Postcards

Packing the kids for Pittstown Point

Paradise. How do you know when you're there? I knew that I'd arrived in nirvana the moment I found myself happy doing nothing. Two days of a steady sea breeze and sunshine speckled through towering white cumulus took all the "get up and go" out of me. The baby-sitter abandoned the arts and crafts projects that she had brought along, because nothing could tear my girls away from the pale satiny sand and reef-studded gin-clear water 50 feet from their door. They spent the afternoon running into the water, then back to me (safely ensconced in a hammock) with treasures of conch shells and sand dollars and fish tales as long as the wisps of high cirrus above the distant cumulonimbus clouds.

From my perch I could survey all of the Pittstown Point Landings resort - my airplane shining in the afternoon sun next to Ozzie's Café; Bird Rock lighthouse, tall and stately in the distance; and the weekly mailboat Mathilda, its deck overflowing with cars and cargo containers, trailing longlines (the locals are fishermen to the end) headed out on its 24-hour journey to Nassau. It's the "native" way to get to Crooked Island, Bahamas, but most of the natives I met on my journey would rather fly.

Flying is how we got to this, the perfect island fly-in resort, partially owned by Sporty's Pilot Shop founder Hal Shevers. As I lay there, it was hard for me to believe that I'd actually considered not coming. When I first discovered that my chief copilot and co-parent couldn't go, I nearly canceled. My kids, at 4 and 5, were too young for me to consider a long trip solo in the airplane (this one would clock out at about 3.3 hours one way in our Cessna 210L). I didn't want them distracting me.

But where was I going to find a babysitter to come with me midweek? Next door, it turned out. Then I had no excuses, yet I still held back. It'd been a long time since I'd traveled so far without a copilot. In the last 10 years or so I'd gotten used to a warm, sentient body in the right seat on the long cross-countries, someone who could help with the radios, navigation, international paperwork, and, of course, the catering. When we started traveling long distances with the kids it was also nice to have one pilot who could shift gears and keep them busy for a moment, while the other pilot just flew.

I'd lost my nerve once or twice in the last 18 years as a certificated pilot, and I'dalways managed to train my way back to confidence. This time, however, it felt like marriage and motherhood had turned me into a wimp, and I didn't like the feel of that.

So I sat down and planned out the flight, just to see. Steer 120 degrees for 3 hours and you're there. Pittstown Point Landings sports its own 2,300-foot paved runway, and Crooked Island has a 4,000-foot strip at Colonel Hill Airport, 12 miles away. You pay for the convenience, however. We'd have to clear Bahamian customs and immigration somewhere else. I chose Exuma International, on Great Exuma near Georgetown, since it had plenty of runway, fuel, and facilities. It wouldn't add that much time to the trip, though, if we had the paperwork in order.

International paperwork was always left to my copilot because the male customs officials in our more exotic destinations seemed uncomfortable dealing with la pilota. I couldn't wait to see how the Bahamians handled la pilota and las niñas. I kept a file with tourist cards, General Declarations forms, and Bahamas cruising permits. I filled them out in advance, in triplicate, leaving only the dates and the times of the flight blank, eliminating the extra work my copilot would have done. I dug up birth certificates and Social Security cards for the kids, which, in the Bahamas, would suffice. The baby-sitter had a passport, but I wanted more. I asked her mom to write a note giving me permission to take her daughter out of the country and giving me permission to authorize emergency medical treatment, as well.

I stowed the kids' toys in their carry-ons and tucked some tee shirts and bathing suits in a small Mickey Mouse suitcase. The baby-sitter packed arts and crafts, as well as her schoolbooks. All I needed was my diving gear, bathing suit, and a change of clothes.

The weather was perfect. I had no excuses left. We were airborne at 8 the next morning.

As we crossed the Miami shoreline at 9,500 feet with Bimini in sight, I began to relax and enjoy the ride. The clear, flat turquoise water reflected a powder blue sky full of scattered, puffy morning cumulus thousands of feet below. The engine droned loudly and the only bumps felt were the ones generated by the kids, released from the veritable shackles of their takeoff seatbelts, bouncing between the two back rows of seats (the CG shift was the worst of it - hard on the autopilot and the trim). Ah, yes, I thought, cracking the first smile of the morning as I remembered why I hate terrestrial transportation. No belted-in, whiny brats up here - for them the Cessna 210 is cabin class. They spread their toys out all over the back and gorged on snacks. There were superabsorbent diapers for anyone whose bladder couldn't make it to the next port of call. I almost felt sorry for the baby-sitter, though. They tortured her incessantly, but the diversion worked - they left me entirely alone to fly.

Exuma International Airport was hard to miss, even from 20 miles out. With kids on board an unpressurized craft, I tend to start my descents early and hold them to 400 feet per minute. Even with gum to chew, their ears seem supersensitive to pressure changes.

