We had arrived at Opa Locka without much difficulty. Preparations were made back home, and I had gotten a visum from the Venezuelan embassy. My student Oscar, who is a native of Venezuela) was with me.

            Rather than renting a life raft, I decided to buy one on my credit card. A new one for five men with a canopy set me back about $ 950, but I had promised my wife not to fly without every necessary survival equipment. The raft was put into the back seat, and I instructed Oscar what to do should we have to ditch, especially in not letting the raft get away from us. Both of us put on our life vests, and off we went at ten after two. We flew over Bimini and reached Nassau in beautiful weather. It was two minutes before four, and we had to rush through customs because they close at four pm.

            Nassau has a well-equipped weather station in the terminal, and the attendants were very helpful with information and taking the flight plan. Fuel was taken in, and then we had a beautiful flight over the Exuma chain to Georgetown. Contrary to our chart, the NDB (ADF) for Georgetown was not operational but navigation by sight was easy. We parked the plane, fueled it at $2.37/gal cash (with three guys fighting for our business!), tied the plane with our ropes onto a wirerope on the ground, and paid $17 for a taxi ride into town - return being included. The night cost us $40.- and dinner was good at the Two Turtle Inn. Before supper, we had a quick swim as it was starting to get dark.

            From Georgetown we next flew to South Caicos over several more beautiful and flat Bahama islands. At Mayaguana we flew over a very long paved airstrip that was x-ed out on my map but looked very good. We also saw a relatively recent shipwreck on the reefs at the southeast end of the island.

            South Caicos is another country, and we had to pass customs paying simultaneously entering and departure taxes of $ 12. We fueled, using the Exxon card, bought a lobster sandwich at the little booth and went to the tower. First I planned to fly south and enter the Dominican Republic but then changed plans to fly to Puerto Rico direct, saving us a lot of time and money going through customs again. My Skyhawk flew perfectly until now, so why not trust it some more, I thought. There was an awful lot of water, though, and no land in sight for three hours. We even had to fly through a few clouds, just to change scenery. For navigation I used the Grand Turk NDB (ADF) and later the VORs of Borinquen and San Juan. These 364 miles were by far my longest over water flight, but the engine sounded good; well, maybe a little “automatic rough” when clouds got a bit too high and annoying.

            Finally, finally I got a good signal from Borinquen VOR with an English voice. Half an hour later we met a range of clouds which this time announced land. All that was left to do was follow the coast, contact San Juan and land at Isla Grande. Here we had to clear US custom which seemed strange, since we came from Florida. They gave us Spanish forms to fill out, but I asked for English ones. Fuel was available but only for cash. Credit cards might be OK at Puerto Rico International but we did not go over there to check.

            We did not stay in Puerto Rico very long. San Juan approach gave me a little trouble with heading and altitude because of traffic, then it was off in a southeasterly direction. We saw our first mountains in a long time and beautiful little farms and houses scattered here and there. Puerto Rico looks nice from the air. We easily bypassed a few clouds which were concentrated around the higher mountains.

            At Humacao we left Puerto Rico for the Caribbean Sea. I tried not to go too close to the Island of Vieques because of the Warning Area, but there was no military activity that day. Saint Croix of the Virgin Island came into view soon after. The VOR came in very clearly, and we contacted approach control. The man at the radio kindly made two phone calls for us trying to locate a student I had from this island.

            Despite a few hills in the area, Alexander Hamilton was an easy field to land on. There was practically no traffic, and we proceeded to the parking area where a man drove up and charged us a landing fee of $1.46. There were no tiedown facilities, but no storms seemed to be in the making. The fuel truck brought me 100 octane avgas and let me use my credit card.

            After waiting for an hour or so, relatives of my student came to pick us up. Since their house was full, they drove us to the King Christian Hotel in Christiansted where we checked into a beautiful room, swam in the pool and had a sumptuous meal. Life seemed great!

            Next morning we explored Christiansted including the old Danish fort and Governors House. Everything was neat and beautiful just like in the brochure. Well, a few benches needed some repair but not bad. The two ladies met us again at noon and gave us a tour of the islands’ two towns of Christiansted and Frederiksted. They drove on the left side of the road. We enjoyed the tropical scenery and also an outside look of the agricultural experiment station with its tropical fruit plantation. It was Sunday, so we could not enter and converse with fellow scientists. Incidentally, when I travel I usually lose all sense of the calendar and often find interesting places closed during weekends.

