our new plane, David the previous owner and officially start the next project! It was a very long day but by the end of it, we had our set up complete back in Chehalis.
We’ve been having flight lessons most days at least once, often twice. Jon completed an exceptional solo experience this week and I’m ready for my solo too but the weather did not cooperate for me to fit it in before leaving for a visit to Vermont. It will feel good to get that done and continue progressing towards our pilot certificates. Winter is coming, as they say, and the weather windows for flying are getting shorter. The daylight is less and it is chilly. Isaac, of Warrior Aviation has been an incredible CFI and just a special person and we are thanking our lucky stars we have him instructing us. We are determined and hope it will all fall into place. In between lessons, we’ve been learning about the plane and have already started doing maintenance, Jon has been trying to fix issues as they come up because we are putting a lot of hours on the plane now with both of us learning and he wants to make sure we can keep it flying to meet our goals.
We are using most of our brains to absorb the material and learn the muscle memory and there’s not much time for anything else. We did have some good overlanding German friends who we met in Argentina visit us at the airport because they are traveling North America now and that was a great distraction!
So that’s the update. Not much for photos either. You’ll have to picture it in your head the way I picture the steps to do a smooth landing all night long. The Tom Petty song “I’m learning to fly” circulates in my head when I’m not walking around with sweaty armpits before a lesson. But we do have wings and it feels good. As always, I appreciate the drive and capability Jon has to push both his and our dreams and limits and the way we work together to make them a reality. We’re hoping we can have a lot of cool adventures in this plane when we’re taking breaks from overlanding.
