Sanibel Island and Flight Planning

Our kayaking trip was canceled due to thunderstorms in and around the kayaking area. Since we were already at the Ding Darling (or as I kept calling it, Ding-a-Ling) Nature Preserve, we decided to drive around the car trail. Jann likes to bird watch, so we poked around for an hour or so looking for different birds. We saw some interesting critters and the weather was interesting to watch, so the evening was not a loss. I had the brilliant idea of going back a short walking trail. Why not, right? Well, I'll give you three guesses what comes out of the Florida bog around dusk. Mosquitoes. Millions of them. We decided to depart the trail "no delay" and get back to the car. I can't speak for Jann, but I am covered in mosquito bites. I suppose they will entertain me on some of the cross country legs.

After the nature preserve, we decided to drive to the end of Sanibel Island. We were looking for a beach to stick our feet in the water, and the first public beach we found was at the end of the island! We stuck our feet in, and headed back to the hotel to wrap up some flight planning and pack.

We just wrapped up our flight planning for the first three legs of the race. The legs run from Fort Myers, FL - Waycross, GA - Tuscaloosa, AL - Hot Springs, AR. There are some interesting airspace issues with controlled airspace, MOAs, and restricted areas. We've worked out a route that should keep us out of the most confusing areas, so we feel good about that.

To avoid some of the potential chaos at Waycross, we are going to stop for fuel at a different airport, Douglas (DQH). We think it will be much less stress if we don't have to wait in a conga line of 50 airplanes for fuel, and then all try to depart the same uncontrolled field at the same time to do low approaches full throttle at 300' AGL abeam the runway. Just seems like something we should avoid.

We will be departing Fort Myers tomorrow at 8:00AM. We'll be getting up at 5:30AM (ouch) to get breakfast, brief, and get to the plane. All aircraft will be departing all at once tomorrow, so that should be interesting. I know many of the locals will be turning out to watch the spectacle. I hope it doesn't turn into another zoo!

With that, I need to finish packing and get to bed. The next update may come when we've landed in Hot Springs. If you're following along on FlightAware, we will be picking up VFR flight following, so you may be able to track our tail number. I need to get in the mindset of using our air race callsign, "Classic Racer 21." I'm sure I'll bungle it at least once tomorrow!