Maurice's Blog : Around the World Solo Flight

Steamboat Willie

Maurice Kirk — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 08:03:00 GMT

Thank You Captain!!! I loved your email!! I will phone you the next time I come to Europe! And I hope it's soon!!!!! Cheers Mate, Steamboat Willie

--- On Mon, 3/1/10, Captain maurice kirk wrote:

From: Captain maurice kirk
Subject: FUN
To: "Steamboat Willie (owner)"
Date: Monday, March 1, 2010, 2:49 PM

You will not remember me....I had ditched in the Carribean in WW2 Cub just before I dropped into good music in New Orleans. I talked to your old black Lab as all old veterinarians do. When I left you the President's men put me in Austin State Psychiatric Hospital and later deported me for some reason. Just out of jail winning the case ...I had a WW1 machine gun, apparently.

Need you for a party when next in Europe...see http://www.kirkflyingvet.com/
Best regards, Maurice in France mob UK 07708586202

The Ultimate Whitehall Farce Monday 16th June

Maurice Kirk — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 04:02:00 GMT

I have to go to London on Monday to argue my corner as to how the RCVS have hurriedly pushed through legislation in the 20.7 rule of the 2004 Court Procedures to prevent me ever practicing again as a veterinary surgeon. I need to lodge it at the Court of Appeal after the hearing but need to know just how to do it?

I have to walk round the corner to Kingsway and CAA House for, what I hope will be, a cosy chat with their legal department on outstanding matters..

I also have to find out why the Royal Courts are sitting on my Emergency Application against the Civil Aviation Authority preventing me to fly on to Africa next month in my 1943 WW2 Piper Cub? President Bush's men confirmed I committed no aviation offence when I landed in a farmer's field 5 miles from his Texan Ranch but the CAA cannot get, it appears, CIA, FBI, Secret Service, FAA, DHS, ICE, State Police or a few other organisations to confirm my belief mainly because the United States avoids any paper trail of custody records of a prisoner when ever possible unlike the UK. My unlawful detention in Houston Prison and Texas's State Lunatic Asylum is 'small beer' compared to the relevance of malfeasance of UK Government Departments exposed in the court papers for Monday .

Lunch is on me.

I then need to stroll down to the House of Lords in the afternoon to find out procedure to overturn the judgment by Lord justice Thomas refusing me a lawyer to act on my behalf and my legal right a jury for my harassment case against the South Wales police, the original complainants to get me struck off.

Tuesday may be a lot more fun, again exposing what the media refuse to print..... the real state of our judiciary See downloads

US Deportation

Maurice Kirk — Mon, 26 May 2008 09:34:00 GMT

Now the plan was to fly in my new little yellow cub from Texas on to the Falkland Islands with my latest sponsors, Alvin and Kandy of AMT Training Solutions, promoting our talks along the way.

From Argentina I was to fly back up the Andes mountain range to the Rockies for Alaska. My floats were waiting there and once assembled it was either trans-Canada on the lakes, converting to skis for the North Pole on the Hudson Bay or, if no sponsorship matured, back on wheels again for Greenland and home.

But arrested just 5 miles from the US President's ranch near Crawford, East Texas, on the 25^th April at gun point, had now put the whole dream in jeopardy.

Once the Secret Service had handed me over to the FBI on the side of the road [like I was the last fertile Dodo egg on the planet] then the Sheriff of McClellan County turns up, Stetson and all amounting to eleven vehicles by now. After numerous phone calls I was made to do the ‘field sobriety' test and ‘walk the line', heel to toe, nine times, turn and repeat the same back again without falling over or miscounting!

Now counting was fine but memories immediately came flooding back of a certain veterinary student, Gareth Jones, back in 1967 who, whilst a little under the influence of my home made beer, returning late at night from a boat party in Bristol, had received the very first roadside ‘breath test' having put his old car through a hedge! The Breath Test marked the ending of the days when certain of the ‘chosen', unrecognised at the motoring scene, were later taken aside at the station to be allowed to quietly sober up!

Needless to say I failed the ‘sobriety test'. To walk in the way dictated, with all that metal in my leg, a previously dislocated hip, a fractured pelvis, ankle and toes made it quite out of the question!

So on to the Waco County Prison was my next stop, in handcuffs again, for Uncle Sam's alternative, a ‘definitive test' by blowing into a machine which gave the predicted four nought reading of alcohol in the blood stream. The hastily thought after drug tests held a similar zero result. But this was just delay tactics with no audit trail.

