Catch The Wind

Catching My Attention:

Recently, there was a television commercial for Volvo cars. Although I am a “car nut,” I remember little about the commercial specifically other than they used as the soundtrack a delicate, poignant song called “Catch The Wind” by a 1960’s folk artist named Donovan. Beautiful song! Just his soft voice and an acoustic guitar for the first two verses:

In the chilly hours and minutes
Of uncertainty
I want to be
In the warm hold of your loving mind.

To feel you all around me
And to take your hand
Along the sand
Ah, but I may as well try and catch the wind.

Whoa. Take me back, country roads! Wow.

EDIT! Got to love YouTube! I found one of the very commercials of which I spea...er, write (there are others). Now, they don't use the entire first two verses, but you can get the idea.

I am a child of the ‘60s. And that song touched a nerve like you wouldn't believe...brought back a flood of fond memories that made me feel…I don’t know, all gooey inside. Like I say, I didn’t remember which car Volvo was advertising, only that it made me want one! And there isn’t even any place to drive one down here.

Donovan was one of the first single-name artists. He was touted to be England’s answer to Bob Dylan. Society seems to have some neurotic need to have a counterpoint to everything. A yang for every yin. If England had The Beatles, then America had to have our “answer to The Beatles” (although we didn’t). And we desperately search for these things, as if they have some meaning or importance (although they don’t).

But Donovan was never a Dylan. Donovan was a spacey hippy-dippy who sang dreamy, tender songs about the lost continent of Atlantis and electrical bananas. "Catch The Wind" was his first hit back in

1965. I'm surprised that no one has used it in a t.v. commercial before now.

But then, just yesterday the t.v. was on in the main house which is just one big, open kitchen/dining room/den. Our cook keeps the t.v. on constantly (it’s soooooo annoying) when I'm trying to work. I hear "Catch The Wind" and look up, expecting to see the Volvo commercial. Whaddya know, it is a commercial for yet another company that's using the song! (Hello, originality?) I don’t remember what product or company it was for, only that there was some kid bottling air at the seashore, then taking it on a long journey to his grandfather’s(?) birthday party to let it out. Who knows. I didn’t care; I wasn’t paying attention. I was mesmerized again by the snippet of that wonderful song.

VALIDATION:

I hate quoting other people’s blogs, but I found an interesting passage in Chuck Nyren’s “Advertising To Baby Boomers” blog:

"Purely anecdotal: I’m watching TV. I hear a tune I haven’t heard in thirty-five, forty years. My mind goes off into the ether. “Wow. What a great song. I’d forgotten all about it. I had the album. The cover was blue . . . And there were a bunch of other great songs on that album. What the hell were they? I can’t remember . . . I wonder if I can get it on Amazon. There’s probably only a compilation of his hits, or a boxed set. But I just want the CD of the album. I’ll have to remember to check the next time I’m online ..” By then, the commercial is over. In fact, probably three other commercials are over. I have no idea what the product is, or what any of the other products are."

Nyren hit the nail on the head (and although he didn't say it, it's like he's referring to the same commercial I'm talking about here). Advertising agencies are targeting us baby boomers big time. They think they’re being clever by using these “trigger” songs from our past, but a lot of time we just remember the song and not the product. I had to google the second commercial that used “Catch The Wind” to find out that it was an ad for G.E. (Love that instantaneous Google!)

There is a cruise line that uses punk-rock artist Iggy Pop’s relatively-obscure song, “Lust For Life” as its soundtrack. Everyone looks like they’ve having a wonderful time rock-climbing and jet-skiing to Iggy’s pounding, drum-heavy tune. It makes taking a cruise look thrill-a-minute exciting! But as many times as I've seen the commercial, do not ask me which cruise line it is for. Carnival? Royal Caribbean? Are there others? Your guess is as good as mine. I’m not a cruise kind of guy (you know me and boats…), but if I were, that spot would probably make me want to take one. Pity that the commercial didn’t register more firmly in my mind to make me want to take a trip on that particular cruise line. What are these advertising people thinking? That it’s “good enough” to get people merely thinking about buying a Volvo or taking a cruise? Isn’t product identity worth anything anymore?

There are those who don’t like the corrupting of our past: using old, iconic songs for crass, commercial purposes. To be honest, I don’t know how I feel about it. On one hand I agree that commercializing our musical heritage is wrong. But on the other, I hadn’t heard “Catch The Wind” in so long…and now it’s in rotation on my iPod, along with some other Donovan tunes that I fondly recall but had forgoten. So, is using such music in commercials bad? You couldn't prove it by me.

All I know is that I still want a damn Volvo.


P.S.

By the way, while I’m at it here’s how Chuck Nyren’s expanded profile reads on his blog:

“Chuck Nyren is an award-winning advertising video producer, creative strategist, consultant, and copywriter focusing on The Baby Boomer Market. Chuck has been in advertising since before he was born - a true 'Madison Avenue Baby.' His grandfather Sid Schwinn was one of…”

Wait...didn’t he write that himself? Or did he actually get someone else to come in and ghost-write up a profile on HIS blog? I know I shouldn't make fun, but...

PET PEEVE TIME: It really irks me when people refer to themselves in the third-person. Are you that egotistical? I’m sorry, but it would be like my profile reading:

“Bob Barbanes has been in aviation since before he was born. His father was a pilot in the U.S. Marine Corps, flying everything from

F-4U Corsairs in WWII to jets to helicopters during the Korean Conflict. Bob loves to fly. He has owned ten motorcycles, and his favorite foods are red beans and rice and key lime pie. And this is not Bob writing this. Really. It's someone else.”

But I couldn’t do that to you. I respect you too much. I know that you know that I write every word of this blog…uhh…well, except for that excerpt above from Nyren’s blog. So you’ll never hear me refer to myself in the third-person.

Weekends are for...

I’ve mentioned the need to wash the helicopter in the last two posts, and you might get the impression that I’m somewhat obsessive about it. I’m not, but there is something very therapeutic about the task. …A task, by the way, that I absolutely hated back before I was a pilot when my job was to wash helicopters. So many little nooks and crannies and dirt gets into every single damn one of them…Grrrrr…

I have a strange relationship with my helicopter. The failure of one single critical part could mean my instant and ugly demise. I therefore have a little vested interest in seeing that it remains airworthy. Luckily, I used to work for the manufacturer of the ship. This gave me access to all kinds of technical data and information that would not be available to the average pilot or mechanic. Over the years I learned how the helicopter was designed and is built from the rivets outward. So it’s not a stretch to say that I have an intimate (if one-sided) relationship with this FH1100, N4034W.

Sunday was beautiful and clear with just enough wind blowing to keep it from being miserably hot. I put on some sunscreen (forehead of ever-increasing size), gathered my supplies, then went out to the ship, took off my shirt and got to work.

And I have to say, I like to work alone on this particular job. People often generously offer to help, which I appreciate. Usually I’m all about letting other people do my work. But to me in this case they just get in the way. Typically, they like to get the job over with, get it done and get back inside out of the heat, which is completely understandable.. I like to take my time. It’s not just a wash job, it’s a detailed and thorough inspection. The boss’s name may be on the registration card, but it is my baby.

Washing it means more than just throwing some soapy water on and then hosing it off. If only! First and foremost is to note what kind of “dirt” is on the airframe and where. The engine produces an oily soot that coats the entire fuselage aft of the exhaust stacks. And it’s interesting to see that it’s heavier on one side than the other. You’d think that the flow of air down the sides of an aircraft would be uniform, but it is not. There are complicated aerodynamic reasons for this. They are not important. It just “is.”

I also look for fluid leaks. There are a myriad gearboxes, oil lines and connections. The whole powertrain flexes and moves depending on how much power I’m demanding of it. It takes a lot of power to take-off; somewhat less power for steady-state cruising; and low power for an approach to land. If things were absolutely rigid, stress-cracks would develop. Clever designers understand this and allow for some movement. But this movement can cause leakage. Not to mention the helicopters naturally vibrate a lot, which can also cause leaks.

