First Full Day At Site

Today is the first full day of me out at site.  Emotionally I am just not all here.  I am still at home with my lovely wife.  I really hate being away from her.  She is just that good baby.  Anyhow, I actually hated the flight yesterday.  And if that pilot is an indication of the class of pilot that this aviation company hires to fly people around, it’s no wonder that they are soley contracted out to the company that brings all of us here.  You get spoiled flying on big commercial airlines like Air Canada, it’s still nerve racking, but at least when you are landing you aren’t wondering if you are taking your final breaths in this life.  Now I am not kidding, I am an ok passenger on a plane.  I am not too nervous, but I am a little nervous.  I don’t go crazy and I don’t need medication, however I could have used some yesterday.  Here I am enjoying my flight, and takeoff and air was good.   Service was way better on this plane then the bigger ones.  However we get to our first stop on the way to the mine, and as we are landing I am feeling the plane pitching left and right, and turning to hit the runway.  Now I am no professional, but I could land that thing a lot better than that.  I gritted my teeth fearing the worst, and nothing happened.  However the slamming on of the brakes didn’t lessen my fear too much.  We took off again, and we had another stop, this landing was a little bit better.  The last take off was good.  And then we flew off to the mine site.  We are in the air for about 45 mins for this flight, in total the whole flight (which was delayed for 45 mins) took about 2 hours.  Last approach, and pitchy, fuck I thought that it was the end.  That we are going down, and my wife will get a call saying I am now runway splatter.  Totally not cool, but to my surprise the handicapped pilot landed the small ATR on the big runway. 

 

I spent the rest of the day in training, and then crashed early this time, it was about 9 o’clock SASK time, but 10pm my regular time.  This morning I was up at 4 am local time so I don’t throw off my clock.  I hit the gym for the first time in ever, but it felt good.  Breakfast was great.  Now I am in my room for my first full 12 hour shift.  I wish I could sleep, I found out recently that I have sleep apnea, and I will need a machine for sleeping.  Which should give me more energy, and possibly help with losing weight.  So when I am at home I get to go for that test.  Anyhow I am off to work, hopefully I get to post this sometime today.