…sometimes. Thank God in this case it didn’t and wouldn’t have. But this is why I’m working on my instrument rating for my pilot’s license. It will allow me to fly through clouds and have a better overall understanding of weather. Super boring stuff.

Before Jared and I took off, I looked at all the usual weather radars online and I saw the frontal line that stood between us and our destination, Great Harbour. There was a few gaps that I figured we could sneak through, so we loaded the plane with the shingles Jared needed to bring to repair his parent’s beach house and took off.

Immediately after takeoff I saw that the gaps that appeared on radar were no longer there. The clouds were also thousands of feet higher than I expected. We called up Miami Station over the radio and they told us that a plane had passed over top of the clouds at 9500 feet not too long ago. I figured we’d either climb our way over or go around to the north. So we did both, I turned north (we were supposed to be going south-east) and started climbing.

At 9500, we couldn’t quite see over the top so I climbed to 11,500 feet and finally after about 25 minutes of climbing and diverting to the north we turned on course. Kinda.

We kept having to dodge clouds and were definitely skimming the legal limits of VFR (visual flight rules) flying, meaning no flying through clouds. So I requested 12,000 feet to be safe. You can feel the air getting thinner at about 10,000 feet and, to be safe, I pulled out my oximeter to read my oxygen levels. They were already pretty low at 86%. I took a couple deep breathes and was back over 95% in no time.

I was a little nervous. At 12,000 feet it still seemed the front was never ending and growing higher than we might be able to climb. This was definitely the first time I had been in unusual weather conditions and it sucked not having a better idea of what the conditions at the Great Harbour airport were like. I asked Miami for conditions in Nassau and after what seemed like an hour Miami told me that it was clear. A wave of relief washed over me as we now had a plan B. It also meant that conditions were likely clear at Great Harbour.

As we rounded the northern most part of the frontal wall and turned on course, the cloud layer below us seemed to extend beyond the horizon. After about 45 minutes, the end of the layer was in sight. The GPS however was already indicating a 500 foot per minute descent to the airport. A few later minutes, the clouds were thinning and you could see the ocean through the perforations 12,000 feet below. GPS was now showing 1000 feet per minute descent. Which in plain English means we could skydive to our destination. About a mile ahead I saw a hole big enough to get through. I went into a full on spiral dive losing 1000 feet per minute and got us underneath the wafer thin cloud layer. Great Harbour, was a stones throw away.

If I had known, I could’ve easily punched through it much earlier, but I’d rather just get my instrument rating and be able to fly legally through clouds whenever I want.