Additionally, there are a lot of grease fittings. And it’s interesting to see which ones “throw” grease. (A lot of grease coming out can be an indication of bad seals.)

Fortunately, Three-Four Whiskey leaks very little. This is a source of great pleasure to me. See, all helicopters leak, and it’s surprising how much oil can leak out and still be considered “normal.” It is said about certain models that “If it ain’t leaking, there’s no oil in it.” This also used to be said about Harley-Davidson motorcycles back in the day (the day before I owned mine – which didn’t leak a drop).

I open all of the maintenance inspection panels, and pore over all those nooks and crannies that I used to despise. Now they have meaning and importance. I look for corrosion and cracks and worn bearings and things that just don’t seem right. I’ve caught just a couple of things so far: fluid lines that vibrated too close to each other and would start fretting if not moved back apart; a broken wire. All in all though, it has been an incredibly dependable and trouble-free helicopter.

It takes a good coupla-three hours to do a proper wash job. When I’m done it looks like a new helicopter! It’s incredibly satisfying to see the results. I should have taken “before” and “after” pictures, but I’d be too ashamed to show you the bird in its dirty state. However more than just being clean, I know that it is a safe, airworthy helicopter that will get me from here to there and back again. And it’s funny. A clean helicopter is a happy helicopter. It seems to fly “better” when it’s clean. Don’t ask me why, or even to quantify it. My imagination, you say? Perish the thought! It knows when it’s clean, it just does.

So that was my Sunday. Of course on Monday it rained.

Dunbar Rock

Guanaja is an interesting, fascinating, special place. For one thing, you really have to want to get here. Our tiny airport can only handle the smallest commuter planes (and one resident helicopter!). From the United States, you have to fly into one of the mainland Honduras cities like San Pedro Sula or La Ceiba, then get a connecting flight up. Once here, you get plopped out onto an unattended airport to or from which no roads lead. There are a couple of operating "resorts" on Guanaja, but the only way to get to them is by boat. The biggest "town" in Guanaja is the island of Bonacca Town (commonly referred to as simply "the Cay").

Virtually decimated by Hurricane Mitch in 1998, Guanaja has been slow to recover and rebuild. Many businesses that had been thriving have gone under. What small tourist industry that did exist evaporated.

The only reason to come to Guanaja is to scuba dive. Either that, or to seriously get away from it all. Guanaja is, if nothing else, remote...which is not a bad thing, oh no! The other Bay Islands have better-developed dive and tourist industries. Guanaja has two, maybe three companies that can take you out diving. The tiny island of Utila looks like Key West compared to Guanaja.

Approaching Guanaja from the southwest
(I took the picture through the bubble on a hazy day, which explains why it's not too clear.)

The island of Guanaja lies roughly east/west and is ringed by a coral reef. In the photo above, you can see the very southwest end of the reef and how it protects Bonacca, visible just to the upper-right of center. (Right-click on the picture and select "Open in New Window." It's not that big.) Also visible is the airport runway, adjacent to a canal that bisects the island.

Although the right-hand (southeast) end of the runway looks developed with houses, zooming-in will reveal just a couple of boat-repair shacks (and our big quonset hut of a hangar). On Guanaja itself, right across from the Cay is the town of Pelican (or Pichete as the locals call it). How people built those houses up the hill from the water is beyond me. Every bit of construction material had to be lugged up by hand. There are no cars, and no roads to drive them on anyway. Most people in Guanaja live right at the water level.

Because it's so remote and undeveloped (read: unspoiled), Guanaja has some spectacular Caribbean views. For instance, check this out...

Right out of a travel brochure, isn't it?

