The next morning I said goodbye to the owners of the St. Nikolas Hotel. They had been fantastic and looked after me very well, even giving me a thirty-minute word-by-word translation of a local newspaper article about the flight.
I carried my bags outside the walls of the Old Town for the last time before finding the closest road and hailing a cab. I watched the last of the Greek countryside pass by before arriving at the airport. My handler was there and we both had the same idea: let’s get the Cirrus and me out of here. Pronto.
I packed the bags into the plane and completed a pre-flight check. Just as I went to pay my handling charges I was told the only ATM machine was back inside the terminal and on the other side of security. I took a breath and off we went, I withdrew the money and fixed up the bill and just for fun we took on security one last time. I walked to the plane via the control tower, passed on my paper-written flight plan to be faxed away before being handed the printed weather forecast. Now I was good to go.
I clambered into the plane and carefully stashed away my Mars bar and bottle of Fanta. Some would say this is not the ideal breakfast, but there’s not a lot you can do when you’re faced with a vending machine.
I requested a start up and got immediate approval so with the engine warming I began the ritual of programming the avionics and working through the checks. After a few minutes tower let me know there was an issue with my flight plan, and told me to ‘just stand by and we will try and sort it out’. I sat for ten minutes, just waiting, with the aircraft idling and with everything ready to go. Tower soon replied: they hadn’t been able to resolve the problem and told me to come up to the tower. I shut down, locked the door on the Cirrus, grabbed just the iPad and my flight planning paperwork and walked briskly across the tarmac.
The flight plan had been faxed through but a notice of rejection had been faxed back. They had tried several times to change it, but without success. I had no idea what was wrong, although we figured they must have had some issue with the routing. However, as they gave no reason we had little to go on in trying to solve the problem. We sent several more plans with the prefix ‘re-routing accepted’ in the hope they would provide a suitable alternative route, but once again they turned it down.
When I sat down and looked over the chart again I could see a sliver of Israeli airspace that sat just to the west of Aqaba in Jordan. Maybe that was causing a problem. I re-routed the leg so I would not fly as close to the airspace but track further south and around it before heading north towards Aqaba for a landing. No luck.
We tried and tried: four hours later we decided to give up. I had been in contact with Mike about the overflight and landing clearances and we were still within the allocated time window, but we needed to move quickly. Mike contacted the ground crew in Aqaba and asked them to submit the plan from their end. We hoped that being so close to the Israeli airspace meant they knew exactly what was required and the correct tracking. I was now beyond frustrated.
After dozens of calls, emails and messages the flight plan was finally accepted. I received a copy and curiously scanned the details. The difference between the original flight plan and the last and final accepted plan was one waypoint. Just one! But that change had taken six hours.
I said goodbye and scooted to the plane. It was now later in the day but the weather still looked stable. All flights had been planned for the morning to take advantage of what was hopefully the best weather, but luckily this afternoon seemed okay.
This was no casual departure for me; I was late and I was on a mission. I started up and re-programmed the avionics as I taxied. I backtracked the runway and spun the Cirrus around, and with the throttle pushed forward: the Spirit of the Sapphire Coast built speed and became airborne. I turned left and picked up the flight plan track through to Jordan, taking a few last photos as I passed over the city of Rhodes. Although it had looked bleak on my arrival, I could now see and understand what I was looking at, and I was happy I had done that.
When I levelled off at around 9000 feet I was well over the ocean. I knew I was not destined to see land until I crossed the coast of Egypt and descended into Jordan. I fell back into the rhythm I had developed, overcoming the first awkward ferry fuel transfer, which meant shuffling from my seat and encouraging the fuel to flow through the air-filled lines. I then continued to transfer fuel, record engine trends and plan ahead for my arrival. Although just under five hours, the relatively short leg would take me from one world to another. I had never been anywhere that resembled the culture or lifestyle of Jordan.
When I was thirsty I reached for my bottle of Fanta, only to find that six hours sitting in the cabin of the Cirrus had slightly warmed my one and only beverage. I was a little disappointed but with nothing to lose I jammed the bottle between two vents, carefully holding it still with my leg while allowing the cold air to hit the warm bottle. Half an hour later I cracked the lid on what was a freshly chilled drink. I couldn’t believe it had worked and for the first time that day, I had a win. Bear Grylls would have been impressed.
