Many years ago Mercy Air re-furbished some shipping containers and drove
them up to Marromeu near the end of the Zambezi River in Mozambique, in
order to set up a base from where we could help a local mission team
work with the almost forgotten people in the Zambezi Delta region. As
there are no roads this mission group used to travel three days by
dug-out open canoe in order to reach the delta, a journey which now
takes our helicopter only 20 minutes!
The weather and humidity had taken its toll on the five containers and
they were in bad need of repair. For this reason we flew a team, tools
and materials up for a week to bring the structures up to standard. They
had only been there a couple of days when they got a call that the
father of a missionary doctor in Beira had been taken ill and was
coughing up blood - could we help? Without much delay John, Mercy Air's
chief pilot, went to Beira, collected the patient and flew him and his
son back to South Africa, where he spent a week in hospital. The rest of
the team stayed in Marromeu working on the 'container base'.
At the end of the week Paul, another of Mercy Air's pilots, flew up with Andy, a maintenance guy looking
at joining Mercy Air, to help with the last few issues, and obviously
to fly the team back to South Africa.
We're always amazed at the range the Kodiak has. In the shot below we had
already been flying for an hour, yet could still have cleared Madagascar
to the east or Cape Town if we had turned round.
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| Dotted green circle - 45mins fuel left. Solid green - no fuel. |
The view was similar to the range - seemingly almost limitless.
We have been flying to Marromeu for many years. Back in the day, we used
to land in the middle of town, but these days that would be unwise!
Fortunately the local sugar company has built a strip out in its plantations and we can safely land there.
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| Short final Rwy 11 |
We knew it was toasty up there but weren't quite expecting 41 deg C on the ground at 15:00 in the afternoon!
The container base has provided 'moderatley' comfortable accommodation,
kitchen and ablution facilities for the heli crew as well as a place to
store supplies, fuel and to facilitate some minor on-going maintenance
for the helicopters themselves.
The containers were fitted with roofs to keep the rain off as well as to
provide airflow to allow cooler conditions inside. One of the main
issues was that the steel frames that supported the roofs were badly
corroded and needed major work to prevent the sheets being torn off in
the upcoming rainy/windy season.
Another of the issues that was fixed was the lighting for security at night.
Saying our goodbyes at the strip on the day we left.
On the way back we flew past a teddy bear who was waving at us!
The work we were able to do at the base will be effective through the
next rainy season, but we will need to give it some major attention next
year if they are to continue to be an asset in helping us help the
communities in the delta, who's only contact with the outside world is a helicopter, or a three day dug-out open canoe journey.
Thank you
Paul for the Mercy Air team
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