One of the unique structures on Guanaja is Dunbar Rock. It's that little island just to the left of center in the above picture. Some enterprising people built a big (for Guanaja) hotel on the rock. It's changed hands at least one time, maybe more. Most recently, it belongs to the Nautilus Dive Resort. Their website is, um, wordy and full of hyperbole and "poetic license" if not to say a teensy bit of outright bullshit. "Virtually no crime. No panhandling. No dope-peddling, beach-bumming nor randy chick-stalking..." What?! Oh, please. At least they did get it right when they called Bonacca a "...bizarre little hamlet." That, it is. Hold your nose.

But hey, it's their sales job, and if they want to make Guanaja sound like paradise-on-earth that's fine by me. Because...you know...it is. Okay, minor carping aside, Nautilus' website does have some really good stuff about the Bay Islands in general and Guanaja specifically. And I think that despite some real-world concerns, the majority of people who come here will have an incredible, unforgettable, time-of-their-life experience that they'll treasure in their memory for the rest of their lives (okay, that's *my* sales job).

Contractor: "You want me to build WHAT?? WHERE???

As I said, Guanaja is a special place. We have just the very beginnings (or re-beginnings) of a tourist industry here. Nobody wants to see Guanaja turn into St. Thomas, U.S.V.I., but there are the dreamers among us who'd like to see a cruise ship dock. However, I think that there are certain inherent physical limitations to Guanaja that will keep that from happening - at least, for the really big cruise ships. Like that no-road-from-the-airport-to-anywhere thing. "The Road" is a very controversial, contentious and divisive issue. But for Guanaja to progress we are going to have to have a road, that should be obvious. It remains to see what we all define as "progress."

We cannot ruin what makes Guanaja the incredible, spectacular Caribbean hideaway it is. Fortunately, there are guys like my boss with a vested interest in seeing that it doesn't happen - that we don't kill the golden goose.

Now see? I was going to go out and wash the helicopter today, and yet I've spent just about the whole morning writing up this travelogue.

Weekend Fun and Games

I get invited to a lot of parties. Seems everyone down here loves to party! Which is completely understandable, considering where we are. Unfortunately I have a day job and am blessed/cursed with at least a minimal work ethic. So when there is work to do on the weekend, I end up not going to a lot of parties. Like the one I was invited to today. People must think I'm horribly anti-social. Plus, for me to turn down an opportunity to go drink someone else's free alcohol...

After all of the flying we did this week, the helicopter needs a bath badly (not to mention some maintenance scrutiny). I had planned on doing that today. But we've hired these consultants/engineers...and wouldn't you know it, four of them wanted to come to Guanaja on the weekend to do their survey work. Which is fine, but they're a *little* high-maintenance, always needing this or that. (Doesn't anybody bring enough goddam water with them when they KNOW they're going to be out in the heat of the day climbing steep hills? Even when they're warned? Even when we have TONS of bottled water here. I mean, come on, what is this, rocket science?) And then there's the: "We need to run here, can you send the boat right now?" Yes, I'll come right over. "Actually, we need two boats. Can you have one stay with two of us while we do our work on the reef?" Yes, that can be done. "Oh, we need to go back to there now...can we get another ride?" They're testing my patience, but we need them, so they get what they want with a smile. A forced smile, but a smile nonetheless.

At supper I asked what they'd like to drink. "Do you have any wine?" the female consultant asked. Why, we sure do! I just happen to have! So I opened a nice bottle of Chilean red (our favorite Casillero del Diablo). As I set it on the table, she looked at the uncorked bottle and asked, "Umm, on second thought, do you have any Coke?" The other consultants nodded in concurrence.

Coke!

Isn't it funny how, when somebody starts to get on your nerves, everything they subsequently do grates like screeching chalk on a blackboard? This one woman consultant is a nice enough person. But even Daniel our cook had had enough. He rolled his eyes and made some "comments," the nicest of which was, "Good God, she's sooooo picky!"

Heh. Ah well, sometimes I think it's me. My tolerance can be very short.

And then this morning around six a.m. Roger Wood, the head of the local power company called. "Sorry to bother you with this..." he began as he always does. There was a kid on the Cay with an appendix about to pop like a party balloon. The doctor didn't think the kid could wait until the first airline flight out (which would be around midday); could I fly him now? Roger, you gotta ask? (I was happy to escape, even if it was only for a couple of hours.)

