Trip to Canaries

I just landed to home base airport and have to upload few pictures from last island (Fuerteventura) and write down few sentences as a trip summary. In general, the trip was great, the destinations were really beautiful, offering lot of opportunities for having fun but few challenges were generated by airports, mainly by handlers. Let’s leave this for tomorrow.

Peter wrote:

You’ve certainly taken an optimal route to get back home; not many people would have done that

That was weather-dictated – northern route via France and Italy was pretty stormy, all way down to northern Sardinia but forecast for Cagliari was acceptable, plus 30 kts of tailwind.

Here’s a short description of the last few days.

Comparing to other islands Fuerteventura doesn’t have much to offer, at least for my taste. Endless beaches look nice but that’s not my favorite activity, I guess wind surfers have great time there. The hikes are not even remotely spectacular like on El Hierro, La Palma or La Gomera or even Lanzarote. The vegetation is practically non existent.

After three days of parking the aircraft was covered with thin crust of salt and send but I decided not to touch it to avoid scratching and I didn’t think much of other possible effects of salt. Which turned into kind of stressful 5 minutes during initial climb on departure. Two minutes after taking off at 2000 ft I got “left engine fire” alert, checked temperatures – everything ok, canceled alert, got another one, canceled it, got 3 more in the row and then “left engine coolant temperature high”. Then it started to look serious. Lowered throttle on left engine, asked ATC for return, checked all temperatures, including fuel – everything normal and continued to slowly climb in right turn only on right engine. All alerts gone, started to add throttle to left engine, everything normal and informed ATC on continuing the flight. The route was over the land so I had option for landing if needed rather than long OEI flight over the ocean. Quick message to mechanic while still in network reach – he assumed sensor fault due to salt and humidity. Climbed to FL180 without any problem and continued to LEZL on totally calm flight with 20 kts of tailwind and some delay close to Seville due to traffic.

Sevilla is always great to visit. I’ve been there several times and I can always return – same applies for Granada and Cordoba.

The last hop from LEZL to home required fuel stop and, instead of LFMU, I chose Cagliari LIEE because of the weather. We had tailwind from LEZL staring with 25 kts and up to 40 kts after passing Menorca. From LIEE to Croatia tailwind was even stronger staring from 30 kts up to 50 kts.

The route on the last day

Trip summary:
- flying-wise I would repeat it any time
- getting replies from the airports can be slow and coordination can be time-consuming but booking accommodation is super-easy – you can do it upon landing
- destination is great although next time I’ll skip some islands, however I guess next time without Covid-19 the airports will be much busier
- fuel stops are PITA if it’s just for refueling but if you’re able to spend a day or two on each and make them part of the trip then they could be ok
- fuel prices can be really surprising – from “normal” price of €1 (Croatia, Canaries and Sardinia) for 1 litre of Jet-A1 to €1.5 in France to €1.7 in Spain
- cheap landing fees on fuel stop are usually balanced with expensive fuel and vice versa – 200 litres of Jet-A1 seem to cost always around €350 (330 for fuel and 20 for landing or 200 for fuel and 150 for landing)
- mandatory handling is killing GA and handlers seem to enjoy torturing GA pilots if they are not ready to pay for their non-existing services
- flying in Covid-19 time is great opportunity to enjoy less crowded places and GA is great for doing that

Special thanks to @terbang for inspiring me for this trip and for his tips, to @Alpha_Floor for tips and to @Xpainflyer for his continuous support during the trip.

One more thing I forgot – unusually long direct across Tyrrhenian Sea, Italy and Adriatic Sea – from LABOM (practically immediately after departure) to VAPUP (entry point to Split TMA in Croatia) – 306 NM.

A new volcano erupted on La Palma just 1 km from the hiking route we took this spring.