A Journal, with Pictures

The weath­er as is usu­al­ly the case in the fall, was beau­ti­ful. COPA mem­bers from around the coun­try start­ed arriv­ing as ear­ly as Wednes­day, with the major­i­ty on Fri­day. Some flew in on Sat­ur­day. Rick Daw­son, COPA SE Gov­er­nor set up reg­is­tra­tion in the FBO and pro­vid­ed cold drinks for the arrivals on Fri­day after­noon. We rent­ed a van and one of Chuck Cop­leys advanced stu­dent, JT, vol­un­teered to be our dri­ver for the week­end, mak­ing get­ting around much eas­i­er and more economical.

That evening we gath­ered at the Red Fish for coc­tails and din­ner. Although the reser­va­tion had been made a month before and recon­firmed in per­son on Wednes­day our pri­vate room had been dou­ble booked by mis­take. So, being good pilots we had an alter­nate, extend the cock­tail hour. This all worked out, since we had some late arrivals fly­ing in from Flori­da, so they were right on time. A jol­ly time was had by all and we were off to a good start mak­ing new friends. By the way the restau­rant gave us 10% off of our checks, which almost paid for the extra drinks consumed.

Tomor­row is going to be a full COPA Day.

 

 

Anoth­er beau­ti­ful fall day on Hilton Head Island. COPA mem­bers start their day with either a great flight in or for the Fri­day arrivals break­fast over­look­ing the beach at their hotel. Around 9:30 our van and locals with SUV’s con­verg on the air­port for the days activ­i­ties. In total there were over 60 par­tic­i­pants for the days activ­i­ties. For the spous­es there is a tour of Hilton Head Island to see this gor­gious place and learn about the his­to­ry. For the pilots it will be the COPA Uni­ver­si­ty Com­mand and Con­trol course. Bri­an Tur­risi is the lec­tur­er and pro­vides a two hour intense pre­sen­ta­tion on the subject.

The tourist get a end to end view of the island on the Hilton Head trol­ley with guide.

After the morn­ing activ­i­ties COPA mem­bers moved to an aja­cent hangar for a South­ern Bar-B-Que lunch, includ­ing bar-b-qued pork and chick­en, beans, cold slaw, corn bread and Ice Tea, yum­m­mm! The lunch was spon­sored by Avion­ics Source.

Dur­ing and after lunch mem­bers were treat­ed to a demon­stra­tion of a unique art form of the Gul­lah peo­ple of the area sweet grass bas­ket weav­ing and some took home one of these trea­sures. In addi­ton Mike Math­ews, Cir­rus Region­al sales rep joined us and dis­played his G5 demo. In addi­tion Cir­rus spon­sored the spous­es tour, which was much appreciated.

After lunch and the demos, most of the atten­dee’s took the Gul­lah tour, which intro­duced them to this unique peo­ple and their his­to­ry on the Island. They took two air con­di­tioned coach­es with guides and saw the sites, learned about the his­to­ry of the Gul­lah peo­ple and the first African Amer­i­can town to be formed after the Civ­il War, Mitchel­lville. Some of the COPA group choose to chill out on the beach and oth­ers trav­eled to near­by Sanan­nah for explor­ing and then dinner,

To cap off the day, most of the group were treat­ed to din­ner at the Old Oys­ter fac­to­ry. This restau­rant was built on a site where oys­ters from the near­by marsh­es were gath­ered and shucked. A beau­ti­ful sun­set view, from the pri­vate room, with time for cock­tails, din­ning and lots of social­iz­ing. Per­fect way to end the day, before the flight home tomor­row. Some atten­dees stayed over Sun­day to do the COPA/Cirrus land­ing clin­ic put on by Bri­an and Chuck.

Every­one seemed to enjoy their COPA week­end on Hilton Head Island, learn­ing, expe­ri­enc­ing new things and a beau­ti­ful place, mak­ing friends and social­iz­ing with fel­low mem­bers. The week­end was made pos­si­ble by Rick and Joyce Daw­son (COPA SE Gov­er­nor and wife), Bri­an Tur­risi and Chuck Cop­ley great COPA vol­un­teers. Also a big THANKS to Cir­rus who spon­sored the Spous­es tour and as usu­al gave great sup­port to the event and Avion­ics Source who spon­sored the Sat­ur­day South­ern Bar-B-Que lunch. Becuase of our COPA vol­un­teers and gen­er­ous spon­sors along with great mem­bers, life is good in COPA land.