Roger thinks it's a big, personal imposition on me, which is nice. Little does he know that: a) I love to fly, especially on bright, clear mornings; and b) on weekends I keep myself and the ship ready for a medevac trip to the mainland because of what I call the "Friday Night Savannah Bight Machete Fight." A while back there were two weekends in a row where I took the (presumed) losers of machete fights down to the mainland. I got to thinking, Is this gonna be a normal thing? I am happy to report that it is not, thank God.

Anyway, I saddled up and flew over to the airport (still no place to land on the Cay) where I loaded the skinniest little 16 year-old boy there could ever be and his equally-skinny 16 year-old friend/escort/translator/support guy. Starving kids in Biafra would give up their sandwiches to these boys. Fashion models would envy these anorexic waifs, asking for their dieting secrets: How do they stay so skinny? (Simple answer: No fast-food and an active lifestyle. Think it would work for American kids?) Both of these kids together weighed less than one me.

It was kind of comical going into La Ceiba. I told the tower controller that I was an air ambulance flight and was requesting a taxi to meet us on the ramp so the passenger wouldn't have to walk through the terminal. I might as well have been speaking Greek (or English!) to the poor woman, who simply did not understand what I wanted, even when a kind-hearted bi-lingual airplane pilot intervened - or tried to. But the controller still did not understand. "You need an ambulance?" she kept repeating. It was sort of monopolizing the frequency, and it was pretty fruitless. I could almost hear the airline pilots muttering under their breath, "Mierda! Piloto gringo ...porque el pendejo no aprende a hablar espanol?" Which loosely translates to "Drat! That fine American gentleman should learn to speak Spanish!" Or something like that.

Sure enough, a big crowd met us with a stretcher when we shut down. I lifted skinny boy #1 out of his seat with one arm. I suppose I could have just grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, like a puppy. We laid him down on the stretcher. And the kid was lying there, looking like he was in a lot of pain. I made some lame joke, at which he laughed, and which point I found out that it's not good to make somebody suffering from appendicitis laugh. Oops, sorry. An airport stationwagon pulled up and they loaded him in. Okay, to the hospital now? Nope, the airport vehicle took the kid...as far as the line of waiting taxis at the terminal just outside the gate to the ramp. Why didn't they...? Why couldn't they...? Ah, just keep repeating after me, "This is Honduras."

Typical patient-loading scene at La Ceiba Airport

I wish we had a better solution to our ground transport situation in La Ceiba. I mean, it's great to hurry people off Guanaja and down to the mainland, but whenever we get there, it's a hassle getting the person to the hospital. Ambulances are rare. The Red Cross will send over their ambulance if it is not otherwise engaged. They charge 300 lempiras for a trip to the hospital, payable up front please.

Coming back, I stayed up high where the air was cool and smooth. It was nice to just drive for a change...fly along without a photographer asking for stuff...fly along just enjoying the view. I wished I'd brought along my iPod.

Maybe I'll get to wash the helicopter tomorrow (Sunday) morning. Ah, but the consultants have already started in with their demands...er, "requests." I have a feeling it's going to be another one of "those" days. Almost makes me wish for another medevac. Almost.

Drilling Rigs and Tall ships

Okay, to answer my, "Where's Bob been?" emails...it's been a busy week that has left me with little time to blog. We had two - count 'em, two! different photographers doing stories on Guanaja and to whom we provided the bird's eye view you can only get from a helicopter in exchange for the promise of some "good press" for Guanaja. Plus, the boss was in town which always generates excitement. Plus, we had some special guests down from the States and wanted to make sure they had a good time. So we all had our hands full this week. Me, I did a lot of flying. It was almost like work! You know...if what I do could be even remotely classified as "work"...which it can't (just don't tell my boss).

