31 July 2006 - Vanuatu

We're about half way. We had mild turbulence before, which is not really much, except the plane bumps a bit and the wings wobble. I got a window seat which is nice. Jared and I will swap seats soon so he has a window seat. It's starting to get a little boring now, but not that bad. The plane is a Boeing 737-800.

The weather is perfect. Bright and sunny, with a few patches of cloud, making it interesting Taking off from Brisbane airport was fun. It's like using Google Earth when we're in the sky looking down, only this is real life!

I was not allowed to use the GPS on the plane. That was a pity. It would have been quite interesting.

The ocean is very empty... as in I have seen hardly anything on the water. The horizon is a bit hazey, and hard to define. Up here, you can see the slight curve of the earth's surface on the horizon. I've got photos to prove it! It's a BIIIIG earth.

We met Jill and Alistair on the plane briefly before. Will go back and talk to them some more soon.

Also, up here (how ever many thousand feet), we are above all the clouds and if you look up at the sky, it si quite dark. Probably a navy colour, half way between the day and night sky colour. It's dark, even though its day time! We're travelling between 900 and 1000 km per hour.

Will arrive in Port Vila about 2:15 pm, Vanuaut time (GMT+11). Any times I mention from now on are in Vanuatu time, an hour ahead of Brisbane, all year round.

Hope to arrive safely, get through customs, have lunch, and arrive at the mission. will try to get to an Internet cafe to email people. Walk around Vila, buy some food and have tea.

We're staying one night at the SDA mission in Pt vila, then moving on to Santo for one night, and then finally to Gaua. Gaua is where we do our mission work.