The flight westward to California

 
In the early morning of the 9th of August 2004, we loaded up everything and took off from my home airfield Prangins ,
a small 1,500-foot grass strip, close to Geneva, Switzerland.

First Officer Olivier Reymond

After clearing Swiss and French customs at Geneva International, we then headed first in fair weather, later in heavy
rain across western France toward our first fuel stop at Jersey Island in the English Channel.

Fuel stop at Jersey

 
While visiting the weather office, we learned that the meteorological con­dition over England and Scotland were anything
but favourable, with an almost stationary cold front from the southern tip of England into the far northern part of central Scotland.
At that moment, we had some doubts whether we could reach Stornoway in the Isle of Lewis on the northerly tip of Scotland
that day.

 
After takeoff from Jersey, and about two hours into our flight, it became obvious from the rapidly deteriorating meteorological
conditions and from lis­tening to the air traffic conversations, that the north-western part of Scotland was experiencing heavy,
stormy weather. In the area of Manchester and on the airway, I decided to divert across the front to Wick, on the eastern tip
of northern Scotland.

After our departure. The coast line of Jersey

With no visibility and heavy rain, we continued across the country up to Aberdeen in eastern Scotland, where all of a sudden
we broke out of clouds and continued on to our first day's destination - Wick.

The place we stayed for the first night at Wick




Preparation of our Immersion suits for the crossings of the ice cold Atlantic in the next days