When we first decided to build an airplane one of our big bucket list items was go fly down to the Caribbean. During the time frame of our build, Brandi and I attended a flying to the Bahamas seminar that was held for free by the FAA. They asked who the youngest pilot was in the crowd of about 40 people and guess who won it, yours truly. So they gave me charts to the Bahamas as a prize. We hung these on our wall of the garage for inspiration during our build. I'm overjoyed to write that the dream goal finally came true this past month. Last year at Oshkosh we had the great pleasure of hanging out with Tim Olson and his awesome family and they suggested the idea of a Bahamas trip. Brandi and I were on board with the plan for sure! Tim did most of the planning and we had a group of four of us RV-10 families who were going. Tim and Andrea Olson and family (myrv10.com), Sean and Hollie Strasburg (Planearound.com), Scott and RaNae Schmidt and family, and Brandi and I.
Since this site is mostly about airplane stuff, I'll keep this post short and focused on mostly that.
As a flight of four RV-10s, we departed Ft. Lauderdale, Florida headed for the Bahamas. It was a sunny beautiful day and excitement was in the air as each of our wheels left the ground to soon be over the ocean. We climbed to 8,500 feet over the top of clouds and headed for our destination of Staniel Cay of the Exuma Islands. The night before, we had all filed our EAPIS plans in order to cross the boarder of airspace of the USA and into the Bahamas.
The further we went, the more breathtaking the views became. No picture or words will capture the awesome sight of the panoramic beauty that the birds eye view provided us. Despite knowing that photos could do the experience no justice, we took some anyways to try to capture even a small glimpse of the shades of blues and the sense of freedom.
Before our final destination we would stop at San Andros to clear customs. All went well there and we were in and out fairly quickly.
We arrived at Staniel Cay and were shuttled via golf carts over to the Yacht club, where we would be staying for the next four nights. It was a charming place with great views, good food, and plenty to do for fun and relaxation. Brandi and I had the orange cottage, which looked out over the ocean with the most enjoyable porch views ever. We scuba dived, boated around and found spectacular beaches, swam the Thunderball grotto, biked around the island, kayaked, had long wonderful dinners with great company, and much more. It was perfect.
