Inverness to Wick. Wick, United Kingdom

Wick, United Kingdom Day 5, 26th June 2014. Inverness to Wick. 81 miles 0:49 hrs Day score 8. The engine seemed fine. I waved goodbye to everyone who had been so kind and flew up to Wick. When I landed I was met by Drew, a pleasant funny young chap who brought over the refuel wagon and got Itzy refuelled up to the brim. I followed him over to the old control tower where Andrew Bruce of Farnorth Aviation has his offices. Andrew is famous or synonymous with Atlantic crossings and ferry flights of light aircraft. He showed me his stock pile of emergency gear he hires out to pilots who fly the Atlantic. They then leave it with acollege of Andrews some where normally Goose Bay in Canada on the other side, and if anyone wants to hire equipment over there coming this way, then it gets brought back. He spared no end of time answering my questions. He laughed at all my poor quality safety gear and said I might as well not bother taking it. I saw all his points but knew in my mind a way around all the issues he raised. Truth be told though, I asked him if he thought I was being an idiot. If he had said “You’re being a fool!” I honestly would turn around and go back home, such is his experience and knowledge. I knew and had wanted to have this conversation with Andrew, whatever the outcome. Even after all the years of planning. I knew there were risks, but I don’t consider myself being a fool. He smiled and just added, “Don’t ever be in a rush. Its pushing on into bad weather that kills people, so never be in a rush!” Well today was too windy, so I went down town to get a new remote hard drive to store my video footage on, which looks brill already by the way. Especially beating up the club house and my parents in theLake District. I have a camera pointing out the bottom of the fuselage. It’s brill. The special durable hard drive I had specifically bought to download all these camera video files to was buggered already. SoArgos came up trumps. I posted a load of stuff home as well, which I already knew I didn’t need. Back at the airfield I spent hours on the computer in the airport terminal again before leaving when it closed. With the tent out of the plane I went to kip in the camp site down town. Walking past the harbour there was a sea lion playing around the yachts which I filmed, beautiful sleek animal. I also wanted to go to a decent chip shop on the harbour front, but it was closed, closed at9pm. Everything was closed actually, the only options were a curry or Chinese. Rather than a curry it was a Chinese Chicken Chow mein, eaten while walking along the river away from town. I remembered walking this route with Nadine some 10 years ago when we researched this Atlantic flight. Gosh how life changes… I quite like Wick. Blimey… The camp site has gone… Things do change. So I walked back up to the airport and put the tent up in a field behind the car park and then finally bed… Thought of the day: I’m glad I had this chat with Andrew and I’m glad he didn’t say I was being a fool. That would have put an end to the journey and a dampener on the day.

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