Aviation - Good, Bad and Ugly

The year 2007 has started with some good things and some really bad and ugly stuff, last week Jr phoned from Windhoek with alarming news that they have scratchy info about his friend Steven (who lived in the house with us during November when he and Johan did their training on the Beech 1900)

The initial news was that Steven has gone down in the desert near Luderitz and the as the time dragged on for the following hours more and more news came through from rescue people and hospitals etc. and all these were relayed to us via sms's from Johan Jr.

Aircraft found. wreck looks ok. did not burn or break up. - and later - Steven and all pax alive but hurt and on way to hospital in Luderitz. Then again a few hours later - not good Steven's back broken and in serious condition.

The next day Johan Jr and a team of medical staff flew to Luderitz in two aircraft and fetched all the pax and his friend and colleague Steven and brought them to Windhoek.

At this stage thing are not looking great. The forecast medical costs for Steven is around R700 000. and he is going to need some serious operations on his back. Crause Steyl owner of Air Ambulance has helped out and arranged for Steven to be flown to Cape Town where he arrived this morning and hopefully he will in time regain full health.
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So much for the bad and ugly side, we are thankful that we are all ok and Louis has done especially well this month by flying some 30 hours as "boy pilot" or autopilot on the Harare based Air Ambulance and he completed another part of his training yesterday and last night with his boss Captain Russell O'Gorman in the Jetstream. and he now is a qualified Co-Pilot.

With Steven out of the equation Jr has logged nearly 80 hours on the Beech 1900 this month and he is also looking at an offer from Bay Air to be the Safety Officer for the company.

Juanita is on her first flight of the year and left for Kigali yesterday and I just received an sms from her to say she is safely in Addis where she will be staying in a hotel where they were asked to bring their own sheets and towels - Africa is not for sissies!! Her passengers is attending the AU summit and most probably staying in the Addis Hilton regarded by most well travelled people as Africa's best hotel.

Slaves and Castles on Ghana's Goldcoast

The Photos in this post was all taken by Corne Steyn

At the end of our tours to Monrovia we always have a layover of a day and a half in Accra and during this last trip three of my colleagues, and myself, decided to hire a car and took a drive to have look at the slave castles that was built some 525 years ago by the Portuguese Spanish and Dutch Slave traders.

An example of how these Castles look today with myself in the slaves courtyard.

Below is one of our cabin attendants - Carmen Gilliomee - in the female dungeons under the governor's quarters in the Castle

Below is the final door trough which the slaves were taken to board the ships for Europe and America

This proved a fascinating bit of exploration and I was particularly impressed by the balanced portrayal of the history by the guide who showed us around. We were a group of 30 tourists of whom only 6 were white and the role of the black African traders were clearly spelled out and it was emphasised that both Black and White people profited from the slave trade.

Scattering through Africa 8 January

Yesterday the Steyls of Kosmos scattered all over Africa again.

1. I am already up in Monrovia, where I am flying between Monrovia and Accra.
2. Louis left from Johannesburg to Harare where he is starting a new venture with MARS.
3. The most dramatic event is that Johan Jr has flown our Cessna away forever to Namibia.

Above:- Here we were planning a flight some twelve years ago !

He flew a routing round the south of the Kalahari desert, from Kosmos via Kuruman to Upington where he refueled and cleared customs, then on to Keetmanshoop for Namibian Customs and fuel again then on to Eros airport in Windhoek. this took all and all, including all the stops some 10 hours?

It will be sold since it has served its time with us, both the boys did their training up to their commercial licenses on her. We owned the Cessna for almost 14 years and flew well over 1000 hrs to various memorable places around Southern Africa.

This old photo was taken in the door of ZS-CGE in 1994 with the boys aged 9 an 10

We'll remember the flight the boys made when they were in school and aged 16 and 17 to Cape Town and none of them could even drive a car and had to be fetched from Stellenbosch etc.

Then twice the whole family went all the way through Mozambique to the Bazaruto Island Archipelago where we stayed on Benguerra island for two fantastic holidays. Then there was the great flight across the Kalahari desert a few years ago to the Okavango Swamps in Botswana.

We will often miss the trusty little airplane!

Here she is parked in a hyena enclosure on the airstrip at Chitabe in the Swamps

Louis actually did his first flight on old years eve when he fetched a patient from Harare to Johannesburg, below is a Photo of the aircraft at Harare Airport.

West Africa & Harmattan wind

My current tour of duty in Monrovia has been pretty good so far, with the weekend of the 31st December 2006 spent at the Labadi Beach hotel in Accra. Once we Arrived in Monrovia everyone on the crew settled into a relaxed peaceful rithm of sleep music swimming and myself playing a game of squash every day at the local Liberian Squash club

which is situated in the middle of town at the back of a petrol filling Station and next to a very loud bar.

