Ovalle to Santiago, Chile 2 - 8 Feb 2006

Warm welcome from our friends in Santiago

There were a lot of low clouds again on the flight from Ovalle to Tobalaba, Santiago (VFR/IFR 1:48 hrs). We thought of doing an instrument approach to Los Cerrillos, Santiago airport, due to be closed for good any time soon, but luckily still open. But the air traffic controller in Santiago told us the ceiling for Los Cerrillos was 200 feet. We decided to divert to Viña del Mar. As soon as ATC approved this, Flemming called our aviator friend Madeleine Dupont on the Iridium phone to tell her the news and she said the ceiling at Los Cerrillos was 2000 feet, not 200! The controller’s English was a little sketchy. So, in the end, we made a VOR/DME approach to Los Cerrillos, followed by a special VFR arrival into Tobalaba.
Both Madeleine Dupont (French/German/Chilean - Abuela Voladora) and Claude Reymond (our Swiss aviator friend whom we’d been with in Mexico) were at the airport to greet us and insisted on treating us to a superb lunch at the Santiago Aeroclub.
Madeleine was due to fly off very soon for the Antarctic, together with Günther Mund, but in spite of all the preparations she had to make, she devoted the day entirely to us and invited us to stay in her beautiful house for the night. There we met her husband Hans who cooked a very tasty, light dinner for us.
Madeleine also arranged accommodation in a hangar at Tobalaba for Honeymooney. Thus Flemming was able to do the 100 hours maintenance in the shade with the help, as needed, of Madeleine’s mechanics.
And our new Toshiba laptop arrived by airline from Geneva thanks to Eliana Mirski - muchas gracias Eliana, Wojciech y Sibylle!
We needed the full week in Santiago to do the 100 hours maintenance, software installation, southern Chile and Falkland Islands planning, etc. quite apart from working on the web pages. Angela had hoped to get it all up to date – fat chance of that! But for some light relief from our duties, we enjoyed several dinners out with Claude at some very good restaurants in the Barrio Bellavista. And Hans and Madeleine invited us to a gourmet dinner at his golf club.
Madeleine and Günther were due to take off for the Antarctic in the morning of 8 February. We went to Tobalaba to see them off only to find that they were still battling against bureaucracy in order to get the final permit to fly there. We were busy preparing for our own departure the next day so had to leave them to it. They finally took off in the late afternoon and only made it as far south as Puerto Montt that day.

Thanks:

Madeleine Dupont de Böck and Hans Böck, Claude Reymond,

Felipe Santibáñez Barbosa, Eliana and Wojciech Mirski,

Sibylle and Lasse Normann