Cruising yachts visiting the Maldives are aware of the distances between islands and the logistics required to transport passengers and goods from one location to another. Seal Superyachts Maldives has often used the services of these indispensable amphibious workhorses, from arranging the delivery of parts through to the ferrying of important guests out to their waiting superyachts.
A recent article highlights the experiences and life of one of these pilots in the Maldives – Andrew Farr. From Travel and Leisure’s Merritt Gurley:
“Passengers, we’ll have to postpone take-off because, as you may have noticed, a pod of dolphins has surrounded the plane.” