cessna of doom

no matter what time zone you’re in, 3:30 is never a pleasant time to wake up. alas, it was mandatory, as our flight to sydney was scheduled for 6:30, and working backwards through all the requisite steps (international flight, shuttle to airport, packing, showering) it really doesn’t leave you with much options.

from sydney we flew on to cairns, up in the northeastern part of australia, which is the closest big city to the great barrer reef, the only notable aspect of the flight was that they screened for us anchorman: the legend of ron burgundy for the second time that day.

unexpectedly, it was raining up in cairns as well. what the hell? we finally get around to taking a honeymoon and the weather won’t cooperate? it’s summer, for chrissake!

the flight from cairns to dunk island was on a little local carrier, and so we all piled onto a tiny little single engine cessna 208B. unbeknownst to us before we got into cairns, this results in a 16kg weight limit per person for checked luggage. later i found this caution in very small print in the “about dunk island resort” brochure that they had sent, but who reads those things, anyway? while both of us managed to get our luggage on due to the fact that there were only five out of twelve passengers on the little flight, i couldn’t help but thinking about aaliyah and her baggage related demise. i wondered if she had thrown some sort of celebrity fit when they tried to tell her that her luggage might be too heavy, and if her last thought might have been, “why did i have to bring all of my grammys with me everywhere?”

off we flew into the pouring rain, and i don’t think i’ve ever been more mortified during a flight, as the strong winds and sheets of water buffeted us about. all i could think about was how you can’t strictly rely on instrumentation to fly, as there are those series of manouvres that if done in sequence and only referring to your instruments, will leave you flying upside down, without you realizing it.

obviously, we landed quite all right, but it certainly wasn’t a flight for the fearful or skittish.

Posted at November 25, 2004 6:24 PM