The 2By4 pages

For years I resisted the idea of flying. It just didn't seem to be a good idea. I traveled by boat. But then I changed my mind. Here's what happened...

I was traveling fairly often from my work in England to the Guinness brewery in Dublin, Ireland (tough, but somebody had to do it) and I was accustomed to either taking a car on the car ferry or going by train to the Mail Boat. Either way, I would travel overnight and take a cabin. Easy.

I forget why, but the time came when I had to fly, which I had been avoiding. It was my first time ever in an aircraft, and despite my reluctance to leave the ground, I was completely enthralled by the view from the window. The weather was crystal clear as the Irish Sea and the Isle of Man passed below, and by the time I was on the ground in Dublin I was thinking that perhaps this wasn't so bad.

A couple of weeks passed, and I was still in Ireland, but it was time to take a couple of days off. So I rented a car and headed West, towards Galway Bay. This isn't the place for a fuller description, but let's just say that I was totally entranced by Galway Bay.

After spending the first night in a lonely youth hostel, accompanied only by an inquisitive mouse, I set off for the town of Galway, where I saw a sign for the ferry to the Aran Islands.

Hmmm

Bad news: A ferry had left just a few minutes ago. When was the next? Wednesday (this was Saturday). But they told me that there was a frequent air service to Inishmore, largest of the group of islands in Galway Bay, just follow the signs to "Aerphort", just outside town. So I did, driving slowly so that I couldn't miss any signs, but became convinced that I'd missed a turn somewhere because there was no indication of anything aeronautical anywhere that I could see. I stopped to ask the way at a gas station beside a dilapidated shed. "That's it", they said, pointing at the shed. As they were speaking, a tiny twin-engined aircraft clattered up to the shed and a half-dozen people got out of it.

Not quite so sure about this, I asked the pilot about flights to Inishmore. He was just about to go there with the group that had been waiting behind the shed. When did the flight leave? As soon as I got my bag in the back. The other passengers got on board as I scrambled to throw overnight stuff into a backpack, and by the time I was ready the seats all seemed filled. "You can get in there" he said, pointing to the front seat. I climbed in. "No, the other side, that one's mine". Oh... OK.

This was interesting. I could see out of the front and both sides, there were about a million gauges, switches, levers, knobs and assorted Stuff in front of me. The pilot did mysterious things, lit a cigarette and started to taxi. Hey, it even had a nice footrest! "You want to take your feet off the rudder pedals?", asked the pilot.

As he opened the throttles the noise became thunderous and we rattled, banged and shook along the ground. This was not at all like my other flight. We rose from the ground, the rattling stopped, and as the ground fell away it was if I were seeing the world for the first time.

This is beautiful!

As we headed out over Galway Bay the sun was an hour or so above the horizon, covering the land as far as I could see with a breathtakingly beautiful carpet of light. The towering Cliffs of Moher were clear down to the South and a few tiny ships, including the ferry that I'd missed, were heading out to the Islands, which lay directly ahead basking in the sunshine. A few clouds were still far overhead, and beyond the islands glistened the Atlantic. This was the most wonderful thing that I'd ever seen, and I just wanted to stay. All too soon we started down, banked steeply and headed for a (very) small field that didn't look like anything I would have described as an airport. BANG! We were down and rattling again. I could see sparks flying off the brake on my side. "OK", said the pilot, "I'll meet you here at four o' clock tomorrow afternoon".

I was hooked.