I'll tell you how our minds work. They play tricks. I was flying from our cay to the airport one day this week, and I saw a couple of "things" sticking straight up out of the water. Immediately I think, "jack-up rig." A jack-up rig is a drilling rig with these big legs (usually three or four) that stick way up above the rig structure. The rig itself can float, and is towed out to the position at which it's going to work. Then the legs get "jacked-down" to the seafloor. Once they hit bottom, they will stop but the jacks keep working, lifting the rig up and completely out of the water. If the water is deep enough, you might not see any part of the leg sticking up above the rig itself. But then I thought, "Wait, it can't be a jack-up here in Guanaja...Or can it?"

Here is a picture of a small jack-up rig.

This rig can operate in a hundred feet of water or so. Anyway, that's what I thought I saw. It shows how long I was working out in the Gulf of Mexico. Because here's what I actually saw.

The Harvey Gamage

Easy mistake, right? Tall ship...jack-up rig... Maybe not. But from far away and at a quick glance, the two masts looked like...oh, never mind. Like I said, our minds are funny.

The Harvey Gamage belongs to the Ocean Classroom Foundation, based in Rhode Island, in the United States. They have three such ships and they take people on various trips (teenagers in this case, apparently). It's probably expensive, but probably worth it. You can read more about the Harvey Gamage here. The page has a link to the "ship's log" which is an infrequently updated account of where they've been and what they're doing. It does show them currently in Guanaja, and I suspect that the next entry will read: "A crazy helicopter pilot with two photographers hanging out of the doors circled around us for about thirty minutes like an annoying mosquito the other day. And now, every time it flies by (which it does a lot) it simply must buzz us to see if any of the girls are skinny-dipping. The pilot appears to be a middle-aged, paunchy, balding pervert. I think I shall report him to the FAA." (See, the captain of the Harvey Gamage writes a lot like me.)

I have no idea how long the Harvey Gamage is going to stay. Perhaps it will be gone in the morning, which would be a shame. I'd like a chance to talk to the crew, and with the kids, to see if it's really an educational experience or merely an MTV "reality show" without the cameras. Whatever, it looked like the kids were having a great time!

There is plenty to talk about this week. It will all coming spilling out very soon.

Company Barbecue, Part I

We had a little company barbecue on last Saturday night. I'd been wanting to have some sort of company picnic or barbecue since before Christmas. But it was logistically too hard to put together. We have about forty workers. Half of them come from the Cay or its nearby neighbor town of Pelican; the other half come from a town on the other end of Guanaja called Savannah Bight. The job site is roughly equidistant from the two towns, but there is really nothing to do there (and I'm not crazy about having kids running around with all of the hazards a construction site contains). Getting everyone in the same place at the same time is tough enough on a normal work day.

The simplest solution was to have two parties! A little more expensive, but better for the guys and better overall.

The first one was planned for Saturday night on the Cay. A house was arranged. It seems that people are always willing to lend us their houses. Or should I say, the underneath of their houses. Most homes here are built up on stilts, leaving a big, open party area below. Conveniently, most houses even have a bathroom for this downstairs area.

I had some chorizo sausage flown up from La Ceiba. We grilled it up and served it with soft tortillas, chimol (pronounced "she-MOLE" and is what they call salsa here) and black beans. "Slap-yo-mama good" as they say in New Orleans! Which is an expression I've never quite understood. I mean, I lived/worked in south Louisiana for a long time, and I never actually heard anyone say in the first-person, after taking a bite of something, "Meh-yeah, cher! You know, this makes me want to slap my mama." But I digress. It was damn good chorizo.

Mmmm, chorizo!

Our worker Donovan Bodden brought his computer with its thousand-song music library and hooked it into a little stereo. Chorizo and beer and good friends and loud Soca music - that's about as good as it gets, man! (It is a simple life here, and for me that is one of the big attractions.) Lots of people pitched in and helped - like our tireless, always-smiling foreman Lalo Suazo and even former-employee and all-around great guy Negy Chiessa without both of whom there would not have been a party.

Not as many people showed up as I'd expected though, which is kind of puzzling. Free food? Free beer? My guys are usually not the type to turn such an opportunity down.

