Day 25: Atlanta Georgia- St. Augustine Florida

Another early start this morning we were leaving Atlanta, Georgia to fly back to St. Augustine in Florida to hand back N8071X. Padraig kindly gave us a lift back to Fulton County Airport where the plane was waiting. Once again a huge thank you to Padraig and Tammy for all your hospitality. We were totally spoilt staying with them for the last three nights and had such a fun time.

N8071X sitting on the ramp was already fuelled, so after doing the usual pre-flight checks, adding more oil and talking to Tower we were in the air again, however this time was our final journey our final leg. As we took to the skies and navigated our way out of Atlanta airspace, I was a little sad looking down at the fabulous scenery and endless blue skies that we had become so accustomed to every day, knowing that it would be a while before flying in exotic places like this again. Ireland just doesn’t offer the same weather-wise!

Views leaving Atlanta, Georgia.

Direction of flight was south-east once out of Atlanta airspace and it wouldn’t be long before the Atlantic Ocean would be in sight. The majority of our journey had been inland since Galveston (day five approx) so seeing the coastline and ocean come into view was beautiful since it was still early enough in the morning a misty, foggy ocean came into view. Just fabulous!

Our fuel stop was St. Simon’s Island, an airport just on the border between Florida and Georgia where I had landed numerous times during my training in Florida (Daire too). The airport (2 runways) are located right on the coast and on a small island, hence the name. On identifying the airport we cancelled Flight Following as we had the airport in sight from about 10nm’s out and contacted St. Simon’s Traffic frequency. There was one other aircraft in the pattern there, the wind was calm, visibility > 10sm’s and on final to land we were over the Atlantic Ocean it couldn’t have been more spectacular.

Bridge beside St. Simon's Airport.

On final for runway 34 in St.Simon's Island.

The fuel truck met us on the ramp once we had taxied over. The guy recognised our Irish accents and mentioned he had relations in Kerry that he had never been to Ireland but was planning a trip of a lifetime and had one question for us, “are there plenty of pubs??”. Our answer “to be sure, to be sure”!!!

Food was the only thing on my mind at this point so we headed straight into the FBO office to pay for the fuel, buy some more oil and grab something to eat. Their courtesy car was already on loan to someone so we had to eat breakfast/lunch from the crisp/bar machine, very tasty. We didn’t have time to get a taxi into town as we had to hand the plane back by 4pm to get all the paper-work sorted.

Back into the air and we decided to fly north up the coast towards Savannah before doing a 360 and heading back to St. Augustine. At this point I was flying, Daire was taking pictures of the amazing scenery and I just didn’t want to turn the plane around. Northward bound meant we were still on holidays, southward meant the holiday was over, reality! Eventually I turned the plane while taking mental pictures of the scenery, the sky, the plane so during the winter at home in Ireland I can still be on my flying holiday any time I want!

We flew adjacent to the coast most of the journey to St. Augustine as there is some military airspace there to stay away from. This was the part of the journey we both recognised as our flight training in Vero Beach consisted of flying the coast during the majority of our solo hours.

Some inside pictures, altimeter reading 7,500ft.

Radios, GPS and transponder set to VFR frequency 1200.

Coastline around Savannah!

Next two pictures are of St. Simon's Island where we refuelled.

Jacksonville, Florida.

Daire was now flying and I am on the radio’s about 15nm’s out I contacted St. Augustine Tower to let them know we were “inbound for a full-stop”. As the airport came into view I couldn’t still believe this was it over, an entire month had passed since we first collected the plane. Excuse the pun but time really does fly!

Once we had taxied back to the ramp it was time to unload for the very last time all the luggage, maps, headsets, checklists and the copious amounts of rubbish we had accumulated! On handing back the keys for the plane we also had to hand Florida Aviation our fuel, maintenance and oil receipts for our journey so this could be credited back to us. Once we had that sorted it was time to rent a car drive to Orlando and prepare for a very early start to fly the journey home to Ireland with Air Canada.

I think we were both thinking the same thing but when Daire said should be look into seeing how much a change of flight would be I was delighted of course! With the change of flight not costing much we decided to stay another 5 days to chill out by the pool and reminisce about our fabulous flying holiday, the dream holiday! We collected the rental car and drove with smiles on our faces all the way to Orlando knowing we had another 5 days in the sun!

Dusk skyline driving from St. Augustine in Florida to Orlando. One of the only pictures of the sky taken from the ground!