            Back at the airport, I did the usual: checking weather, filing a flight plan, preflighting the airplane and asking permission to take off. As we climbed we saw the huge Hess refinery and soon were off these beautiful shores.

            It was open water again, yet it didn’t seem too long before we could see the Dutch islands of Saba and Sint Eustatius. Each had very steep mountains with clouds on top. Now Guadeloupe was our VOR to steer to, but first we passed over another huge rock which I identified as Montserat. Near Guadeloupe we ducked under a few low clouds just off shore then dove into brilliant sunshine to a beautiful, enormous airstrip with several large Air France jets on the ramp.

            We headed for French Customs, passed it easily, then asked Information about Ecotel which is supposed to be low-priced. It was filled, however, and after considerable prodding, the young lady sent us to the Franhotel by taxi. This was not a lowpriced place, but there was little else to do. My Master Card was acceptable, I got a few French francs and just enjoyed myself. The food was terrific as was the orchestra. Later, and in the morning, I went swimming in the ocean as well as in the pool, and it was out of this world! The fact that I saw a few topless beauties certainly was a contributing factor. What a great place!

            The next island we stopped in, Martinique (with Dominica in between), is also French. We stayed in the small, cheap hotel Gossier and found a pleasant French restaurant. In our room we put on our swimming trunks under our shorts and walked through a beautiful park to the beach of Fort de France. It was not quite as nice as Guadeloupe, but nice enough. Mt. Pelee is the volcano that dominates the island and seems to be continually in the clouds. Actually I worried about it a bit as I flew in; the airport was hard to find because the very black runway did not show up until I was directly above it.

            Among the sites we saw was a French experiment station where they study lime, avocados, pineapples, mangos and bananas. A young man gave us an interesting tour. He was an agronomist and actually doing his military stint on this beautiful island.

            Most of the inhabitants of this and the other Caribbean islands are black. We saw some native political graffiti, but everyone treated us well. At the airport I had some trouble getting fuel. There was plenty around but the operator wanted either a Shell International card or cash in US dollars, both of which we lacked. I needed to go to the right bank to get some US dollars with my Master or Visa cards. The bank at the airport did not provide this service, and I had to go by TC to Fort de France. TC’s are minibuses which carry people a lot cheaper than taxis, and we learned this very early on our trip. By the time I got to town it was noon and banks were closed from 12 til 2:15 pm. While waiting, I bought a small loaf of good French bread, cheese and a coke and ate under a palm tree near the beach. After two o’clock I went back and was sent to several banks before finding the one that took my Visa card. The teller said it would take another half hour or so for them to communicate with the States by Telex.

            Finally I had the required dollars and took the TC back to the airport. There, Oscar was furious because he had to wait so long, and he barely accepted my explanation that on every trip a few unpleasantnesses must be counted in. Now the FBO would fuel me up for seventy dollars. The weathermen were very friendly and assured me that there was good weather ahead of us. Yet, it was late afternoon, and I decided it would be very dark before we could make Venezuela. It wasn’t worth the risk; we were in no hurry, and so we returned to our hotel. For supper I had octopus; the night before I had turtle. It was interesting except that Creole food may be very peppery. In a French restaurant you can’t get water, so our liquids consisted of beer, wine, and for closing good local rum. Except eating good food, we did not seek out any local entertainment and hit the sack before ten. My portable radio provided some entertainment. Music and song could be heard in three or four languages.

            After a short morning swim, we took a TC to the airport, filled out three General Declaration forms as well as a flight plan and were off. Nobody asked us specifically for parking and landing fees and we did not bring it up, either. Maybe we did pay some minor amount as we passed the officers.

            There was absolutely no sweat in navigation. We flew south passing by St. Lucia, St. Vincent, the Grenadines and then Grenada. Each island-radio wanted to talk to us, and I complied. Grenada was mostly covered by clouds, but I espied the nearly empty Pearls airport below. At 7500 feet we were able to avoid the clouds.

