Night Falls
As we expected, we arrived in Bella Bella on Monday morning without any troubles. Weather we picked up from Pacific Radio enroute was calling the ceiling 900' AGL, so we broke out the RNAV rwy 13 approach, expecting to have to break through the cloud at some point. On the descent we noticed that the cloud deck was broken up much more then we expected and didn't extend very much past the airport. As we flew down the Spiller channel, we elected to do a vfr approach, down the channel, under the cloud, across the Seaforth channel and onto Campbell Island. It worked out great. Twenty minutes later on departure, there were many holes to climb up through as we pointed the King Air Southeast for sunny, clear Vancouver.
The day previous was the first time in a while I had to turn on the panel lights in the King Air. Most days we're done our flying by 1900 local. However, every so often something important comes in just as we're wrapping up. Somebody in Smithers had hurt themselves bad and at 18:45 we got the call to go pick them up. We flew to Smithers via direct in the clear skies with the evening sun setting right in our faces. Even through the sun visor and sunglasses, that evening sun can sure make one squint. A quick VFR approach and luckily the sun became hidden behind Hudson Bay Mountain, making for a much easier landing. We waited at the airport for roughly an hour while the paramedics went in to assure the patient was ready for transfer. On departure we lifted off into a now moonlight sky, and flew through the darkness, 45 minutes back to Prince George.
