It was the annual microlight outing to Plockton which as the fates would smile upon us was on the best two flying days of the year (so far). The flight north to Plockton (near Skye) was wonderful, a 10 knot tail wind got me up there in 2 and a half hours over a cloudless Scotland with gorgeous lochs and munros (making navigation difficult as they all look the same). A night out at the Off The Rails converted station restaurant with a live train service arriving outside it, was followed by drinking with the friendly Haven Hotel owners. a Swedish pierced waitress and a skinhead who admitted this was the first time he was going to do breakfast in a hotel (it was nice).
The morning after I was balancing on the new bobbing Plockton pontoon with boats tied up and a bizarre notice saying ‘No Water as we have run out of funds’ and walked to the airfield where the place was crawling with firemen (and a firewoman) who were going to be trained on helicopter protocol (don’t stick your poles vertically when leaving the chopper otherwise you damage them, the expensive rotors and yourself). This delayed my own flight as there were fireman being whirled around down the runway, I took off when they had finished and then realised that I didn’t have a jerry can back rest so promptly landed again and strapped one in. So finally onto Barra – the plan was over Skye (which was entirely cloudless and gorgeous) and with a tailwind over the 18 mile wide Minch to the Outer Hebrides. The views were stunning and I could see the Outer Hebrides archipelego stretched out in the distance and dum-dummed the Fratellis Chelsea Dagger theme just to keep my mind off the sea below.
Barra is a wonderful island with wonderful white beaches and blue water. There is a causeway linking to the isle of Vatersay – where before the 1990 Eu funding fell upon the causeway, farmers used to have to tie their cattle behind a boat and make them swim across the channel to market. Whisky Galore happened and was filmed at Barra with Compton Mackenzie living on the island (and I met the son of the man who dug his grave when the gravedigger didn’t turn up to the funeral). Barra was voted most Scottish place in Scotland and the Most Beautiful Island in Britain and also was reported wrongly to have the highest paid doctor in the UK
Barra airport is unique as it is the only airport in the world that you land on the beach. And that was what I was going to do.
There was a 35 knot headwind, apparently from Hurricane George, which slowed things a lot heading south over North and South Uist and this meant there was severe rotor from the hill lying to the south of the beach runway and it was very difficult maintaining a circuit around the runway – I extended the downwind leg (which was over the sea as the tide had come in) to give me a chance to prepare for final. Landed on the golden sands then headed back to the airport.
I was finding it difficult to move the wing at all as it was being held down by the gusting wind – the tower sent ground staff out to direct me out of the parking bay of the Twin Engined Otter flight and it was during this movement that a strong gust tipped the wing and trike over onto the sand. The bar pushed back into my life jacket and I have bruising on my ribs from that, the life jacket may have cushioned that blow.
Damage to the aircraft was that two propellor blades were torn off, the wing was ripped, hang bracket bent, jesus bolt bent, trike body was damaged and base bar and radiator bent. Pride was also a bit bent. Then came the realisation that I couldn’t fly out and no one else could fly in or ferry in because the weekend had started…the Sabbath was looming.
I was driven by one of the airport guys to the hotel at high speed down these single track roads with him saying, ‘You know I don’t care if I live or die anymore, what will be will be – I do base jumping from cliffs and parachuting’ – which was endlessly encouraging – he had been inoculated against Anthrax in the army (he used to skin badgers on Salisbury Plain).
We went to see the Vatersay Boys play traditional Scottish music in a pub ceilidh in CastleBay (unimaginatively named because there is a Castle in the Bay) which was a drunken night to say the least, with me being rescued by the hotel waitress at 2:30am walking down the wrong road lost on Barra (which has one circular road so it is almost impossible to get lost apart from the road to Vatersay which I had taken for some totally unknown navigational reason).
The hotel cocktail barman, who writes erotic poetry in his spare time and approved of me reading the superb Swithering poetry book, lent me his sea kayak, which I promptly got stuck in seaweed in the area where Whisky Galore happened and was filmed but I couldn’t find any boxes of whisky left, I managed to tip the kayak over on the ferry ramp too so got totally soaked – hence my mobile phone will no longer work and I have lots of receipts washed clean. I then had to walk to the airfield to check the plane, in soaking wet clothes, and took the chance to disrobe and squeeze the seawater out of my clothes when a passing walker was wondering what on earth was happening in the phone box with a semi naked person and a lot of water squooshing out. Between the plane, kayak and ceilidh I was getting very tipsy on Barra.
I was driven around by a taxi driver who fancied himself as a tourist guide – but since he had a tracheotomy that meant removing both hands from the wheel on single track roads, without stopping of course, one to point at the obscure tourist attraction and one to close his gap so he could speak. I met an American politics lecturer from Edinburgh who had visited Alcock and Brown’s crash site in Galway and everyone seems to have their own air crash story.
Kim and I got the plane on the trailer through super human strength as the sun rose over the beach at Barra airfield, then raced for breakfast and the 5 hour ferry (where bagpipers played in the lounge bar for the entire trip to ensure no snoozing)
We drove back and it rained probably because we didn’t have any covers for the trike, and it never stopped raining all the way back from Oban (well it did but we stopped off on the way at the ghastly Loch Lomond Shores with its vibrating rail in the cafe and allowed the rain to catch up). We got to the airfield to find that the trailer had partially collapsed which could have sent the trike off somewhere on the M8 which would have complicated the insurance claim somewhat, however my guardian angel had obviously held it in place.
So air accident investigation reports all filled in and insurance contacted we just need to get it back to the manufacturer to get rebuild for the next adventure…
Although we got back in time to catch the TV programme about men marrying their sex dolls, we had just missed the story about the Boy From Barra – a boy who had been reincarnated in Glasgow had been in Barra in a previous life, yes really stick with this – it was in The Sun rag (I hesitate to call it a newspaper) and in a channel 5 featurette (I hesitate to call these documentaries on Channel 5) and featured a child psychologist who specialises in reincarnation… so it must be true.
Hurricane George also took another victim by blowing adrift my Orkney chum’s yacht, which was eventually rescued by the Stromness lifeboat. We are hoping to create the Hurricane George Victims Support Group (HGVSG) to assist those who have been stricken in their planes and yachts from the terrible backlash of global warming, as foretold by Al Gore when he didn’t have any hope of becoming president. Together we can apply for European disaster funding to help provide vowels for our acronym and bottles of Nyetimber 1998 to help the recuperating airmen and sailors fresh from their fight with George.