Was I going home now? No chance. After still more delay it was then suggested I had said to a prison warder, during a very fascinating prison experience, I had ‘glided my aircraft from Japan onto the US President's front lawn and recently had ditched [another aeroplane, I assume] in the Caribbean'. I was therefore going to Waco Hospital with the Secret Service in train for fear I was mentally ill!

After many hours of interrogation, brain scans, x-rays and analysis of body fluids, long into the dead of night, I was eventually shipped off to Austin State Hospital, down south, in handcuffs to the secure Psychiatric Unit for up to 90 days ‘observation'.

A little record keeping appeared to be creeping in so I again demanded the usual things one does in such circumstances. The making of a detailed written statement under caution and obtaining a copy of it was just one request. Access to telephone my wife, an independent medical examination, a copy of my medical records was another. "Dream on, Maurice".

After a week and failure to get heard in a court of law, get a lawyer of my own choosing, my own doctor or speak or be able to write to my family I am suddenly released with the offer of a lift to my cub in the farmer's field from either The President's Men or Deputy Sheriff of the County...my choice.

I chose neither. At the aircraft, having enjoyed Alvin and Kandy's lift and company over lunch, I say good bye and fly south for maintenance, the installing of wing tanks for Argentina and for the re registration to a UK register now it was obvious even to me, to travel foreign in a US aircraft, especially South America, sleeping under the fuselage at night or not, was shear folly.

Bellville police, a one horse town two hundred miles south, near Houston, had other ideas.

I was soon re arrested and charged for having an open alcoholic container on the road side and had much of the night under Secret Service interrogation all over again before being put back on a concrete floor with no bedding.

Next day with much futile plea bargaining, offering me $500, bail waiver and time off for good behaviour thrown my way, I am clamped in leg irons, chains and handcuffs and sped away to Houston's huge body disposal factory for aliens dominated by affable but apparently subservient Mexicans who slept most of the day and snored most of the night.

To cut a long story short I was soon segregated for ten days from the one thousand inmates without access to any semblance of a judicial system, contact with my wife or Embassy, seriously worried I had been drugged and denied my medication. My Texas partner of AMT Training Solutions, http://www.amt-1.com/ was refused his weekly visit but at least had it confirmed to him I was there and in solitary confinement.

For the nurse to have to ring ‘Washington', right in front of me, while two doctors surmised as to just which bloods the Pentagon needed, said it all. Especially when everybody there but me knew I was to be put on a scheduled flight to England within a few hours and escorted by members of United States Department of Homeland Security all the way to Gatwick, UK.

I have landed in twenty nine countries so far, flying around the world in a J3 cub, each peoples revealing their own welcome, hospitality and friendship. The current United States of America is not the one I remember when as a veterinary student in 1964 on a seven week vacation. I hitch-hiked from New York to Los Angeles to Vancouver to Quebec, finishing up with two nights under a tree in Central Park and all on just ten dollars twenty five cents.

On the eight thousand mile hike almost every Canadian or Yank greeted me with a great smile and embarrassing hospitality. Now, forty years on, I'm not just old and grumpy the US is a far different place.

An Englishman in Texas

Maurice Kirk — Mon, 12 May 2008 04:01:00 GMT

25^th April 2008

I had recently landed, only to take off again, from McGregor Airport, Waco, Texas, on a most gorgeous bright April day in order to find somewhere more hospitable for the night. The weather forecast for the day had indicated scattered transient but inclement weather from cumulonimbus clouds gathering to the south. I noted these were now gathering significantly in size, charged with their electricity, soon enveloping the heavens with a much heavier dark fluffy pattern. My direction of flight in the old two seater J3 Piper Cub aircraft was somewhat settled for me as the skies to the south and east quickly turned ominous.

A downpour of rain then hit the aeroplane as I purred along at seventy miles per hour making forward vision virtually impossible. Just minutes earlier it had been streaming sun shine with not a breath of wind. Thunder and lightning soon broke out and continued long after I had decided to duck out of it into a pretty Texan meadow far below. On approach to land, following a preliminary circuit to spy out potholes, ditches and possible wire, I was greeted by a huge flower bed of pink and white flowers, weeds do doubt and a muscle bound black bull grazing with his herd at the other end of the strip. He could be sorted later.

Either under or over the power cables, straddling the long grass, was my dilemma due to a sudden change in wind direction now buffeting us both violently from the side. It also did not help my final decision as to just which field was best to get out of this turbulence, forces sufficient now to cause structural damage to the airframe. As the old adage goes, ‘never land unless you are sure you can get out again'!