Hilton Head Flight line Sun­day morn­ing as record­ed by Chuck Cope­ly, out giv­ing instruc­tions ear­ly. Accord­ing to Chuck, ” Cir­rus as far as you can see”.

Safe Flight Home.

Gary Black, COPA mem­ber and Cir­rus sales exec­u­tive, trav­eled with his daugh­ter in 2014 to Churchill at the top of Man­i­to­ba . He was so impressed he want­ed to share the expe­ri­ence with oth­er COPA mem­bers. Gary con­tact­ed Peter Stor­er, Gov­er­nor of the COPA North Cen­tral Region, and vol­un­teered to be the Event Coor­di­na­tor and lead the trip. Peter did the orga­niz­ing and when the reg­is­tra­tion was open it sold out in a few days. The trip start­ed August fifth with most of the par­tic­i­pants gath­ern­ing in Duluth. Two planes from Cal­gary, Alber­ta choose to fly direct. Cir­rus Air­craft gave a tour of the Jet pro­duc­tion line and spon­sored a din­ner at the Inn on Lake Supe­ri­or, that includ­ed a wel­come by Pat Wad­dick. Cir­rus Pres­i­dent. Every­one appre­ci­at­ed Cir­rus spon­sor­ship and a chance to meet our fel­low adven­tur­ers. Andy Niemy­er, COPA Pres­i­dent, attend­ed the cock­tail recep­tion and pre-trip brief­ing so it was a aus­pi­cious begin­ning to the trip. Joyce and I taveled from Day­ton, Ohio, but we had atten­dees from across North Amer­i­ca as far away as Ari­zona and Texas.

 

The next morn­ing an area of pre­cip­i­ata­tion and imbed­ded thud­er­storms lay between Duluth and our first stop Win­nipeg, where we would clear cus­toms. This called for a new route, west then north. Our arrival in Win­nipeg was at IFR min­i­mums with lots of traf­fic, main­ly us. We land­ed and took a break, then set out for Thomp­son in upper Man­i­to­ba. The weath­er improved as we went north and we saw some big lakes. Lake Win­nipeg and Man­i­tob sur­prised us at their size. There was also lots of des­o­la­tion and small­er lakes, in the end we had to do an approach into Thomp­son. We refu­eled, had lunch and then were off to Churchill. Again, it required an approach, but in this case it was more for traf­fic con­trol. We land­ed, tied down and were off to the Lazy Bear Lodge.

This is our first day and we have a full day of tour­ing around. After break­fast we load up the lazy Bear bus and met our guide Ger­ald. In the morn­ing we are going to scope out the area and maybe see a bear. So we head out in the lazy Bear school bus and sure enough we see a bear. I think. it could be a white rock, but through my 400 MM lens, yes its a Polar Bear. We then vis­it the site of a crash of a C‑46 and then learn about the ” the bear prob­lem”. Polar bears come into town and have to be trapped and incar­ser­at­ed. We vis­it the bear pri­sion, but this is a slow peri­od so no bears in cap­tiv­i­ty, although some of our group try to solve that prob­lem. It’ s inter­est­ing and fun morning.

 

After lunch we board the Lazy Bear boat to vis­it Fort Prince of Wales on the oth­er side of the riv­er, then to look for bears and whales. We split into two groups and we vis­it the Fort first. Our guide is a local woman named Judd. Judd real­ly knows her ecol­o­gy and his­to­ry but her dread locks, that are tied into a knot to keep them from drag­ging on the gound, adds a lit­tle some­thing spe­cial to her per­sona. The Fort was one of the Hud­son Bay Com­pa­nies main trad­ing posts and it took almost 40 years to build. The French cap­tured it and dis­abled it in a day, took the com­man­der and all the furs back to France. The Indi­an chielf who was the link to the fur trade is said to have com­mit­ted sui­cide. Bad day at Churchill. Very inter­est­ing history.

Now its time to look for bears and whales so we head back to the boat and out onto the riv­er. We spot a moth­er and cub and get to observe them as they hang out and then when they get warm take a swim.

