On Thursday we drove to Oudtshoorn for Martins "Night Rating". Oudtshoorn is only an hour away from George, but the weather is extremely different. It is much hotter und there are less clouds. When we were just a few kilometres away from the town Martins instructor called him to let him know that there is a power failure, which means they had to wait for the runway lights, thus the power to turn on again before they could take off. So we sat there, Martin did some preparations and I read magazines. Just after eight the power was back on and they left. Suddenly at half past nine everything switched off again. I got such a fright. How were they supposed to find the runway and land when it is pitch dark. They phone rang and it was another instructor who asked me whether they were back yet. A few minutes later there were about 15 people from the flight school there with me. We called them, but neither of them took their cell phone. We tried to reach them on the radio, but they didn't answer... These were long minutes with hallucinations of a green and a red light flying towards us. Suddenly we heard them on the radio. Thank god they were fine! Soon after that we saw them flying over the airstrip where we had lined up five cars to lighten up the airstrip. I was so relieved when I finally hugged Martin! Inside they had to fill in papers and while they were busy with that the lights were suddenly back. Can you believe it!
If you would like to find out more about these power failures, which Eskom (the South African electricity supplier) calls "load shedding" please visit: www.eskom.co.za/live/index.php
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