The Flying has been the normal United Nations schedule between Monrovia and Accra every Sunday and Thursday. The only difficult bit is the approach since the annual Harmattan wind wich is currently blowing from the Sahara Desert and reduces visibility to 400 meters. This is actually a very pleasant soft warm wind - more like a breeze and the temperature is around 30 degrees Celcius which is not bad for this area.

The photo above was taken yesterday morning at nine o' clock in the morning

and the sun looks almost like the moon on a foggy night.

In the shot below is some of the crew enjoying some sushi at a local bar.

Louis returns from Malawi - Johan & Kirsty Surprise us

Between Vacation in Plettenberg Bay and leaving for Monrovia for a duty tour until mid January, I had one day at home in Kosmos to attend to all the household and family arrangements.
Johan Jr had a few days off, and spent Christmas at the Dam, while Louis and Lerika Wessels who spent Christmas with him in Malawi - was supposed to return with the Beechcraft Baron he was flying up there to have it serviced here at Wonderboom Airport.

Louis was then changing jobs - he is starting on the 1st of January with MARS (Medical Air Rescue Services) in Harare Zimbabwe.


We planned to have a dinner at home in Kosmos with the Pettey Family, on my last night in South Africa, and hoped that all of our family and theirs could all be present, before we scatter all over the globe for 2007!

Here is a pic of the Beech Baron at Likoma Island halfway up the Malawi Lake, the aircraft got damaged when a passenger stepped on the flap and broke the flap, this meant that it had to be flown back to South - Africa with a field repaired flap.
Louis still had to fly some clients in another aircraft, a Piper Cherokee six, from a lodge in Zambia, the morning of the 28th of December to Lilongwe in Malawi, which meant that he would arrive home an hour or so after I left for Monrovia on Friday the 29th.

A sad state of affairs since Louis had been away nearly six months!

However things changed for the better that day, Louis and Lerika took off again in the Baron as soon as he landed in Lilongwe and set course for Beira in Mozambique and then on to Polokwane to clear customs into South Africa, the weather was not great but ok for an instrument flight with some isolated thunderstorms in the Nylstroom - Now called Modimolle - area.

He called on his cellphone about 120 Km from Polekwane and gave us an estimated arrival time of 2000 at Wonderboom. This meant that the whole family would have dinner and a few hours together before I had to leave again.

Dinner was postponed to accommodate Louis and Ken and myself drove to Wonderboom Airport to pick Louis up



Here Louis arrives at home and is welcomed by Kirsty and Johan Jr.




Louis was very surprised that his older brother whom he had not seen in six months did not come to meet him at the airport but that became clearer later in the evening.

The two (below) had a serious matter to discuss and needed some time alone!

They had a few glasses of wine and it was raining on an off with no wind and pleasantly warm, Kirsty made some sushi earlier and we brought a few pounds of fantastic smoked cape salmon from Robberg Fisheries in Plett.

After the excitement of welcoming Louis home they (Johan Jr. and Kirsty) disappeared into the garden while we were getting ready to start the meal.

After a few minutes Kirsty walked into the lounge and made the announcement. That they are now engaged - and on her finger she had proof of this.

The ring

Ryan, Kirsty's brother, was the most surprised and after all the congratulations and good wishes it was time for some pictures of the new enlarged family, Juanita and me are both very happy to be associated with the well respected Pettey family and we all share several friends in the area.















Here we all are Louis, Juanita, Kirsty and Jenny standing behind me Johan Jr. Ryan and Ken.

Crocodile in Pool

During our holiday in Plett we received an e-mail from Johan Jr's gilfriend's father, Ken Pettey the Vet in Hartebeespoort - herewith the email with one of the pics of the croc they found in their pool!!

Hi Johan and Juanita,

We spent a week in Cape Town and arrived home at 8.30pm 2 nights ago. I could see that the pool was green as a result of our absence and the recent thunderstorms. I threw the hose into the pool and switched the water on. In the poor light, I thought that I saw a large fish swim away from where the hose had landed. I may have had a swim if there wasn't lightning and thunder. I did put my arms into the water to clean out the leaf trap attached to the suction apparatus. Kirsty heard me working at the pool and asked me what I was doing. I told her that I thought that I had seen a fish as big as a shark. She laughed at me and I actually convinced myself that my brain was playing tricks (ageing). Sarah, our domestic arrived the next morning and told Jenny that she was afraid to go into the garden as the previous day, she and the gardener had encountered something in the garden with a very long tail and 4 legs that walked on it's belly with it's head in the air. When Jenny told me, I said it must be a leguaan that I had seen in the pool. Our bedroom overlooks the pool and when we opened the curtains we got the suprise of our lives...Take a look at the attached photos for a description better than I can give. I phoned the Hartbeespoort Snake and Animal Park for assistance and the receptionist just laughed, and told me that it was December not April! I wanted to speak to Jason Seale (the owner) and she said that he was too busy for jokes. When she heard that I was the vet, things changed and it took Jason and his team 5 minutes to get to our pool. There are NO crocodiles in Hartbeespoort Dam so they also stood and watched the animal in our pool in disbelief.... maybe in disbelief that a pool could get so green!! (I am embarrassed - the Beeld published a picture so the broader community now knows how I maintain our pool!!)