There weren't many girls that came. There never are, for some reason that eludes me. Banacca is a male-dominated place. I know for a fact that there are women on the Cay - I have personally seen them; they just don't show up for parties, evidently. At least, not the beer-drinkin', sausage-eatin', raucous parties that we end up having. Okay, there were some women who came, so it wasn't a total "sausage-fest." But really, not many came.

Negy did bring his beautiful wife Susane (just say "Suzy"). They'd been living together as a married couple for a long time. However, they finally made it official and had an actual ceremony on Valentine's Day. Heh-heh, smart guy, that Negy. You know that he will never forget his wedding anniversary...

Negy, Susane, and Kelcy

Kelcy is not as drunk as he looks in the picture. He'd been cooking the chorizos over the grill and smoke all night by this time. Well, okay, he is pretty drunk too.

There are always cute kids who want their picture taken.

A proverbial good time! One of our workers, Sargento, showed up and immediately started dancing. And boy, could he dance! People will surprise you sometimes, and Sargento surprised everyone. Funny thing about dancing: Guys don't like to do it. But if one starts, the others will join in. Suddenly there were a whole bunch of people dancing! Except for yours truly of course. First off, I have that old football/war injury to the knee (one or the other, I forget), but in addition I was drunk but not that drunk, thank you very much.

And speaking of drunks...

Kenny, Larry, Jose-Luis and Tingo (from left)

Kenny and Jose-Luis are our workers. Larry is a bartender up at Graham's Place, and Tingo works for Sosa Airlines. Good guys, good friends, and a good-looking bunch to boot, aren't they? Except for that chin-whisker thing that is so popular among single guys who mistakenly think it makes them look better. Still, you'd think women would be lining up for these guys. But nooooooo. (By the way, can you tell which one of the above guys is married?)

Ah yes, it's all fun and games until someone knocks over the grill. Thanks, Tingo! Have another beer!

The party broke up around midnight. Most of us meandered down to La Cueva, the local disco ("The Cave"). It was there that I found all of the women of Guanaja, hanging around and trying to get the drunk guys to buy them drinks. Silly girls - they just should have come to our party!

We still had another barbecue to give for the workers in Savannah Bight. The only things I was going to make sure of was that: 1) Donovan came with his music; and 2) Sargento came and got there early. Chorizo and beer are one thing (two things, actually) but it's the music and dancing that make it a party!

Many Happy Returns (Okay, Two)

I have done a lot of "medical flights" since the helicopter and I arrived here in August, 2006. Most if not all were true "life or death" situations in which the person's (or their unborn child's) life would have been in grave danger if they had not gotten off Guanaja pronto. As such, they are stressful events for all involved, including me. I hate seeing people in pain.

But of all of the people I've taken down to the mainland, I usually don't see them again. They get better, or not (sadly) but in any event we don't transport them back up to Guanaja by helicopter - except in the one case of the woman from here who had a heart attack in La Ceiba and who wanted to die in her own bed - we made an exception there.

Our foreman Devant has an older brother (about my age) who was in a bad car wreck in Miami a while back that left him paralyzed from the neck down. Once his injuries healed, he was shuffled off to a long-term care facility (read: nursing home) that was by all reports just a terrible place. He was not receiving the kind of care he needed. Devant's family decided to bring him to Guanaja. They fixed up a room in a house down on the Cay, and arranged transportation from Miami to the island of Roatan (since there is no direct service to Guanaja from anywhere but La Ceiba). Once he was in Roatan, we flew down in the helicopter yesterday to fetch him.

We weren't sure whether he would need a stretcher or if he could sit in one of the seats. Luckily, he was able to sit up. We loaded him in the ship, strapped him in and were gone from Roatan in record time. I took the long way home, flying low along the island, over all the little towns that dot the south shore. Devant's family was from Roatan, and in their youth, he and Lanier had spent a lot of time diving and boating the many coves, inlets and bays of the island. They shared a lot of memories on that flight. I really couldn't bring myself to rush it.

