I got to my aircraft at 08:00 and noticed a large layer of smoke, spread over a large part of the sky. The air above was warmer than the smoke; so it wouldn't rise and be blown away. Indeed, when a helicopter guy landed late last night, he told us that it was twenty-nine degrees centigrade up there! I opened Echo-Echo-Golf's door while pre-flighting, and small flakes of ash blew out.

Anyway, eventually caught up with Daniel and we climbed out into a murky sky with very low visibility. Unfortunately the location of our sector meant that we had a spell of flying through the thick smoke; apparently due to a vegetation fire at Port Elizabeth. I couldn't see a thing in front of me, it was quite unnerving, especially as we were still quite close to Port Alfred's circuit. After a while we broke free and did a number of turns, a few stalls and descents, as well as a little instrument flying, before returning to FAPA. I made a pretty good landing right on the numbers; which was luckily the same target that I had set myself.

From then on it was all a bit boring. Sat and had some tea/coffee with Ben; we discussed trying to get a PPL in the UK and how things should have been done differently here. We also enjoyed the company of Sharon - Neale's instructor. Not too soon before lunch I noticed a large fire on the other side of the airfield (pictured). This of course threatened visibility even further - kiboshing my other slots with Daniel and Ross, not that I minded too much.

Neale missed out on his nav exam today and vowed to go to Oddfellows; at the suggestion of Du Toit. Unfortunately for him, he had a flight and the winds were within helicopter limits. Upon returning from the flight, a little more happy, he then picked up Waldo and myself, after convincing Sharon to come along, and we tried our best to find Ben. Even though he is the only person on base with wheels, we couldn't find him. On the way round though we did find Martin, a CPL dude in Waldo's class - and genuinely good guy. He needed a beer and jumped in the bucky. Soon we were off towards town.

We had a few beers and a decent meal at Oddfellows with the gang, meeting Du Toit and his wife along the way. Afterwards we went on to Guido's, a waterfront bar/restaurant, and rounded the evening off.