Orangeburg – Cat Cay

The airport near Orangeburg has tropical temperatures of 33°C, so I prefer not to delay my pre-flight preparation and head to more comfortable conditions at 4,000 feet (around 20°C). The route follows the coast of South Carolina and Georgia further south along the entire east coast of Florida. The first stop (the scenic loop) is over Kennedy Space Center, NASA’s main spaceflight facility, where the Apollo, Skylab, Space Shuttle and most recently Artemis launches took place. The most famous building is the Vehicle Assembly Building, which is the eighth largest building in the world by volume and the largest single-story building in the world. In addition to NASA’s Space Center, their launch complexes, the Shuttle Landing Facility, and about 700 other facilities and buildings, Cape Canaveral is also home to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, a United States Space Force base (spun off from the US Air Force in 2019), and Musk’s SpaceX has two of its four launch complexes there too. After a short excursion I continue my flight over the endless beaches of Florida stretching through the cities of West Palm Beach, Boca Raton, Hollywood ( not the famous California one), the infamous Miami and others. In Miami I turn east, 90 km off the coast of Florida is the first of the Bahamian islands on which I plan to land. As I approach Cat Cay airport and see the short runway ending in a descent into the sea, I think about whether I’d rather continue on to another airport. I take a risk and land hard as close to the beginning of the runway as possible to give me the largest margin to stop the plane. All ends well, I park the plane in the shade of a palm tree and am free to explore the local beaches and relax after a long flight.

Distance: 1042.7 km

Total distance: 13 070.6 km

Flight time: 3 hours 28 minutes

Total flight time: 46 hours 28 minutes