Chapter 46 - Tontouta, Noumea

Depart Pago Pago 21/3/2010  - Arrive Tontouta, Noumea 22/3/2010

The course  from Pago Pago to Tontouta was via Nadi, Fiji. This gave us the opportunity to see some of the many Pacific Islands. On previous legs all we saw between destinations was blue water below, blue skies above and occasional fluffy white clouds. Hilo to Christmas we had 0.9 hour IFR, Christmas to Pago Pago we had 0.4 hour IFR and on this leg we were to get 0.6 hour IFR. Flying at 6000' to 8000' we were above the clouds.

Since leaving Hilo, we had no mobile phone access, but there was a public phone at Sadie Thompsons. As we approached Fiji, Ray came on the 123.45 talk channel and said that we should be able to get a mobile phone connection over Nadi. Megs hadn't heard from me for a few days so she received a text message ' At 7000' overhead Nadi expect arrive Noumea in 4 hours 15 min.' The reply was 'I was worried. Now I can get some sleep'.

As were approached Tontouta the clouds built up over the island and out came the approach charts. The MSA is 5800' due to a range of mountains running up the middle of the island. This meant overflying and flying the approach from the west or finding holes in the clouds for a VFR approach.

As we got closer, Lyn radioed to the others that she was heading for 'the saddle' to the left. She thought that the clouds were high enough to leave a hole under the cloud between two mountain peaks. She directed me to head left. As we approached she said that there was a hole and we headed for it. Dan asked were we heading for the left saddle or the right saddle and Lyn said left. We went below the cloud and between the mountains with Lyn telling me to stay visual when I let the aircraft nose come up a bit. Dan followed and Ray said he couldn't see it so he went over the top. It only took 20 - 30 seconds and we were away from the cloud, flying down the valley between the two peaks and over the western shore, making a right downwind for runway 08.

On the way in, Lyn was doing the radio work with the tower and with the other two aircraft. All the way across, we flew as a flight of three using the call sign of the Bonanza which was N64719. All communications covered the three aircraft and the HF comms were shared by Lyn & Dan.

Saratoga first closely followed by the Mooney. At all other airports the controllers let us land as a group, but not the French. The Saratoga was on the runway and almost out of sight, when they told Dan to go around.

On the ground we were directed to taxi to a specific location, with a 'cast of thousand' approaching. Then we were directed to stop and shut down. We were subsequently advised we couldn't stop there as we were not on the yellow taxi lines and would have to move across onto a yellow line, as there was a big aircraft coming in the next day.

There is no Avgas at the Tontouta International airport so one of our 'choices' was to pass incoming Customs at Tontouta, fly the 15 minutes to Magenta for fuel, stay the night and have Customs come to Magenta for our departure. "C'est non possible'". We were ordered to fly there now, refuel and fly back in the morning for departure. "Not possible" as we cannot fill with fuel and then land with that fuel as we would be overweight. The other choice which was finally agreed after a lot of discussions, lots of "Nons'" and "Impossibles" was for us to stay at Tontouta, get Customs departure at Tontouta in the morning, fly to Magenta, refuel and fly out from there.

The Gendarme then advised that we had to be gone before the Military Airbus A340 arrived. That meant we had to be gone before 5:00am.

Couldn't get rooms at the nearest hotel so we were off for a 20 minute ride into the country to a resort complete with golf course and all the trimmings. With the 5 of us arriving it made a total of 7 guests for the night, but it was a nice place.

PS. Bit late and I had planned to get it on the blog before we left USA. There is a site http://flightaware.com
where you can enter the Bonanza Tail No - N64719 - in the box on the left hand side, then highlight the particular flight you want to look at in the Activity Log  and then click on the (Track Log) beside Status and see the actual time, height, speed etc for the all flights of this (our) aircraft and any US registered aircraft within the USA airspace coverage.

Click on image to enlarge