However, with decision now made and committed on a somewhat rutted and possibly boggy permanent pasture, prone to flooding, I later noticed, I throttled the engine back and glided down through rain that was simply bucketing down while the lightning crackled all around illuminating the black back drop of a sky before us.

Water poured into the cockpit in the descent as both windows and doors had to be wide open in order that I could stick my head out into the slip stream to try and see with better accuracy and just where we were going to finish up was paramount in the agenda!

Safely on the ground I taxied her back close to the road and bridge with tail facing the wind hoping that, should the wind suddenly change direction again, I could rely on the raised road and trees for protection while I hurriedly reached for the ropes, hammer and the nails for picketing her down.

No sooner had I started the wind died and the sun appeared! All I could hear was a peaceful cacophony of bird sounds in the adjacent woodland. No other man made machine in sight. Only the euphoria, post flight, experienced by pilots that have just ‘broke the bonds of earth'.

The severe thunder storm had moved one, albeit but a few fields away. A Texan field, incidentally, can stretch a mile or two in all directions. A little different to my South Wales six hundred foot airstrip outside our kitchen window in the shadow of Randolph Hurst's old Norman castle.

I was then taken aback by the beauty around me. Flowers and the abundance of lush green foliage was everywhere. No different, at first site, to the farmland in the West Country of England where I had been brought up as a child. The Texan summer was yet to arrive.

One of the issues deciding which field to land in, as I circled overhead, was the sight of a huge Texan flag painted on the full length of a barn roof. Well, at least I am still in hospitable surroundings, I thought, as I reminisced on the wonderful hospitality over the past few days that I had enjoyed from Houston, San Marcos to Odessa and then back to Robert Lee and Comanche.

I decided the storm was gone and so clambered up onto the road before deciding what to do next.

Having decided which way to walk I slowly set off down the road in a westerly direction my right ankle, full of fixation screws from an old hang gliding accident, ‘telling me all about it' as the rough ground of the field had exacerbated the ensuing arthritis and, no doubt, made worse with the result of far too much good or not so good red wine over the years.

I wished to leave a message of thanks to a local ranch owner concerning the US Coast Guard, my having previously checked he was away but just might be back for the coming week end, starting tomorrow.

Another thunderstorm, as if from nowhere, soon had me drenched but wind there was not. Hard hailstones, almost the size of pigeon eggs, hurt as they bounced off my hat and shoulders. Again the shower and lightning was gone almost as quickly as it had arrived leaving the road in large puddles of crystal clear water.. The sun was again blazing down and I must have been at least a mile down the road by now from the little Cub, in the process of trying to photograph a scissor bird on a fence, when I heard a screech of tyres behind me.

I looked round to see two fast moving male white Caucasians exiting the limousine at speed. I was impressed. Both were brandishing what looked like nine millimetre Berretta pistols but the only problem was, they were both pointing at me.

Up with the hands, down spread eagled on the road, hands slowly behind your back, for handcuffs, the usual stuff, seen on television, except I was having to do it! Face down on the gravel is not comfortable nor is it easy for a sixty three year old trying to get up again with his hands behind his back.

Pockets are searched while a passport is quickly tendered by the prisoner with the vain hope of expediting this sudden new relationship thrust upon him with the well dressed ‘men in black'. What was to turn out would be a long drawn out experience, debatably quite unlawful, in a Texas Mental Institution.

As Dryden wrote, around the turn of the 17^th century:

"There is a pleasure sure in being mad that none but mad men know".

Maurice's Statement

Maurice Kirk — Mon, 12 May 2008 03:49:00 GMT

My proposed deportation is based on false information already confirmed by the British Embassy, Secret Service, FBI and the Sheriff of McLellon County. All but the British Embassy at the scene of the alleged offence.

Further, senior DHS officers, Orlando Gardona and Special Agent Jason C. Gadberry, together, told me on the date of the charge, I had landed my aircraft on a public highway thereby being in breach of section 237 (a) (4) (A) (ii) of the Immigration and Nationality Act i.e. "engaged in criminal activity which endangers public safety".

Further, on 1^st May the deputy sheriff authorised me to fly the aircraft away from the field in which I landed, incidentally more than 500ft from a public highway.

The Federal Aviation Authority confirmed to me and witnessed by two US pilots (anxious to recover the aircraft from Belville on my behalf) the landing was lawful. FAA contacts are: Mr Arnold Thermeyer, Mr Brian Troupe and Mr Doug Gould.