The bear sight­ing was the high­light of the day, but we see Bel­u­gas in the riv­er on our way in, but the big day for Bel­u­gas is ahead, so its time for a lit­tle COPA social activ­i­ty. Strange how that works, get some COPA mem­bers togeth­er and a par­ty breaks out. We end­ed up enjoy­ing the fine weath­er and hav­ing a glass of wine or two right in front of the lodge. Then it was off to dinner.

Today we are going to explore the Hud­son Bay by boat leav­ing the riv­er and going up the coast to a prime Bel­u­ga gath­er­ing spot. We leave late morn­ing so we take the oppor­tu­ni­ty to vis­it the Eski­mo muse­um which is a short walk away. The muse­um is well done and you come away appre­ci­at­ing their art and incred­i­ble abil­i­ty to sur­vive and flour­ish in the harsh­est climate.

We then take the lazy Bear bus to the dock, but first we don sur­vival suits (what we called poop­ie suits in the Navy). This should have been a clue. We board­ed the very impres­sive lazy Bear boat designed for this mis­sion. We start­ed out toward the mouth of the riv­er and who do we run into our moth­er and cub bear swim­ming toward town. Wal­ly the lodge own­er, who is our guide today, indi­cates we have to herd the bears back to their side of the riv­er. Once we get this done, we spy Papa bear, who is by him­self being a lazy bear. Male bears are not too friend­ly toward cubs, want­i­ng all the atten­tion, so mama and cub stay away.

Now we turn out onto Hud­son Bay and its cool and a lit­tle rainy for the next hour pound­ing up to the Bel­u­ga spot. When we final­ly get there we are in shal­low water (12 t0 20 feet and the Bel­u­gas are feed­ing on fish that hide in the rocks on the bot­tom (artic char, trout, pick­ril) so we actu­al­ly stir up thi­er prey. The Bel­u­gas inter­act with our boat and we are sur­round­ed with whales.

To view a video on You Tube of the Bel­u­gas cour­tisey of Eric and Janet Prim go to :Bel­u­gas

We watched the whales for about an hour then had lunch and chat­ted. We then head­ed back, with an hour of pound­ing back along the coast back to Churchill. A long day in the ele­ments and every­one was ready for a lit­tle COPA social­iza­tion.

The first group left for the air­port at 7:30 AM Mondy with an eye toward the low ceil­ing. We pre-flight­ed our air­craft and by time we were done the ceil­ings were above our min­i­mums and we called for our clear­ance. Churchill radio did a good job of get­ting us qued up and after delays for spac­ing we were air­born and on our way to Thomp­son above the clouds. Oth­ers flew to Red­lake, or Gil­am or west then on to their des­ti­na­tion. We land­ed in a lit­tle over an hour due to a nice tail­wind, refu­eled, called US Cus­toms and were on our way to Duluth. We were in the clear, then scat­tered clouds, then build-ups with rain some­times heavy. When we were out of the clouds we saw miles of des­o­la­tion and thou­sands of lakes. We touched down in Duluth in three hours and twen­ty min­uets on a beau­ti­ful clear day.

We overnight­ed in Duluth and had din­ner with oth­er Churchill adven­tur­ers plus some oth­er COPA friends. Tues­day we launched at 9:30 AM CDT and enjoyed a beau­ti­ful day with tail winds the whole way. We arrived in Day­ton arround two PM EDT. Great way to fin­ish a great trip, that includ­ed 22 hours of inter­est­ing and some­times chal­leng­ing fly­ing, great COPA peo­ple, new and renewed friend­ships, new sights and experiences.

Our hats off and thanks to Peter Stor­er North Cen­tral Region Gov­er­nor who did the orga­ni­za­tion to set up the trip. Most impor­tant­ly Thanks to Gary Black the COPA vol­un­teer event coor­di­na­tor, the insti­ga­tor and great trip leader.

 

A group of nine planes, three leav­ing from Key West and six from McAllen Texas,with 20 COPA mem­bers and friends on board left for Tikal in Guatemala on March 14, 2015. Joyce, my broth­er Mike and I, left Hilton Head Island, SC on Fri­day March 13 to join the group leav­ing from Key West. Our planned route of flight is depict­ed below:

Our return would retrace our route, with the Texas con­tin­gent fly­ing through Mex­i­co on their return. In total our route would cov­er Thir­ty five hun­dred and nine­ty miles. Our stops would be in Belize City, Belize, Tikal, Guatemala, Liberia, Cos­ta Rica and Golfi­to, Cos­ta Rica. Our first flight to Key West was unevent­ful. Joyce, Mike and I checked into our hotel then had lunch at the South­ern Most Beach cafe with a flock of spring break­ers. We then met our Key West trav­el­ing com­pan­ions for a flight brief­ing con­duct­ed by Peter Stor­er, and then had a delight­ful din­ner at Louie’s Back­yard an excel­lent restau­rant on the water. This trip is start­ing off right. Tomor­row we take off for Belize City where we will clear cus­toms and refu­el then fly on to Tikal.