            I followed a strong ADF beam from Grenada outbound at a heading of 240 degrees and for one hour and a quarter was over open water. I was soon able to lock in on the Margarita VOR. More than half way between Grenada and Margarita Island we passed over the tiny Los Testidos islands.

            Margarita could not be raised by radio, and I later learned that the frequencies on my maps were false. We saw a very arid island with some mountains in the northern part. The airstrip was very long (10400 feet), and there was no traffic to interfere with my silent landing and taxiing. 

            The wind was very strong, and we tied the plane down with my ropes tied around a few rocks we picked up. Then we proceeded to the terminal to pass customs. Five General Declarations were required, and I was glad that a friend at home gave me a whole block of them. Several islands had none available which does lead to delays. My passport and visa were found in order and properly stamped. Only later did I notice that the wrong date was used which could have been embarrassing had I stayed the full sixty days. I made a note then, to check this in the future. The luggage was not inspected this time.

            Now we were in Venezuela and needed bolivars. Oscar had two bolivars which he used on the automat to call his friends. One of them arrived in a big stationwagon and drove us to his home.

            We spent two nights on this resort island. Asuncion is the capital of Nuevo Esparta, and we visited the bank, a church and a museum where we learned interesting details about the island’s role in Venezuela’s independence. We also spent a few leisurely hours near Porlamor swimming in nice clear water, but I was surprised that it felt a bit cooler than in the Caribbean islands. The vegetation was mostly arid and included cacti. On the slopes of the mountains and in valleys we saw interesting tropical flowers and fruit, and we also visited a state nursery.

            Margarita’s weather was sunny, dry and hot, so it was hard to believe when the radio talked about rain in Caracas. Apparently May is in the rainy season due to tropical convection currents. As we were ready to leave, I got reports of scattered to broken clouds over south America. The tanks were filled with low-priced Venezuelan fuel for which the Visa card was accepted. Our international flight plan was put into the proper form by the attending official.

            The maps we now used were CK-27 and for instruments L-6/L-5 Enroute Low Altitude the Caribbean and South America. Ground personnel gave me the correct radio frequencies, and I had no trouble communicating (in English). We headed for open water again, homing on Higuerote. We were instructed to contact Barcelona at the 180 radial which I did. Ahead lay the Venezuela coast. Mountains reached to 8000 feet, and more and there were lots of clouds inland. By hugging the coastline and using the VOR of Maiquetia (Caracas) we had a pleasant flight. After having flown for a long time without needing a transponder, Maiquetia approach now gave us a code and appropriate vectors and altitudes. At one time Oscar wanted to know why we were directed to a heading of north straight to the open sea, but I knew better than to question the controller; when we were turned around we could see the traffic ourselves. Now we were actually west of Maiquetia and then were directed straight into the continent with mountains, clouds and all. No airport was visible, and I thought it must be behind the first mountain ridge, but Oscar kept insisting it was right next to the ocean. Before getting any closer to the unknown mountains and clouds, I mad a 180 back to the sea and so informed the lady in the tower. She turned me back to approach to the man whose English speaking and understanding were much better. He gave us the same headings as before, back straight to the mountains and then we had to again call the lady in the tower. Many times she asked “report your position”. “Over some smokestacks”, I reported, but she did not understand. Oscar tried to explain it in a torrent of words in Spanish, but she still did not understand. As I turned east to get away from the mountains, lo and behold there was Simon Bolivar International. I got the “cleared to land” and touched down in light rain. It wasn’t the best vectored ILS approach I ever made!

            Customs here was very thorough. There were soldiers with machine guns, but we passed. Several days later I returned to the airport and found out that parking an airplane at Simon Bolivar is super expensive and no avyas for small planes was available. After paying a kings ransom and getting proper clearance, I flew the plane inland to Caracas del Centro International. This airport is equipped to handle small planes, has avgas and charges “only” fifty bolivars a day for parking. Before departure, two very kind Venezuelan airline pilots gave me the proper approach charts which I followed by first climbing to 11000 feet over mountains and clouds and then tuning in the VOR and later approach control. It took 40 minutes to get there.

            For the rest of the month the plane was parked there while we explored Venezuela from the ground, weather being too uncertain for exploratory flights.