In respect of the incident, subject to the pilot's licence and airworthiness of the aircraft, I had committed no offence and "put you to the proof here of".

The FAA have obtained both police and secret service statements that I had landed the aircraft in a farmer's field, not a highway, in bad weather well away from the restricted P-49 zone surrounding the US president's Texas ranch.

1s PA Notams stated my right to conduct a flight from Commanche, Texas to the incident site. This was also confirmed by two US pilots at Hamilton Aerodrome (I have names).

If I had infringed any civil or criminal law or was "engaged in a criminal activity which endangers public safety or national security" how come I was offered a lift before witnesses at Austin State Hospital by the police and secret service?

The secret service area supervisor with fellow officer at A.S.H. offered me a lift to fly the aeroplane from the field unsupervised - not a lawman officially in sight, unless you include SS agents on adjacent land filming it?. If any law had been violated or was likely to be violated how was it I was left in command to fly that aircraft in any direction I liked if it had not been decided by the president's men, the FAA, the FBI, the A.S.H. court and "uncle John Cobbly and all" that I was a danger to national security.

Later that night, 200 miles away, while on a holding charge of "public intoxication" fabricated by the arresting officer, while submitting still further nonsense to the DHS, based on hearsay, I had my bailbond waivered and offered an open door. Why?

The British Embassy, Houston had just informed me that the secret service, upon hearing of DHS involvement, had offered to expedite the issues, for all the obvious reasons and had offered, without deportation, to

have me immediately released from Belville Jail and get me on a Houston flight home for the UK (my flight is rebooked Orlando 6am - London Wed 6^th May 08).

That is why Judge Terri resinder waived the $500 bailbond for my immediate release and took into account my time in custody should I be persuaded to change my plea of not guilty for a $300 fine misdeameanor strenuously denied.

The outcome of what was a perfectly harmless approach to thank the Officer in Chief of the US coastguard for recently saving my life has turned out to be a nightmare and warning to others.

I require this statement of truth to be sworn under affidavit US Regulations and be submitted to the highest authority for reconsideration.

I never wavered my right to have this case go before a US court of law (form 1-791). Copy to British Embassy please.

Thank you and God help America.

Maurice J Kirk 3^rd May 08

Search and Rescue

Maurice Kirk — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:23:00 GMT

Panic, panic my flight to the USA takes off today and I have a lot of packing still to do here in my home in South Wales. I am returning to Florida first and plan to fly down to the Bahamas in a wee 'canvas and tube' aircraft with the hope of finding and rescuing Liberty Girl.

She was last seen at the end of February drifting tail up, like a fisherman's float, north-west from the spot where we ditched her in the ocean some half way between the Dominican Republic and the Turks and Caicos Islands. I hope to scour the beaches of the lower Bahama Islands and call in to the US Base on Great Inagua, and try and track down the helecopter crew who fished me out of the drink, I owe them a beer!

Sun 'n Fun Airshow, Tampa, Florida, is on the 8th April so I hope to get back for that as someone wants me to give a talk. A chance to catch up with old friends from all over the world and do a bit of 'bar flying' with guys still flying aeroplanes who are twenty years older than me.

After that maybe Trinidad via Martinique for the Falklands or the overland route straight for Mexico and Panama possibly. It all depends on a little project we are onto in the woods of central Florida!

Liberty Girl in the Drink

Maurice Kirk — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 12:33:00 GMT

'LibertyGirl' in the drink 82 miles south east of Caicos, West Indies on bearing of 331 degrees from Puerta Plata.

Last position: 20N-45-08 W071-21-29 on the 16th February at approximatly 15:30 local time. 15 knot wind from 120 degrees Magnitude.

She may be floating but dinghy leaking so she may be gone. Fantastic US Coast Guard team - pilots Julie Kuckco and Jeff Cowen AMTC, Brett Crosby winch man AST, Jon Geskus diver. If it wasn't for the beacon around my kneck, I'd be writing this from the bottom of the sea.

SPONSOR WANTED! To raise General Patton's WW2 cub.

Boyancy of Liberty Girl - can anyone calculate if she is still floating off Great Inagua, Bahamas?

She has 26 gallons US in her wings and 10 gallons air space.
Her fuselage is stuffed with polystyrene foam (peanuts).
Cockpit has three half full standard UK refuse bags of foam.
Four man life raft is tied to strut but was leaking as fast as I could pump!

I was dumping fuel from wing tanks from 4,500 feet to 500 feet at say, 400 feet a minute.

