Round The World and other travels
A frequent flyer's collection of trip diaries
This is: Spring Fever 2008
Flight Log 18 : Private Transfer
Barbados (BGI) - Canouan (CIW)
Four passengers were walked out to
the aircraft for this transfer flight operated by Mustique Airways
on behalf of Raffles, comprising Bruce, me and a Belgian couple. It
was almost like a jigsaw puzzle trying to get us fitted into the
tiny, two-row cabin. Bruce sat in rear-facing 1A (at least, that's
what I'm calling it!), while I sat in forward-facing 2A, with
the Belgians on the starboard side. We all had to come to an
arrangement as to whose legs went where!
Despite the lack of space, it has to be said
that the aircraft had rather nice leather seats. Somewhat
surprisingly, given the aircraft's passenger-carrying capacity, we
had two pilots.
We set off from our stand at 1632 and headed
towards the runway. Air conditioning at this point consisted of the
Captain holding his door open - this really cracked me up!
He did of course close it before we began our take-off run. From
on-stand to being airborne took a grand total of three minutes.
While there were some interesting views to be had initially, most of
the journey was over sea and there wasn't much to look out for.
Thankfully, the cabin temperature dipped during the cruise.
Conversation was all but impossible due to engine noise.
Soon enough, the various islands that form the Grenadines came into view and we made our approach into CIW, passing right over the Raffles resort before making a U-turn to land. Once we had decelerated sufficiently, the Captain deployed his DIY air conditioning again. CIW was amazing - fairly deserted, a riot of colour and officialdom that was both discreet (i.e not having an overwhelming presence) and friendly.
A very interesting flight!
Date: Sun 04 May 2008
Aircraft : Aero Commander Merlin
Scheduled dep : N/A
Actual departure : 1632
Scheduled arrival : N/A
Actual arrival : 1722
Operator : Mustique Airways
Seat : 2A
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