I took video and Ryan took the photos of Jason impersonating Steve Irwin. It was all over quickly... the jaws of the croc were taped up and it was put into a sack and taken to a place of safety at the Park.

Lots of love and regards... have a merry Christmas and a peaceful, happy and successful new year!

Ken (on behalf of Jen, Ryan & Anneke and Johan & Kirsty)

Xmas in Plettenberg Bay

After the trip down to Bloemfontein we packed our golfclubs and the rest of our holiday gear and set off for O.R.Tambo airport where we Jumped on KULULA airlines for a flight to George on Sunday the 17th of December. We arrived in Plett just in time to join our friends Vere & Tiki for yet another great birthday party on the decks of the Emily Moon restaurant in the polofields.

In the picture above is our hosts Vere and Tiki - with Tiki's Parents Leon and Andre in the foreground and below is Vere and two very important women in his life , wife Tiki and daughter Tami

Most of the holiday at the Van Heerdens are spent on the deck in front of their house with beautiful views of Robberg to the right and Natures valley on the left

Above is a picture of the deck with the table set for Christmas Lunch and in the distance is Keurbooms and Natures valley
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Below is the view of Robberg to the Right or South West

Here I am relaxing with a glass of wine and some good company, Henk van Zyl and Dries Lategan Joined us for a fish braai (Yellowtail) on the deck, Dries and myself had a great golf game the next day at the Plettenberg Bay Country club , and afew days Later at a braai at Dries' holiday cottage in Natures Valley, Henk organized us a game at te fabulous Outinqua course at Fancourt in George. Below is Henk, Dries and Vere.

At Fancourt Tiki Tami, Juanita and myself had an unbelievable great day of golf ,
below is Tiki playing a short hole.

and here Juanita is surveying a longer hole, in the parklike surroundings

We had a great 10 days of total relaxation and rest , with the best weather you could wish for and the day after Boxing day we flew back to Kosmos where I had one day to get packed and ready for my next tour of duty to West - Africa in Monrovia. I had no Idea what a day was in store for me!

Holidays, Anniversaries and 80th Birthdays for the Steyls

December was a busy and relaxing month for the Steyls of Kosmos, I was on holiday from the 2nd till the 28th, Juanita did one last flight for 2006 to Rwanda, Arusha, London, Edinburgh and Prestwick and returned home via Kigali on the 9th for a well deserved rest.
Johan Jr. completed his Beech 1900 Rating and flight tests with Captain Robinson (See previous posts) and had to rush back to Windhoek to put it all to good use and start making some money for his company and himself.
Louis agreed with his boss, to stay in Malawi until the end of December for Nyassa Air Taxi since they had quite a lot of flights to do during this period.

We started celebrating the festive season by having a lovely get together and dinner with the De Beer (Juanita's maiden name) side of the family at Jannie and Marlize's house in Johannesburg.
The next big date for the Steyls was the 56th anniversary of Oupa Johan and Ouma Rina which also included the celebrations of both their 80th Birthdays. This event was a lunch held at the Vroue Monument in Bloemfontein on the 15th of December and 118 guests accepted invitations for this. Juanita and Myself flew to Bloemfontein in the Cessna, also a significant flight since negotiations about selling the trusted little airplane is quite far and by mid January she might be sold and delivered but more about that in a later post.

The lunch in Bloem was a great success, Piet was Master of ceremonies, and I proposed a toast to my parents and several friends and family making speeches, congratulating them and reminiscing about the last eighty years. Juanita told the guests about some extremely funny times she had years ago at the Million Dollar Golf tournament with Ouma Rina.


The next day we flew home to pack for our holiday in Plettenberg bay and gave a lift to Catherine and Janine Steyl from Harrismith who also attended the lunch in Bloemfontein.


Although we had quite a headwind and the flight time stretched to two and a half hours it was still a lot better than driving five hours. Here they are after we landed at Hartebeespoort dam.