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We left Georgetown yesterday for a long awaited trip to Myrtle Beach, SC. We had planned this months ago and had invited
my parents to join us. We wanted to get going early since, even though it's October, the warm gulf and coasts meant likely
convective activity in the afternoon.
We took off in the dark, expecting sunrise shortly. As we headed up out of
Georgetown, we were below a cloud deck that we initially expected to be quite low, yet we continued to climb past 6000 ft
before hitting it. It was incredibly thin and we were suddenly on top by 6500 ft. We continued to climb to 9000 ft where the
air was cool and the first hints of light could be seen. We could then see the outline of high towering CB clouds to our right
and left. But the path before us, just as the briefer had said, and as our XM weather confirmed, was clear. Instead of getting
lighter, the sky became redder until at last it appeared to be on fire. One of our most spectacular pictures appears here
and a link to all the pictures is below.
The flight East was uneventful. Stan flew the first leg and we stopped
and refueled in Meridian, MS. Very nice airport with one incredibly LONG runway. We used the shorter one. Cheapest fuel around
($3.55) and very nice FBO.
I flew the second leg while Stan napped. (He always does). Most of the second half we
above an undercast. Toward the end, some CB's started growing. We did a little back and forth to get around some, then started
down and decided to just ride through them. We flew to the northern Myrtle Beach airport (CRE) called the Strand. Because
of rain showers and clouds in the area, we were given the GPS 5 whose final follows the beach front. The stepdown on the
chart is clearly there because of the beachfront highrises. Exciting to see this since we had visual from quite a ways back.
There was a pretty intense rain storm on our left which came up suddenly (appeared on the radar only AFTER we started the
approach). The visibility in the storm was nil, so we were hoping we'd beat it to the airport. Turns out, it headed away
from us.
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