Kodiak Ferry Update 7 - Depatrure Today

By the time you get this, it is actually "Departure Today".

Yesterday morning we went to church again, this time the pastor had asked to pray for Ron and Barbara to come forward for prayer before we leave. You may remember Frank and his wife who drove to Chimoio with Ron and Barbara a few years ago. They had the privilege of flying back to White River and remembered it clearly.

The weather is forecast to turn bad here tomorrow afternoon and we want to get out while the weather still is good, if we wait for it to clear we will have to fly through it on our way east. Today we had clear skies after some fog in the morning. It is amazing how colour comes back into the world when the sun shines. Despite the clear skies, it was still bitterly cold this morning with about minus 4, but the day warmed up very nicely. We test flew the plane again today and I had the opportunity to practice some instrument flying "on the computer". Ron managed to get his Instrument check ride out of the way on Sunday, making way for us to get the chip detector light sorted out today. Unfortunately the appointment for the plane was for tomorrow at Grand Rapids. In the end, we borrowed the special tools from the shop in Grand Rapids, Barbara very graciously drove through to get it for us. I tacked the job under the instrument panel and 3 hours later we tested the annunciator, and it worked!!

By getting this repaired today, we are a day ahead of schedule and are able to fly out tomorrow to Trenton/Robbinville in New Jersey for the ferry tank final installation. This is scheduled for wednesday, but we hope to be able to get it done ahead of schedule. We will only know for sure once we get there and find out how far the paperwork process has gone.

There are still a few hiccups with the Jeppesen Flight Charts, but I got a step further today, only to find that another "Jeppesen" obstacle is in my way. I hope to solve this problem while in New Jersey while we are waiting for the plane.

Spidertracks was ordered and shipped last week, but storms and bad weather have slowed delivery, so we are expecting delivery tomorrow, but unlikely before we leave here. The plan is for Barbara to ship it on to us in New Jersey. Unfortunately this will not allow you to track our flight to the East Coast, but we will keep you updated.

All of us have run ourselves a little ragged today finalising the last many details before we leave. barbara leaves on Wednesday and has one more silly day of running round with lots of nitpicking details.

Thanks again for all your prayers and please continue to pray for good weather windows. There has been a spate of very bad weather in places all over the country.

Blessings,

John