Page 18 - 207680_March19T

An Unforgettable Journey
by Randy Groom
The first time I heard the Skyhawk check in on frequency, I was 30 miles off the coast of George- town, Guyana. From the sound of it, they appeared to be about 60 miles behind me and based on our mutual headwind, probably only doing about 90 knots. I had no idea who they were or
where they were coming from, but it was comforting to know that another small single was sharing the airspace on this long leg from Trinidad to Cayenne.
On their next call, they reported that they would be diverting to Georgetown for fuel. I had been told that, if possible, try to avoid Georgetown. Not sure exactly why, but visions of Jim Jones and the nightmare that occurred in that coun- try decades ago were enough to keep me focused on assuring my reserves were enough to make Cayenne. Good luck guys, I thought to myself.
It was mid-October of 1996, and I was on a delivery trip of a Beech Bonanza F33A from North Carolina to Southern Brazil – my first big international trip on my own. My day job was vice president of sales for Beechcraft dealer Piedmont Aviation, which did not entail being a professional delivery pilot. And while the trip was a grand adventure, it was definitely a bit out of my comfort zone, so a certain level of anxiety was ever present in my conscious- ness. There were the long overwater legs to think about and, of course, the engine didn’t quite seem as smooth as it did over land. And knowing that ahead of me was going to be about 1,000 miles of jungle and if by chance that trusty Continental IO- 520 decided to give up at the wrong time, it would be doubtful anyone would ever find me, even if I did survive the impact.
But I was probably most anxious about the customs and importation process when clearing into Belem, Brazil. I had been told that the customs agents in Belem didn’t speak any English and my Portu- guese was limited to essential things like how to order a beer or asking for direc- tions to the bathroom. How in the world was I going to be able to communicate? My customer had given me a package to give to the officials with specific instruc- tions and theoretically all the required documentation filled out. And I had a case of Scotch whiskey in the back that I had been told might be useful to “grease the wheels” of any bureaucratic hold-ups.
After a pleasant overnight in Cayenne, it was off to Belem. About an hour into the f light, the Skyhawk made another appearance checking in on frequen- cy, now clearly in front of me. Gosh, I thought, those guys must have got up awful early in Georgetown. They reported that their destination was Belem as well, so I looked forward to meeting them and was curious to find out about their Georgetown experience.
After about two hours, the mouth of the Amazon appeared below. It was an incredible sight with the fresh water
appearing to boil as it entered the Atlantic after completing its 4,000-mile journey from the Andes of Peru and Ecuador. And the amazing thing was the mouth with its tentacles stretched over the next 100 miles.
The landing and taxiing to customs was uneventful – and I noted the Sky- hawk on the ramp. I marched into the office and was greeted by half a dozen uniformed officials. All the paperwork was handed over and I coughed up my planned and probably butchered “Nao Falo Portugues,” which translates “I don’t speak Portuguese.”
They began pouring through all the paperwork and started talking to them- selves pointing to each document. The more they talked, the louder their voices became to the point where it appeared to me that they were quite angry about some- thing. One of them turned to me and was aggressively flipping through the pages pointing and shouting that I only could guess translated to “these documents are not in order and what the hell do you think you are doing!?” He was turning more and more red in the face, and I’m sure that I was turning white as I was wondering what the prisons in Belem would be like.
16 • TWIN & TURBINE
March 2019