Once we shut down on the ramp, the bemused look on the fuel truck driver's face said it all. He doesn't see many crowds like ours disembarking, Mickey Mouse suitcases and all. I told him to top off the tanks and headed inside to clear customs. The girls were exuberant, bursting through the terminal door and running up to the customs agent with their carry-ons full of toys.

"Do you want to see my stuff?" my 4-year old asked the agent (I'd briefed her earlier on the procedure). I handed him our paperwork and he shrugged his shoulders, glancing back at the immigration official - who was holding up her end of what must have been an interesting card game - and replied to my daughter, "No, mon, you look all right to me." I'd never seen Bahamian officials stamp and sign in triplicate so quickly.

One half-hour later we crossed the yellow limestone cliffs of Stella Maris, Long Island. The now towering cumulus kept us low, but the Apollo GPS held up its end of the bargain and steered us southeast across the last expanse of blue water. Without the Apollo, the last 20 miles would have been dead reckoning at its best. I'd done it a few times, but I like the GPS better - especially solo. Even at 150 knots, five minutes seemed like eternity. Then I saw the shadow of landfall emerging from the blur. Bird Rock lighthouse was a thin white line on the horizon. I looked back to tell the kids and found only unconscious bodies (all that bouncing is hard work). The resort's hodgepodge of white concrete buildings nestled under Australian pines, and its slash of asphalt runway came into view moments later. I could imagine the sense of relief the original Tory settlers felt when they first encountered this spit of land jutting out from the island two centuries ago. They were running from the revolution - I was just running from the drudgery of everyday life.

After a quick overflight to check out the asphalt's condition, I maneuvered into left traffic over the water and came in low over the beach, pulling the power just as the numbers appeared to merge with the bottom of my windscreen. We were down with a solid plop - with plenty of runway to spare. I looked down at the GPS - it showed us sitting at our destination. "Yes!" I hollered to no one in particular. "We don't need no stinking copilot!"

I back-taxied and picked out a spot in the grass to anchor the tiedowns. By then my sleepy cargo was beginning to stretch and yawn and moan about empty bellies. No problem. Within moments of engine shutdown, Cindy Bates, the manager at the time, was there with her staff, unloading our gear and taking our sandwich orders for lunch. We were the first of our group to arrive, making check-in but a momentary blip.

We wanted to do everything at once. Before happy hour I managed to slip 80 feet down under the water just offshore, encountering a sloping wall encrusted with glowing corals and populated by large green sea turtles and lemon reef sharks, along with the usual assortment of grouper, jacks, grunts, wrasse, tarpon, and snapper. The clarity of the water mimicked the air above it and we were the only divers in sight.

After the diving we picked up the kids off the beach and cruised out to the lighthouse, perched on a rugged chunk of limestone rock just a mile or so offshore. Our boatman, Robbie, told the girls about the years when he and his family tended the lighthouse. As a boy he had to row his boat from the lighthouse to the island to go to school. When, upon our friends' arrival, Cindy broke out the umbrella drinks and the conch fritters, the girls and I felt as though we knew the place. But we weren't on "island time" yet.

That took two days of gorging on the resort's lobster tails, grouper "your way" from Mrs. Gibson's Lunch Room in nearby Landrail, and that other Bahamian staple, curried chicken. For the kids there was all the peanut butter and jelly on sweet Bahama white bread, pizza, and imported burgers they could eat. I missed my husband; but lying in that hammock, watching the clouds shift shape, I knew that he'd gotten the short end of the deal.

It would be a three-or-more-hours' cross-country home - two stops for clearing customs (Bahamian and United States) and an afternoon jaunt across the volatile Everglades airmass - all solo - and I couldn't even drum up a mild adrenaline rush. That's when I knew that I'd made it to island time at last.

Pittstown Point Landings may be the perfect pilot's retreat, especially if the pilot enjoys scuba diving and fishing. The food at Ozzie's Café brings pilots in from other islands just for lunch or dinner - as does the island's other establishment, Mrs. Gibson's Lunch Room, which serves family style. You're never far from your aircraft, and there's just enough activity on the strip to keep the day interesting, even if all you do deteriorates to lying in a hammock under the pines, watching the sea and sky change.

The resort is located at 22 degrees 50 minutes north, 74 degrees 21 minutes west. There are 12 double rooms with two double beds, all connecting and all with private bath, tub, and fresh-water shower. There's no air conditioning, but the ceiling fans and the sea breeze keep things comfortable in all but the very hottest weather. The resort generates its own electricity and the telephone is the radio-type, but U.S. weather briefings can be obtained on the 800 number. The runways at both Pittstown Point and Colonel Hill are in good condition, and the resort will send transportation to Colonel Hill if you need the longer runway. For more information, rates, and availability, call 800/752-2322.

Amy Laboda, of Fort Myers, Florida, first soloed when she was 16 years old. She owns a Cessna 210L and Skystar Kitfox IV.