If anyone spots her there's a reward of $2000 for sighting and lat/long information.
$4,000 for recovery onto dry land with minimum fuselage damage
N.B. Cut all fabric to release water from wings and fuselage before hauling her gently out of the water or you will destroy her!

NEW WEB SITE IN A WEEK...the old one is stuffed! I stuffed it, due to prolific cutting and pasting from lice ridden emails and bent documents!

Fog Stops Passage to Cuba

Maurice Kirk — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 12:50:00 GMT

Thick fog puts a stop to a 6 am flight to Cuba and I do not get away from Leesburg until 09:45 local. The head wind gets worse over the Everglades swamp but what a spectacle of wildlife, especially the Gators, I seemed to check the engine gauges a little more than normal. The fuel consumption is not good - close on six US gallons an hour and I have taken out my overhead tank. Cannot overfly Cuba, I am soon told, without 48hr wait for a permit. Dominican Republic is a must but a long, long way. Conrad, I might be knocking on your door sooner than expected via the Bahamas.

Turned back in the end and arrive back at the Keys with a T6 Harvard taxing past while a Waco biplane goes for a jolly. And there is a Pitts biplane just asking to be flown. I locate a host for the night. Ray up at Indian River had told me to look him up his name is Freddy and he sorts me out with food, bed, shower and sound advice on “does and donts" if I AM TO VENTURE INTO THE WEST INDIES. Then off to a hangar full of pilots for a beer of sorts, and a yarn or two.

Going for Cuba tomorrow but much hassle is predicted. West Indies is not so civilised as I thought. Bahama islands are both good and bad. Turks and Caicos steal a pilot"s money, will need a good lawyer. Ah, I know of such a person who represented me once in his first job (unpaid) back in the 80s. He now lives in Caicos, must search him out!

Hollywood and American Football

Maurice Kirk — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 13:13:00 GMT

I have just spent the night on the floor of a well carpeted bungalow deep in the suburbs of Hollywood. Hispanics and Afro Americans all around have such broad smiles, reminding me we are forgetting to laugh at ourselves. Tony arrives on the dot of 10 to take me to Liberty Girl and on to Cuba. Slight problem Tony, I have mislaid my passport, again.

Using the excuse that still, no one would sell me a map of Cuba, I head north up the gold coast at above 500 feet having to change radio frequency eleven times in almost as many minutes, needing me to orbit at one point in order not to infringe airspace of the busy coastal aerodrome. Matters did not help with the transponder not working and your's truely being misidentified by a friendly controller as a yank heavens forbid! Talking of controllers, the back chat surrounding what I had for supper last night quelled my anxiety a little for my entrenched hatred and fear of anything relating to communications with the ground. When we go flying Liberty Girl and I want no intrusion into our little world of fantasy as if we have left all are cares behind and below!

I am looking for Vero Beach and a little flying village of some 50 aircraft, many vintage like their owners as I very soon found out. The grass strip between the palm trees and bungalows had three birds, Sandhill Cranes, on the runway on my approach. These are lovely to see in the right place, being a member of the stalk family, but preferably not 70lbs of combined weight smack in the middle of an active runway!

Tony had radioed ahead to his old friend Lars, of Swedish origin, he having owned in his life many interesting aircraft. The Klem for example, muddled often with the 1930's BA Swallow open cockpit that my Father once owned. Also a Saab Safir trainer was his pride and joy for many years. But in his hangar was DH82a! But I was soon invited by Mark and Mary to the hangar opposite, housing a host of projects from the 1929 WA Cessna, a 1929 Fleet biplane with a Kinner radial, like my DH2 and numerous other exciting goodies for me to paw over.

A talk was organised for Sunday afternoon avoiding a Super Bowl game which started at 5.30pm when everybody stops doing what they were doing apparently, to watch it. Sport and the Americans attitude to it is quite different in the old colony. The game for example, much like rounders, only girls play in the UK, is called baseball while rugger in England is played in a vaguely similar way here in the US except an hour first spent dressing up in modern type armour not dissimilar to the way knights of France before Agincourt had to be hoisted onto their steeds before battle due to the excessive weight. Netball in England is a girls game mainly but here in the US it appears you have to be a 7ft tall and male to qualify.

MID NIGHT

I have just watched the most exciting game of American football. In the dying seconds of the fourth quarter the New York giants snatched it from the favourites, the New England Patriots. I had Mike on one side teaching me the rules while the crop duster, Ray Dyson, was wising me up to some of the subtleties. I withdraw all the derogatory remarks I have ever made about the game over the past 40 odd years!

