After relatively short notice I spent my weekend
in Key West. A student at school was going down
there to a meeting and wanted to bring some of her
friends down, so I got to fly down there as the
instructor.
The trip to Key West started Saturday morning at
9. Originally we would fill up the plane with 4
people, but we ended up being 3. The plane we flew
was the schools new Cessna 172, which has both GPS
and Autopilot which made the flight pretty pleasant.
We flew down towards "The Keys" and crossed
the water where the distance was the shortest right
over to Marathon. From there we went straight west
towards the tip of the Keys called Ket West. This
island is relatively small, and you can drive around
it in about 10-15 minutes.
After a short trip to the hotel, we started off
with all the cultural stuff. First we ate lunch
at Sloppy Joe's where I had my first ever Sloppy
Joe. From here we went to Mel Fisher's Treasure
which is a museum for sunken treasures. The main
treasure is the "Nuestra Senora de Atocha"
which he spent 25 years finding and is considered
amongst the largest treasures found.
After a short walk we ended up in Ernest Hemmingways
house, the famous war correspondent and author.
Interesting to have been here, but I doubt I will
study him any further.
Later in the evening we went to Mallory Square
where there is a lot of freak shows at sunset. People
juggeling, riding on tall one wheeled bikes, jumping
through hoops, trained dogs and cats, and whatever
people think they can make money on. From here we
went to dinner and had a look at the night life.
We had to get up early next morning. The plane
had to be airborne by 0830, which we made. We were
a little sceptic about the weather, so we filed
IFR so we could go through the clouds rather than
gambling on finding a hole in the clouds. The flight
back was very enjoyable. GPS direct and Autopilot
with Nav Hold made it wonderfully simple.
Both my students have now taken their European
PPL, and both passed on their first attempt. Ed
went home to Holland last weekend, while me and
Paul is currently working on his Night Rating. Tomorrow
I'll be getting a new student who is doing his American
CPL.
Today is the 17th of May, and it's actually my
day off. To those of you not familiar with this
day, it's the National Day of Norway. Our Independence
Day. I haven't really celebrated it so far today,
cause I'm the only one who has the day off. I'll
probably spend the day washing my car or something.
