Day 23 - Stow and New Bedford

Tony Cacciarelli • July 7, 2020

Stow. MA to

(almost) Martha's Vineyard

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The recently shuttered Marlboro airport

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Original Instagram Post

We'd planned to fly down to Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket today, but the weather had other plans. We made it to New Bedford but the winds at KMVY and KACK were gusting up higher than I felt comfortable with. So, we did a low pass around West Island and headed back to Stow. We got bounced around all the way back and I ended up going around on my first attempt at Stow. No point in trying to 'save' a crappy approach.

Even though we didn't make it to the Cape, we still saw some great scenery and it was nice to be flying with @la_peeps_ again. We flew over Marlboro airport on our way back, which was recently sold and shut down. I think the owners were retiring and the deal from housing developers was just too good to pass up. Always sad to see a small, historic airport gone forever, though.

My original itinerary had me going all the way to the top of Maine tomorrow - Northern Aroostook - but I decided to head straight to Rangeley, ME instead. That buys me an extra day to explore the Lake Champlain and Finger Lakes areas. I'll be in Rangeley tomorrow and then on to Glens Falls, NY on Tuesday and Wednesday.

😀👍🏼

I didn’t have a day where I had to scrub a flight completely because of weather, but I definitely had a few days where the weather changed my intended plans. This was one of those days.

I’d wanted to fly with Julie to Martha’s Vineyard or Nantucket for lunch and then follow the Cape all the way around and back to Stow. That plan relied on getting refueled when we did the lunch stop. Since I wasn’t comfortable landing at KMVY or KACK it meant we couldn’t do the full trip like I’d hoped. It was still a fun flight, even if it was a little bouncy.

Another case of this was the leg I had planned out to Bimini in the Bahamas. Bimini is just 50 miles off the Florida coast, so I figured I could easily fly out, do a little sightseeing and have plenty of fuel to get back (there’s no fuel at the small airport in Bimini). I ended up bypassing that leg completely since there were large thunderstorms in the forecast as I was planning my trip up the East coast of Florida. So, I flew straight from Key West to Jacksonville instead. This put me a day ahead of schedule and ensured I wouldn't get stuck because of the bad weather moving in.

It’s always tough to miss out on a great flying or sightseeing opportunity but, as I’ve said many times, I’d rather make the safer choice and be around to fly another day.