Diversions in Winterhaven

Maurice Kirk — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 13:31:00 GMT

At 7am Chris my current host disappeared to fly Delta Air jets to Europe leaving me to sit on his veranda to wireless into my server for e-mails prior to the days flying.

Later Airborne and heading south, the deflated life raft is now tied to Liberty Girl's roof obscuring the view a little, but the new windscreen gives me excellent warning of the hundreds of aerials and various radio masts that dominate Florida"s landscape. I was punching a 15 knot head wind south to Miami so I was low enough not to take those masts too seriously.

At 11am I divert into Winterhaven for fuel, I say Hi to the lads at the aero club who helped me out last year. I had come over to the "Sun n Fun" airshow to give talks and had gone for a swim in the lake before sleeping in a rental car. Well, it didn"t quite work out that way. As I waded waste deep into the mud and shingle, a huge dark shape moved in front of me. Two nostrils and an eye was enough for me to move like the proverbial *** off a shovel! I was only in my shorts as I ran up the beach and was definitely not stopping to see if he was following. I reached my car, quite out of breath, now limping badly from an old ankle injury sustained from hang-gliding 30 years earlier. Damn! I"m locked out. My car keys and all my clothes are on the passenger seat. Nothing for it but to walk to the flying club and T hangars with the hope someone is still about at 9 at night. A long walk on that ankle diagonally across an airfield gets me there. I was in luck. The Club rang the "rental" who rang "their local man" who in 40 minutes is there and with conventional and not so conventional methods forces an entry.

Fond memories indeed but I digress. I am now turning on to "base leg" for "finals" for the southerly runway of Winterhaven before I spot another airplane in the circuit. "Lookout, look out", an essential phrase when flying anywhere in the world. Always assume the unlikely and be ready for it. Always check things yourself in aviation and never rely on others except on the rare occasion when circumstances dictate otherwise. A quick "Hi and Bye" in Winterhaven since there are no landing fees in the US. Refuelled and Liberty Girl and I were off again for Miami.

Now 3pm. The last 100 miles to the coast was over the Everglades, a flat marshy environment often with no undergrowth at all. Raccoons and deer I definitely saw but there is one short legged fury brown animal I am yet to have identified to me. It was with regret that I heard, too late, from the President of the Florida Aero club, Tony, retired from the motor trade and crash repairs, tells me that there is an unwritten law here not to go below 1000 feet for nature conservancy reasons, it being an area of special importance especially where birds are concerned. Knuckles are wrapped, it will not happen again.

At 4pm Tony met me at Hollywood Aviation just where he has homed his V tail Bonanza for 30 years. Made in 1964, I guessed right, not realising he has under the bonnet an I.O. 550 Continental of 310 HP giving a cruise possibility of just three times the speed of Liberty Girl! At 4.30pm it was onto Survival Products Inc's factory next to the sprawling suburbs of Hollywood to have my life raft serviced and where I buy another for immediate "use", I doubt I'll need it, but you never know.

Early evening Tony is desperately trying to find me a hotel with "good, dutiful" wife, back at the house. No good, all full or ridiculously expensive and too far away for a later scheduled meeting and film show. Tony remembers an empty house he has nearby, so that's my pad for the night. My sleeping bag is needed but there's one problem - no furniture, so all work on computer and telephone is done while seated on the loo!

Now the "eating" in Hollywood was an experience, even for Maurice! At 7pm we all met at a large "Corral" full of local residents of all ethnic possibilities, their average weight being well in excess of the national average. Food displayed was ranged down a sixty foot counter where the queues were waiting for thick juicy steaks, roast, barbequed or fried chicken and many, many other meats under preparation as we watched. Puddings (deserts) stretched all the way down to an ice cream machine that pumped out gallons of any flavour you needed! The kids seemed to be going back to their tables with plates stacked so high to be almost the size of their heads! Oh, yes and when we finished almost everyone went back for second or third helpings as if the world was due to come to an end. I reached for my camera more than once to record the spectacle of the totally inadequate seats they were all slumped on. I thought better of it, returning instead to the counter to get my third helping of scrumptious apricot pie and huge dollops of cream. To cross the Timor Sea, from Indonesia for Darwin in Australia seven years earlier, I had gone on a "no food at all" diet for 15 days before the air race, in order to carry extra fuel load.

I am not so sure if the West Indies will be treated with such meticulous pre flight planning?