A good day today; for once we were spared strong headwinds. We overnighted in a very luxurious hotel where dinner and breakfast were thrown into the modest price of the rooms. A large buffet catered for every possible taste at dinner and breakfast. Phil has done all these arrangements for the route out and so far, so good.
Saturday is changeover day at Lanzarote and we managed to get airborne just as the first of the day’s jets arrived to take holiday makers home to the UK, Germany and elsewhere and bring out a fresh load of people eager for the sun. We were given a slightly shorter routing which took us more directly to the African coast and climbed to our cruising level of FL100.
Then it was sand to the left and sea to the right for the whole of the long journey southwards with the occasional odd settlement. Canaries Control kept us right up to the Mauritanian border around 500 miles into our journey; at one stage we were asked for our clearance numbers for Mauritania and Senegal; we had put these onto the flight plan but maybe they were not transmitted. Anyway all was well as we proceeded southwards with first a light tailwind then becoming a light headwind. At times, the weather was quite hazy at our level but generally we were just above the inversion.
We arrived at Dakar at about the same time as an Air Maroc flight and were given an EAT so slowed down to avoid arriving before it and going into the hold. Then an ILS approach in hazy ground conditions. We were parked into a rather remote spot and were persuaded to delay refuelling until very early on Monday morning. I hope that this is not an unwise decision. Then we were whisked through the airport without showing any documents to anyone and taken to our hotel on the beach about 10 minutes away. Once again we celebrated our arrival with a cold beer with a delightful French dinner in prospect.
Lanzarote to Dakar: 961nm in 6 hr 12 min
