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Magadan, Russia (Dexter)
11/25/04 Day 9 – RussiaSong stuck in my head today: Back In The U.S.S.R.
Geez. I can‘t believe I started today in Tokyo and I‘m now in Alaska. What a day today‘s been. Where do I start?
Well, how about I start with why I‘m in Alaska in the first place. Since I live in Los Angeles, usually you‘d fly from Tokyo straight over the Pacific to California. But again, since I don‘t have a Travolta type plane, I can‘t make it that far. I wouldn‘t even make it to Hawaii. And since I generally avoid open-water, out-of-gas emergency landings, I had to pick a different way to go.
So the way to go is up the coast of Russia. You go way north, make a couple stops for gas, and eventually cruise across the Bering Strait to Alaska. So that was my plan. It was gonna be a lot of flying, about ten hours, but I should end the day in Anchorage, Alaska, which sounded way better to me than spending the night in Siberia.
So I left Tokyo at about noon, and flew straight up a couple hours and landed in Yuzhno, Russia. Never heard of it? Me neither. In fact, it looked sort of like a lot of people forgot about it. It was cold and windy, and pretty desolate looking. It was pretty strange. I was met by some very serious-looking Russians who wanted to see my papers. I felt like I had landed in 1970‘s communist Russia. I‘m not sure that anyone told these people that the Soviet Union ended! I was led into a very bureaucratic-looking stone building and taken to passport control. After satisfying that guy, they took me to a navigation room where I had to satisfy another guy that I understood the departure procedure. Then I was led into yet another room where I was given a lecture on the current weather. Get the picture? It almost felt like an interrogation. It was like ultimate bureaucracy, the way you‘d picture cold war USSR. They weren‘t mean or threatening or anything, I don‘t want to give the wrong impression. But it made me realize that I was in a very different part of the world, and I wanted to get out of there.
They finally let me leave, and I flew north again, this time to Magadan, Russia. Never heard of that one either? Exactly. And these are the big cities on the east coast of Russia!
I could tell by now that this was a very rough part of the world, weather-wise. There was just a different look to it. The land below looked stark and cold. The sun hung lower in the sky than at lower latitudes, making everything seem darker. This was definitely not the kind of place where you‘d find a Club Med. Even though I had left only a few hours earlier, the sun was setting now and night was coming on. I was also going to be over the water for the next couple of hours, over a large gulf called the Sea of Okhotsk, which is about the size of the Gulf of Mexico. It was starting to feel a little weird.
As I got close to Magadan and descended, I could see the ground by what light the moon gave off. It was all white mountains. I could see icebergs. I felt like I was landing at the north pole! It looked pretty cold, but I had no idea. They told me as I was coming in that the temperature on the ground was negative 29 C. That‘s negative 15 F. Which is about 30 degrees colder than anything I‘ve ever been in. Now I know to some of you guys in Scandinavia, maybe that‘s not a big deal, but I couldn‘t believe it. And let me tell you, it‘s a whole different kind of cold. It‘s the kind of cold that kicks your ass as soon as you step out of the plane. The kind of cold that makes you say ‘mommy.‘
I landed and taxied over to where they wanted me. When I opened the door there were, again, some very serious-looking Russians. It was totally like you would picture it. They had the full on long green wool coats and the big grey Ushanka hats. You could see their breath in the frozen night air. There was an interpreter there because none of them spoke English. They asked if they could board the plane to do the paperwork, since it was so cold outside. With the door open on the plane, it wasn‘t that warm in there either, but I brought them on.
This was probably the most surreal moment of the trip. Can you picture it: I was alone, in Siberia in the middle of the night, huddled inside my freezing plane surrounded by Russians in military uniforms. They spoke Russian to each other and I realized that I was pretty vulnerable right at that moment. For all I knew, they could have been saying, ‘Let‘s jack this guy! Who wants the plane?‘
While the Russian discussion was going on, the fuel truck pulled up. It looked like it had been around since the Korean War. They filled the tanks and told me to come outside and check the tanks myself to make sure it had been fueled properly. Look at that, cover-your-ass-so-we-don‘t-get-in trouble mentality just like in the US! Maybe they weren‘t so different after all. I wanted to make sure that they put the right fuel in, you know, jet fuel as opposed to avgas or who knows what else you get in Siberia. Sometimes they call it jet, or jet-A, or jet A-1 fuel. When I asked, ‘what kind of fuel is this? Is this jet-A?‘, they responded, ‘Oh, we put in 1800 liters‘. Jesus. They think I asked them how much they put in! They even showed me the gauge. Yep, 1800 liters all right. Whatever, I don‘t care about that, I can see the tanks are full, what kind of fuel is it, I asked again? Through the guy‘s visible breath I heard him say, ‘TC-1‘, and point to a sign on the ancient truck. It indeed said that the truck carried TC-1 fuel. Whatever the hell that was. Was it the equivalent? It‘s gotta be, I‘m sure, but I don‘t want to take off to find out.
So how does that old saying go? If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, it must be a duck. So I had to just examine the fuel. It looks like jet fuel (clear), smells like jet fuel (kerosene), and feels like jet fuel (slimy). Okay, I‘m sure it‘ll be fine. I guess I would find out pretty quick, and I could always turn around and land if I had a problem. Turns out the fuel was fine but on to the next problem…
I had to check in with the people in Houston that were helping me with the trip planning. This company is called Universal, and they did a great job for me on this trip. They helped me figure out the route, filed the flight plans, and helped get permits for all the countries that I had to land in. You even have to have permits for countries you‘re just going to fly over. So they‘ve been great, I couldn‘t have done this trip without them.
So I checked in with Houston, on a satellite phone (great, gotta stand outside to get signal!), about my next leg to Anadyr, Russia. Uh oh, Houston, we have a problem. It turns out that the Anadyr airport is closing, it won‘t be open when I get there. Well, I guess I could stay in Magadan for the night, but at this point, I‘d probably rather stay in Fallujah overnight than here. Is there anywhere else we can go?, I asked. They plugged some numbers into their computer and decided that I could make it from Magadan all the way to Nome, Alaska instead. Nome is like right on the coast of Alaska, the first place you‘d run into. I‘d have to stop there and then go on to Anchorage, but jeez, that‘s fine. Get me out of here!
With that taken care of and my extremities going numb, I climbed back onto the plane. The KGB was finishing up, and I could tell they probably didn‘t want to be out in this weather anymore than I did. They handed me a flight plan and told me I needed to be off in ten minutes or that flight plan would expire. Hey, cool. No arguments here. I started up and taxied down the long, cold, rough runway as quickly as I could. I was cleared for takeoff and as I climbed out, I looked back down over this wild place. A few lights. Houses covered with snow and ice. The kind of cold you can just see. You can feel it just by looking at it. Friggin‘ Arctic. Dude, I was glad to get out of
Magadan.
To be continued.
