The flight from Koodoo was rather exciting with the terrible crosswinds that these pilots have to endure every time they take off and land on the islands that have airfields.
We got off the ground okay at Koodoo and then flew on to the next island, which was much bigger than Koodoo and seemed to be more of a island for the local people, with roads and schools and all the other trappings of civilisation.
The airport there was much bigger but still had only the one runway which also faced a nasty crosswind. When we had descended far enough down that I could see the wind sock, and the way it was pointing out in the direction that I (and the pilot) really didn't want it to be pointing, on came the power, and we were back up into the air. He made his way up to a pretty decent height and I was wondering if we were going to just give it a miss altogether, but eventually he turned the plane and we were back on track for another go at landing.
This time we made it back down again onto the runway, with a sigh of relief from those of us that actually knew what was going on (most of the passengers seemed blissfully unaware, perhaps they had had some of what the water sports kiosk guys had!) and a few people got off the plane. They had to refuel, due to the rather lengthy go round so we were there for a few minutes and, surprisely they didn't ask the rest of us to get off the plane.
Another short flight and we were back in Male, but due to the delay, some of the passengers were rather anxious that they were going to miss connecting flights. We had a reasonable amount of time until our next flight but Ross got our bags from the carousel very quickly, so the representative from the resort just told us to follow a group of other people to the international terminal.
Off we went at a cracking pace, since the other people were actually late for their flight, and we wound our way through the terminal and straight into check in and security, which was all done rather quickly.
After all the rushing, most of the flights were delayed anyway and everybody was left sitting around waiting for something to happen.
A very packed bus took most of the passengers in our flight off to the tarmac to get on the plane, but since we had waited we ended up in a bus with only about 5 or 6 others. Nice!
The plane was full again but the flight wasn't too bad to Singapore and since it was late, it meant that we didn't have to wait long in Singapore.
We arrived back in Perth and went straight through security and customs very easily, still wondering what all the fuss was about. Then even though it took a long time for our bags to come out, it was a relief that they made it back here at all.
It was another successful trip without any hassle apart from the dodgy weather, but of course there's nothing you could do about that, and it was still paradise even with the rain and wind.
It was a bit of a shock getting back onto the highway with the horrible traffic when you have been in a delightfully quiet place with no cars, but that's 'civilisation' for you!!
2025-02-14