Safe and enjoying Christmas Island
Trip Start
Mar 18, 2010
1
34
39
Trip End
Ongoing
Christmas Island, Line Islands, Kiribati
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Tuesday April 12 (in Kiribati) We were up early today trying to get things in order for the flight to Hawaii the next day. The gas guy on the island had told me on the phone that no Avgas was available so we carried a bunch of extra from Pago Pago thinking that we would dilute some of the avgas with car gas in our Aux tank and the engines wouldn't know the difference. We calculated that we would only need 20 gallons or so. When I called they were very resistant to the idea of selling car gas for an airplane and after much hemming and hawing they suddenly came across a barrel of Avgas for us.....amazing. So we loaded almost the whole barrel (204 liters) paid $8.15 a liter plus delivery charge and were done with it.....by then it was after 1 pm. While we were waiting for the gas I did get a flight plan filed through the "tower" at the airport. It was a cute little yellow shack with a generator for power. A very nice lady worked there and had her 1 year old daughter on her lap most of the time. We also got in a call to Kona customs and found out a form was needed and could we fax it to them.....yea right. A little persuasion got us an email copy of the form and it was sent back quickly. So all was in order for the next leg.
Christmas Island is a fisherman's paradise. Apparently a good day of bone fishing is over 50 fish something almost unheard of in the Keys. There are about 3 fishing lodges on the island but every one that comes there has to arrive and leave on the one plane a week. The fisherman we talked to said it was worth it.