Up at Guanaja, we circled around the whole island - the big tour. I don't know how many more chances Lanier will have to get out and around; the facilities for handicapped people such as he are simply nonexistent. So I wanted to give him a good look - something to hold in his mind. I have a feeling that the only thing he's going to be seeing from now on are the four walls of his new room.

It was a truly great flight.

And then today I got another boost! I got to bring back up to Guanaja someone who was so seriously injured that many of us thought he was a goner: Marcos Ortega, the Belco (power company) employee who got electrocuted when the power pole he was climbing turned out to be, in fact, live. It happened back in early November. You may remember the story I wrote about Marcos when it happened.

Marcos' injuries were very, very bad. Electrical burns are awful; they cook you from the inside out. He ended up losing his entire left arm (the whole thing, gone), his entire right leg (same thing) and most of his left foot. If there were any other appendages damaged, I do not want to know about them. For more than a week afterward, it was still touch-and-go whether he would live. But live, he did! Gradually, his strength grew and the doctors released him to go home. Understandably, Marcos went through a period of depression. He did not want to return to Guanaja immediately. He did not want his family and friends seeing him in such a state. But the human spirit is a wonderful thing, and it healed faster than his physical wounds.

So this morning, Roger Wood (the head of Belco) and I flew down to La Ceiba. We had told Marcos to be ready for a nine a.m. departure; he was there way early. We met him, his wife Georgina and a whole entourage of people at the airport. Marcos seemed in surprisingly good spirits, smiling and eager to be on his way.

We gave him the front seat for the ride back. Again, I took the scenic route, a slight diversion over the Cayos Cuchinos (Hog Islands), a startlingly beautiful group of little cays surrounding two big islands. Nobody seems to know much about the Cayos. There are apparently places to stay there - rustic-looking "resorts." But huge, above-ground water tanks point to a lack of natural fresh water (why no ground-level cisterns?) and I'm not sure what the electrical power situation is. Still, they look like a wonderful, undiscovered vacation spot - if you happen to speak Spanish, which I'm sure is pretty much all they speak there.

Me, Georgina, and Marcos on the way home

Then we did the "tour around Guanaja." As we flew over the town of Savannah Bight I noticed a big crowd in a soccer field on the west side of town. Roger told us that they were all waiting for Marcos' arrival. I was, like, "Wh-wha-whaaaaat? I thought we were landing at the airport?" I guess it was one little detail they forgot to mention. Oh well, it was a big soccer field. My fear was that the helicopter would be swamped with people before I could get the rotors stopped. The tail rotor can be especially dangerous, because it is nearly invisible when it is spinning. And it will slice you up like a salami if you're not careful.

The crowd was excited...jubilant, even but very well-behaved. With their balloons and signs, they politely waited until we were completely shut down before mobbing us. Two ministers from the local Adventist church came and presided over a group prayer that not only welcomed Marcos home, but thanked God that he was even alive to come home! I don't know if you believe in miracles or not, but Marcos is a living, breathing testament to their existence. It was, I have to admit, a pretty emotional homecoming. Man, there wasn't a dry eye in the house. (We pilots wear dark sunglasses and baseball caps with the brim pulled down low so that we may maintain our "impassionate, coolly-detached" demeanor.)

Welcome Back!

Hey, Can't A Guy Get Some Room To Breath?

There are times when I am so very, very proud to be a pilot. Helicopters are a wonderful device, a terrific invention with many, varied uses. I've done a lot of things with helicopters over the years, from reporting on rush-hour traffic in New York City to flying roughnecks out in the Gulf of Mexico. I flew one for DHL Express that was painted up like one of their cargo vans and carried small packages and thing that had to be there faster than a van could do it. And I've slung all sorts of things underneath the helicopter when the cargo was so big it wouldn't fit inside. I've taken tourists to get an up-close-and-personal photograph of the face of the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor. And of course, I've flown people to the hospital when called upon. It's all been good. And when this marvelous, crazy contraption gets used in such a way as ours was over the last two days, it just makes me get all choked up.

Helicopters are just so damn cool!