From the logbook...

Our good weather has still continued so far this week. It sure makes the flying less stressful when you don't have to think about what mother nature is doing between you and the destination. I have also had the privilege of going into some "new to me" airstrips the past few days. The airstrip conditions are excellent right now with our lack of rain, and these new airstrips have been non-events.

I forgot to mention a few weeks ago that things got resolved with our air ambulance flying. The outstanding flight bill was finally paid, and we are now resuming air ambulance service. It is structured a little different than before, and we are still working out the kinks, but overall I think it will work fine. Because of our renewed air ambulance flying, I have been hauling a few patients this week.

This afternoon as I was getting ready to leave San Carlos for Shell, our flight coordinator told me via radio that there was a snake bite patient in nearby Washintza (WAS). I could fly over there and get the woman because I had plenty of gas, but I couldn't take the current load of 2 people and about 300 pounds of cargo and still make it our of WAS with the patient. So, I unloaded everything in San Carlos, flew 2 minutes over to WAS and picked up the patient. I then returned to San Carlos and put my original load of cargo and people on, and then we were on our way back to Shell. San Carlos is a longer strip that WAS and has better climb out angles, thus I could take off with three people and a lot of cargo.
I took this photo yesterday in Karink, which was a new airstrip for me. I ended up spending a few extra minutes there because I had some parts for their radio to install. The install went quick and everything worked, and I was shortly on my way to pick up a TB patient waiting across the Pastaza River in Chumbi, also new to me.