back in Rotterdam

---

This blog I'm writing from home, DDN did bring me safely back.
I left Reykjavik rather early: at 8:30 we were airborne in a beautiful morning sun. This time Reykjavik was free of clouds, while the rest from Iceland was covered with low stratus clouds (just the opposite from my arrival a month ago). But all mountains peaked through the clouds, and it looked very beautiful - I spent the hour over Iceland just gazing down and taking pictures.

Then came more Atlantic, partially without clouds, and the low sun revealed long wavelength waves in the open ocean. Its a long flight over the water, but we had a nice tailwind to make it a little shorter.

The first destination today was Wick, the most Northern airport in Scotland. Far North Aviation, the FBO there, has an excellent service for ferry flights. Fuel truck arrived as soon as the engine stopped, and within short time I would have been ready to leave - if my flightplan for the last leg to Rotterdam would have been accepted by Eurocontrol, But they didn't like it for some unknown reason, and I expected a major delay until this was cleared. Not so - Far North Aviation advertises on their web page that they find straight line flight plans to any place in Eurpore - and its true. I five minutes, an almost straight route along the coast of England and over the North sea to Rotterdam was filed (almost an hour shorter than my rejected flight plan), and after loading the various route waypoints into the GPS, I was on my way again. The handling by North Star Aviation in Wick was excellent - highly recommended to anybody who gets in that area.

The last bit of my tour was accelerated by an increasingly strong tailwind - instead of some 4 hrs, I reached Rotterdam in 3:10 hrs - very fast. Finally, DDN could get back to its old parking space and as expected, Regina and Rafael came to pick me up. And surprise - Keith, Marcos, Alberto and Trevor came as well to welcome DDN and me back home - thank you. We all got a nice Pizza and some wine here at home to celebrate the long flight.

Its about time to finish this blog. But I'll make one more entry tomorrow to summarize the data and events of the last month.

---

Photos

Atlantic crossing 2 summary
6226 km in 24 hrs flying - airliner is faster...

volcanoes in the clouds
Iceland departure

Iceland volcanoe
from 900 ft altitude

WIck airport
the most Northern one in Scotland

welcome in Rotterdam
Marcos, Regina, Trevor, Martin, Alberto & Keith (DDN is outside in the rain, Rafael took the picture)