So the decision I had to make was when to depart today. Sit in Bar Harbor and wait to see if the weather cleared up locally, risking that it might move east over PEI and develop rain showers there, or depart Bar Harbor IFR and hope that it would stay VFR at PEI? The way I saw it, the ceilings were forecast to lift as the day went on and as they moved eastward, so in theory the worst weather we'd see at PEI as the day progressed might be marginal VFR ceilings and rain. In theory.
I had a copy of the Charlottetown IAP (instrument approach procedure), and I had the low altitude enroute chart for the area, so going IFR the whole way wasn't out of the question...it was just undesirable. In the end I decided to go ASAP. It's easier to make a decision based on what you know is present rather than what you expect to be present later. We would depart Bar Harbor IFR. Hopefully PEI would still be VFR or at least MVFR by the time we got there.
Bar Harbor, ME to Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island -- 1:50, 18 gallons
After making the decision to go, I called flight service again to file the flight plan. I called 1-888-CANPASS to inform Canadian customs of my intended arrival time at Charlottetown. By this point we had already returned the rental car and settled up with the FBO at Bar Harbor...just had to preflight and go.
I managed to reach approach by radio while still on the ground, so I didn't have to fumble with a telephone-issued clearance and void time. We got our IFR clearance and off we went, up into the fog. I climbed up to 7000', but we didn't see anything but white IMC until the end of the flight. Light turbulence the whole way to boot...making hand-flying the plane on instruments that much more interesting.
The route we flew had us backtracking northwest over Bangor initially in order to stay clear of the Deepwoods MOA. From there we flew northeast over Princeton VOR, and shortly thereafter we crossed into Canada.
Earlier I said that this was the most stressful flight of the trip. There I was at 7000', in solid clouds, over unfamiliar territory in a country I've never flown to, where I can't "just land" if I want to without probably violating all sorts of customs regulations. I wouldn't hesitate to land if I had a problem, I was just praying I wouldn't have a problem. I think it was being in the soup that really stressed me out, because I had no reason to doubt the plane. I was sick as hell, and the altitude and bumpy instrument flying didn't exactly help. Complicating things was a sense of "auto rough" that I couldn't help feeling. That's the sensation that the engine is running rough when it's not. The EGTs on cylinders 3 and 4 looked a little high...or was it just me? I wasn't about to switch off the mag here in the clouds. Just focus on flying, focus. What about that oil cooler brace being off? Are the oil cooler and baffles ok? Did I remember to tie up the loose ends customs-wise? Do I have all the required paperwork? I was stressed, sick, and flying on instruments. Not a fun leg.
In Canada we flew over Fredericton VOR, then on to Moncton VOR -- I navigated using the GX60 GPS but I did fly airways to keep the route simple, and also to stay over land as much as possible. Over Moncton we broke out of the clouds and I don't recall ever being so glad to be out of the soup. From that position we could see Prince Edward Island just across the way. Good VFR, no problem. A little foggy, but probably 7 or 8 miles visibility. Phew. I was NOT looking forward to flying the approach in there.
Here you can see the lay of the land as we flew over PEI toward Charlottetown. Very flat, very rural.
As we got closer to Charlottetown the sun started coming out.
Landing at CYYG was interesting. I still don't really get the whole Canadian towered airport thing. There's a control tower, and there are people there...they need position reports, but they don't give you clearance to land or taxi or take off? I don't get it. I'm sure it makes sense to somebody. Anyway, we landed at Charlottetown and the tower...er...radio operator told us we could shut down on the ramp by the tower to meet with the customs official. Oh...by the way, before shutting down I switched the mag off (finally now that we were on the ground) and the thing ran just fine on the electronic ignition. It was all in my mind...
Clearing customs was trivial. I had read somewhere that you're not supposed to get out of the plane until customs gets out to the plane. As soon as I shut down the guy came out. We were exactly on time. It worked out better than I thought. The official came out and glanced at the plane, asked us a few questions, and we went inside to wrap up. We brought all of our documents for him to see, and that was that. He gave us a little slip of paper and asked us to leave it on the glareshield as proof of having cleared customs already in case another officer was wondering what this "N" numbered funky drug and slave smuggling airplane was doing on the ramp.
We got our rental car right there in the terminal, and we drove initially over to Prince Edward Flying Service, the FBO where I would tie the plane down. I scoped out a tiedown and confirmed it with the FBO, and Jen drove me back to the terminal to get the plane. I taxied it over and Jen met me there to grab the bags and stuff. After unloading and tying down and covering the plane, we were out of there. I'm sure I breathed a sigh of relief as we drove off.
I don't mean to make it sound like it was that big of a deal, but I think all the conditions leading up to it -- being sick, crappy weather, my first international flight in this plane, ignition issues the day before, almost two hours of hand-flying in solid IMC with bumps -- jeez, not my ideal flight. At that point I said to Jen, "We're here now. We've done it. We're on Prince Edward Island. No more IFR on this trip, ok? I'm done with this stressful crap."
From that point on the trip was nice and relaxing again. We spent four nights on PEI in a cute little cottage about 200 yards from Green Gables. Jen had a field day. I couldn't be happier that we got to do this in the plane we built.
I only took a couple of photos on PEI...this one, taken as we walked across the Green Gables golf course toward the beach.
...and this one, at the dunes/beach in Cavendish.
PEI is gorgeous. Very green, very peaceful. Almost no cars to be seen once you get off the major roads. Lots of quaint little towns. Somebody told us that PEI officially has more shades of green than Ireland. Something like 56, when Ireland has 47. Who knows. I believe it...it was green.