 

We are in the air on sched­ule at 9:00 AM local, and our route takes us to the north of Cuba out of sight of land. The flight is unevent­ful and we see only a cou­ple of cruise ships until we see Mex­i­co at Can­cun, then turn south over Cozumel and fly along the Yucatan coast. We do an instru­ment approach into Belize City, and our han­dler gets us through the for­mal­i­ties and on our way. Belize City is a very busy air­port and there are some dif­fer­ences in pro­ce­dures, but we work our way through it and get back in the air. We arrive in Tikal air­port after an inter­est­ing instru­ment approach in clear weath­er down a very pret­ty val­ley and by a big lake. We are met by our han­dler, tie down, clear cus­toms, and head to Las Lagu­nas resort. The resort is very nice on a small lake with mod­ern rooms over­look­ing the lake. We arrive first, but the group fly­ing from Mex­i­co arrives a short time lat­er. It’s time to show­er, relax, have a cock­tail and enjoy our first din­ner with the entire group.

The next day we are off to tour Tikal which was the cen­ter of the Mayan world dat­ing back twen­ty five hun­dred years. Over 3000 struc­tures have been mapped, and we will vis­it the cen­tral area that has been exca­vat­ed, essen­tial­ly reclaimed from the jun­gle. We have break­fast are briefed by Peter and John and off we go to meet our guides after about a hours dri­ve through the Guatemalan coun­try side. The tour was fas­ci­nat­ing with lots to learn includ­ing the local flo­ra and fau­na. We met a fam­i­ly of Koaty­mundi’s (Eng­lish Coaty­mun­di) dig­ging for insects, their lunch on the way to our lunch. This tour alone was worth the trip, and of course we had a shop­ping stop on the way back to the resort.

 

A chance to fresh­en up, relax then we went into the city of Flo­res for a din­ner at a Guatemalan Ital­ian restau­rant, anoth­er adventure.

The next day after break­fast we took a tour by boat to view a fam­i­ly of mon­keys and oth­er local ani­mals that live on the lake shore.

In the after­noon we went into the city of Flo­res for lunch and a tour of a zoo island and the city.

We returned to the lodge to brief our flight for tomor­row. It will be a long day of fly­ing with cus­toms to clear in three coun­try’s with refu­el­ing in two and we will fly over five coun­tries. Our des­ti­na­tion is Golfi­to in the south west­ern most cor­ner of Cos­ta Rica on the Pana­ma board­er. Golfi­to is non-tow­ered and clos­es at five forty five which is sun­set there. It sounds like anoth­er adventure.

 

We wake up and look out at the lake and can’t see across it due to fog, ouch, looks like more adven­ture today.

 

We get to the air­port and and our take off is delayed until after ten, but if all goes well we can make it. We fly to Belize City, refu­el, clear cus­toms and are in the air for Liberia, Cos­ta Rica. We fly over the moun­tains above clouds and land in a twen­ty knot wind with thir­ty knot gusts right down the nine thou­sand foot run­way. Cus­toms and refu­el­ing seems to take for­ev­er since our win­dow to get into Golfi­to is get­ting tight. As we land Car­ol and Stan Jensen are tak­ing off so they will get there. Final­ly we are in the air and we now face thun­der­storm build ups along the coast so we pick our way over land on the coast vers­es going out over the water into the build ups. Golfi­to air­port is hard to find in a val­ley off the water and its get­ting dark and now rain­ing. We are the last plane in, and as expect­ed we have more adven­ture. The fol­low­ing video is Stan Jensen’s approach ear­li­er in the day. I know my ter­rain warn­ing sys­tem works since it was scream­ing “pull up, pull up” on base and final.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JYH_9Napq4

We unload the air­plane and tie down, of course we get soaked but we are just hap­py to be safe and sound after six and a half hours of fly­ing with a very sporty land­ing at the end. We are tak­en by cab to the boats and then are whisked in the dark to our new home for the next few day, Zan­cu­do Lodge. Zan­cu­do turns out to be a won­der­ful resort, and the drinks tast­ed awful­ly good as did the din­ner wait­ing us. No trou­ble sleep­ing tonight.