The water soon came to an end and what looked like an endless sandy beach turned out to be Egypt. I crossed the coast before turning left and heading towards Jordan and although I was only over Egypt for a short while I was blown away by the landscape. Everything was just the one colour, a monotonous sandy grey and gold blur that stretched as far as the eye could see. If I looked extremely carefully I could see the outlines of seemingly camouflaged cities and towns. I even spotted a near invisible airport.
I was headed straight for Jordan on the northern tip of the Red Sea, but this also meant I was headed straight towards Israeli airspace. As I expected I was told to turn right and track down the Red Sea until requested to turn back. I followed orders and when I banked to the right I spotted Aqaba off the left wing. I would end up there at some point, I just didn’t know when. I was told to remain at 13,000 feet and tracked for miles and miles until approved to turn back, when a 180-degree U-turn lined me up with the runway at Aqaba and I was told to descend.
The closer I came to the ground the more I realised just where I was. I was about to touch down in the middle of the desert. It was a scene straight out of the Bible; the only thing missing was a camel. In the distance a runway appeared, a long dark sealed strip that stood out like nothing else, mainly because everything within sight of it was a bright golden colour. The northern tip of the Red Sea disappeared underneath the nose just before I touched down. With a slight screech of the tyres I had arrived in Jordan.
I taxied to what looked like the terminal where I saw a building with peculiar script I took to be Arabic on the front and beside it the word ‘Arrivals’. That’ll do me, I thought.
I leaped out into the driest and hottest weather yet. There was no welcoming committee, no one to greet me, so I unpacked the basics and wandered to the terminal doors. I needed to clear Customs before worrying about what to do with the plane and I was taken through to have my fingerprints and a quick photo taken. My passport was handed back before I was introduced to my handler, a nice guy with a true passion for aviation. I found that throughout the trip, regardless of the culture, the country, the cost of fuel or the sights, a shared passion for aviation meant that casual conversation was easy.
With only one night in Jordan I needed to have the aircraft refuelled immediately. The next day was a long leg to Muscat in Oman which would see a good nine hours spent over Saudi Arabia. I was already late and we needed to get a move on, otherwise I would never get to bed. The handler showed me where to taxi. They had a fuel bowser near the local aero club hangar where we would refuel and then park up the plane.
With the Cirrus pulled alongside the pump I began to empty the cabin. The equipment lay everywhere and the slight wind took hold of some foam sheeting and gave it an impromptu lesson on how to fly. I was working on unpacking so my handler went for a run in an attempt to restrain the foam. It kept him busy for a little while. We began to pump the fuel into the ferry tank after I had filled the wings and it took quite a while, but patience was something I had learned.
The diversion to Jordan had happened so quickly I wasn’t really familiar with the local area. As I pumped away I asked the guy, ‘How much is the fuel here?’ I took his: ‘Ah, I might tell you that when you are finished,’ as another way of saying ‘expensive’. I was right, it was seven dollars per litre. After a pumping a good 700 litres into the Cirrus, I didn’t need a calculator: someone to administer CPR would have been more useful.
I hopped in an old ute with my new mate and we set off for the motel after attempting to submit the next day’s flight plan. The security was insane, they wouldn’t let me back onto the tarmac even though I had just landed an aircraft in their airport. The security guy had a large gun so I kept my opinion to myself, but he and the handler traded words for a little while. Finally they let me zip in and out of the office, the plan was faxed away and the plane was good to go.
As we pulled out of the airport I had my eyes fixed on the palm trees, passing highway and general tidiness of the area. I suddenly looked up to see a bunch of camels crossing the road. All part of the experience.
The motel, which turned out to be nice, was in the centre of the city of Aqaba. The buildings and shopfronts all had signs in that peculiar font with a little English to help alongside, although I didn’t need that when working out what to have for a late dinner. Across the road stood a huge red sign attached to a red and white building. KFC.
This was the only thing I could relate to home or Western civilisation, everything else was very different. After dropping my bags to my room, I wandered inside and ordered something to eat and paid with the only cash I had, a US $100 bill. I have no idea what the conversion rate was, but a few of them gathered around the calculator to work through the issue. I was handed a heavy handful of Jordanian currency which I didn’t even bother counting, as it would have been absolutely no use. I might have just paid for the most expensive KFC ever.
Six hours’ delay in Greece had been frustrating but in the end it was worth it. I wandered back after dinner, on the way buying a small stuffed camel to add to the collection of crew in the Cirrus, and had a chat to the guys on the front desk. I told them I would be checking out early, they mentioned I would miss breakfast but a ‘breakfast box’ could be organised for me if I wished.
Sure, why not, I thought. What could go wrong?