ATom-2 RF07 13 February 2017 Punta Arenas - Ascension
Our seventh research flight travelled north Punta Arenas, Chile to the small south Atlantic Island of Ascension. We left PA at a respectable 8am as runway repairs ran over in time. This meant we landed in Ascension just after dark. I had asked for the jump seat in the cockpit for landing into Ascension in the hope of seeing a cool view but unfortunately we just missed the sunset.
A lot of the crew have spent a lot of time in Punta Arenas for various missions and knew the area well. We found even more great restaurants and the atmosphere around town on a Saturday afternoon was great! In stark contrast to Sunday when the place is deserted!
I was hoping to see penguins in Punta Arenas but unfortunately that didn’t work out. With a day lost, we didn’t have time to go on an all day trip out to the island. It was disappointing but I did get to see an inventive use of tyres!
We started preflight in the dark and the sun rose as we prepared to depart Punta Arenas for Ascension
The flight into Ascension landed in the dark but it was still impressive! The air in Ascension was much cleaner than our visit in August where fires from Africa dominated the air although there was some evidence of pollution.
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