The next morn­ing some went deep sea fish­ing, some relaxed and some explored the lodge and sur­round­ing “vil­lage”. Mike and I checked out the vil­lage, quaint and quite.

In the after­noon we took a tour by boat of the man­groves bor­der­ing the rivers that flow into the gulf. Lots of birds and mil­lions of man­grove trees. We returned just as the fish­er­men arrived at the dock.

 

It was time for cock­tails and din­ner after a very inter­est­ing first day in Zan­cu­do. On our last day we decid­ed to take a tour of Mat­a­pa­lo which is locat­ed on the penin­su­la across the gulf from the lodge. A boat ride to meet our guide then by car to the jump­ing off point for our long walk that took us into the for­est, onto one of Cos­ta Rica’s famous surf­ing spots, up to a water fall and we fin­ished with a cold local beer at a road side restau­rant. We saw lots of birds and ani­mals and dodged a rain storm by run­ning into one of the lodges along the road, just a lit­tle more adven­ture. It was inter­est­ing our guide pre­dict­ed the rain because the howler mon­keys start­ed scream­ing. While seek­ing refuge we met some peo­ple from the US, one of whom was from Mikes town, small world.

We all gath­ered for a group pic­ture, then had our final din­ner togeth­er. John and Peter were giv­en a big round of applause and thank you from the group for the great job they did orga­niz­ing and lead­ing the trip. We have amaz­ing vol­un­teers in COPA who give of their time and tal­ent with a, make things hap­pen, can do atti­tude. It is rec­og­nized and appre­ci­at­ed. This was a great group of peo­ple who became friends by shar­ing a tru­ly unique adven­ture. Tomor­row we start our trip home.

Our return starts in Zan­cu­d­ao lodge with ear­ly wake up, we must eat break­fast ear­ly and be on the boats by sev­en A.M.,because the tides are unusu­al­ly big and we could be strand­ed if we leave lat­er. Weath­er looks good and we are off to the air­port. John and Peter have the flights orga­nized with the group leav­ing for the flight through Mex­i­co leav­ing first and the Key West con­tin­gent will go last to Belize City to overnight before the last legs.

 

The one hour and twen­ty minute flight to Liberia, Cos­ta Rica is rou­tine and we are refu­eled and through cus­toms in a rea­son­able time and off for Belize City. We have a good view of the vol­cano’s around Man­agua Nicaragua, but in bro­ken clouds over the moun­tain’s and scat­tered into Belize. We see the sec­ond largest Bar­ri­er reef in the world on approach.

Refu­el, tie down the air­plane and our han­dler Rudy has us through cus­toms and into a cab for our hotel in short order. We show­er, time for a cock­tail before din­ner. Its Fri­day night, hap­py hour, with a very loud band, and this must be the place because its loaded with locals. We find a qui­et spot to have our drink before din­ner then have a ear­ly din­ner at the hotel. Next morn­ing we are back at the air­port and Rudy has our flight plan filed, we clear cus­toms quick­ly, and are in the air by 8:00 AM local time. We start to notice some elec­tri­cal anom­aly’s on climb out and for a moment we think we may have to turn back. We cross check and con­vince our­selves that we are get­ting a false fail­ure indi­ca­tor, a lit­tle more adven­ture to end our trip. The weath­er is good and we get a good look at Cuba on our way by, while talk­ing to Havana Center.

 

We have decid­ed if we can clear cus­toms quick­ly in Key West we are going to refu­el and fly on to Hilton Head since the weath­er fore­cast Sun­day is not good. We make the fast turn around and are back in the air and three hours lat­er touch down at our home air­port, tired but hap­py to have com­plet­ed a great adven­ture togeth­er. We cov­ered thir­ty five hun­dred nine­ty miles in eleven flights over an eight day peri­od. We reward our­selves with big grilled steaks and a good bot­tle of wine.

As we enjoyed our din­ner and dis­cuss our trip, we con­clude, life is so much bet­ter when you embrace adventure.