It was hot and humid at Watumi where we were staying in a house right by the beach. Lots of swimming, snorkelling and general relaxing was available as well as deep sea fishing and water skiing. But after four days it was time to move on to the first of our safari lodges at Lewa Downs. More admin to be grappled with before departure as two flight plans had to be filed (and navigation charges for each paid); first for the flight to Lewa Downs and then for a short onward flight to Loisaba Airstrip on day 16. I was told we could file an airborne flight plan for the flight back to Nairobi Wilson from Loisaba and pay the navigation charge afterwards; time will tell on this!
We were airborne just before the daily commercial flight back to Nairobi arrived and climbed to FL85 for the 270 nm leg to Lewa; with a 20kt headwind, flight time was 2 hr 10 min. Soon we were above a sc undercast but this broke up as we reached higher ground with some large CB visible to the south over Mount Kenya. Lewa airstrip duly appeared and in accordance with the EAAC recommendation, we landed on the uphill runway 14. Nairobi Centre provide a flight information service but we were too low to pick this up. The aircraft soon had her cover on and we were off to our safari camp.
Note for David – no thorn bushes required to protect the wheels as there is a constantly manned guard hut just behind the aircraft.