So began my solo adventure from Los Angeles to the Panama Canal and back

To tell the truth, I have some trepidation crossing into Mexico and beyond to Central America.


Will my plane be stolen, will I get sick, will I have fun? As in all my adventures in life, this one requires that I act in spite of my fear.


I met Mark and Sue Harrison, “The Harrisons” as they are prone to say; A lovely couple from Bel Air who also will be flying the same journey as I having joined the Baja Bush Pilot’s CenAm yearly tour. Since The Harrisons’ have flown to Baja several times the journey will be a little less scary.


panama-1-084


You can click on my SpiderTrack to view the flight. Once you have clicked scroll down to Van Nuys  to Ensenada…you can enlarge it, overlay the satellite view, or put the mouse over and click to see our heading, speed and altitude.


We had lunch around the corner from my home for our first meet to get to know each other and to begin planning our 2300 mile sojourn to meet up with the other pilots (pilotos en Espanol) in Palenque, Mexico.


On Saturday, January 23rd Mark, Sue and I met at their home and then drove to our respective airports of Van Nuys and Santa Monica to meet up in Ensenada, Mexico.


It was a bitter cold morning for Southern California, 41 degrees at Van Nuys where I took off in Miss Behavin’. I actually had to wear gloves…amazing.


Here are some photos of the mountains around the Valley which are rarely covered with snow.

Mountains flying out of Van Nuys


panama-1-053


panama-1-058


This was an hour and 48 minute journey of 184.2 NM.


This entry was posted on Saturday, February 13th, 2010 at 10:57 am and is filed under A Solo Journey to the Panama Canal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.