Pago Pago, American Somoa to Christmas Island
Trip Start
Jun 27, 2011
1
29
34
Trip End
Dec 08, 2011
Kiribati, Line Islands, Kiribati
Monday, November 21, 2011
My flight from Pago Pago was a decision-making challenge. The crux of the weather issue is the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) where basically the winds from the northern and southern hemispheres converge. This zone lies more or less along the equator but can be positioned several degrees north or south depending on the season and La Nina/El Nino cycles. In the summer months the ITCZ can be fairly benign; in the winter months it can show its power. Currently the ITCZ is lying about 8 degrees north of the equator (and north of Christmas Island). The forecast I had been looking at showed long lines of thunderstorms stretching long the ITCZ with the "cherry on top" being Cat 4 hurricane Kenneth in the eastern Pacific. How and when do I fly across it?
The information I had for Christmas Island (PLCH) indicated that communication was difficult so if I left Pago Pago with great internet service and flew to Christmas Island, I envisioned being stuck with no way to view weather forecasts, maps, satellite photos, etc. - the stuff I've come to rely on for flight planning decisions. I needed two days of reasonable weather to get to Honolulu from Pago Pago. What I was seeing was tall TS's in the ITCZ and a call to US weather briefing confirmed this. If I left Pago Pago and went to Christmas Island, would I get stuck south of the ITCZ with no good information on deciding when to cross it? Furthermore, if hurricane Kenneth plowed westward unabated and ended up crossing Christmas Island, my plane would be out in the open because there are no hangars at Christmas Island. N788W could turn into a composite/fiberglass pretzel.
I finally decided I needed to get to Christmas Island at some point, and the weather en-route from Pago Pago on November 21 looked OK, so I decided to take "the bird in the hand" and go for Christmas island and not wait for two days of ideal weather setup. Early in the morning of the 21st there were thunderstorms rumbling around Pago Pago. I got up at 5 am, looked out the window and saw pouring rain and flashing thunder. And this was supposed to be the good (non ITCZ) day! I went to the airport, prepped the plane, and sat in the office of the handler for a 15 minutes re-checking weather information trying to decide whether to go. The thunderstorms had finished, so it was just rain and low clouds. I decided to go. I back-taxied out on to runway 5, turned the plane 180 degrees and looked at what I had. The rain had actually intensified, and the ceiling was low and indeterminate. The rain was so intense I couldn't see the end of the runway. I hesitated for a few seconds wondering whether I should taxi back to the terminal and shut it down. I decided to takeoff into the muck, made all the more interesting by high hills and a cable stretching across Pago Pago harbor noted as a serious hazard to planes, none of which I would be able to see in this weather. Of all the IFR takeoffs I've done, I'd have to say this had the worst conditions. Once airborne I was flying the panel - the rest of the world was gone. And this was the good day!
Climbing out I kept calling Faleolo Approach for my clearance - I couldn't get them on the ground which didn't surprise me and I wasn't going to wait around for them to call back. Fifteen minutes later I finally made contact, and complained about calling them several times with no response. She said they were having technical problems with their radio. Hmmm. I finally was high enough to get out of the solid clouds and the sky opened up a bit. I could hear Faleolo making test calls on their various frequencies so maybe there were technical problems. As I flew out of range of their VHF system I pulled out the satphone and called them on that. The phone number for Faleolo Approach is +685 42530.
The route I filed for had a bunch of waypoints defined by lat/long coordinates, but the route I got actually followed B577 so I flew DARMA SAPIX PASSA then direct PLCH. Still no transponder code. Flying around here is little ad hoc. The weather finally cleared up, but I was still driving around buildups. At one point I headed for a "cloud valley" of blue sky between buildups, only to have it just close by the time I got there. It reminded of the scene from the movie "Independence Day" where they just made it out of the alien mother ship before the triangular portal closed. In my case it did close, but it was just clouds.
The farther north I got, the better the weather got and I had time to make a video of the GPS counting down to 0 degrees latitude while crossing the equator, something I missed flying south from Singapore. After PASSA I was now talking to Oakland Control on the satphone at +1 510-745-3403 which made me feel closer to home. By the time I descended into Christmas Island - an immense island I could see from 70 miles away - I was enjoying the experience of landing on a very remote south pacific island as the sun was setting. The view of the extensive lagoons was fantastic. As I came into land at PLCH, the GoPro video camera caught the shadow of the plane as it approached and touched down on runway 08. Nice.
The "terminal building" at PLCH is an open air building, and the control tower is a one story, one room shack with radio antennas on top. That fit what I expected, but the rest of Christmas Island did not. The Captain Cook Hotel was full of fisherman and a crew of 25 from a New Zealand company on the island to resurface the airport runway! In my one day and two nights there, I learned that Christmas Island is a world class mecca for fly fishermen, with a trophy wall in the dining hall showing photos of numerous people holding their world record catches. The night I arrived was the day before some of the runway crew were leaving so I lucked out enjoying a special goodbye dinner with a roast pig and a show by the local (award-winning) musical group doing dances and songs in grass skirts and flowers. Christmas Island turned out to be the most unadulterated and interesting Pacific Island experience on my trip.
Even the communications was not as bad as I had feared. They have WiFi at the hotel but it was somewhat inconvenient to use. The runway construction group had set up a hotel room with their own computers and internet connection they used to Skype with their families and other purposes. They were gracious enough to let me use their computer room when I explained my need to check the weather. It was invaluable, and led to my decision to hang out another day on Christmas and wait for better weather.
As the only "ferry pilot" at the hotel, I was a novelty and had a good time telling people about my flight. I spent time with the "fishing" people, an interesting group of travelers with diverse professions interests making my short time on the island really enjoyable. It is one of the short list of places I've encountered that I would definitely like to revisit without the demands of the RTW flight affecting the time I can linger.
Comments
Great to see you made it to Christmas. Hope you can find some turkey for Thanksgiving. We are off to Seychelles and Madagascar tomorrow, home on Dec. 17. Come down for Christmas if you can. Safe travels.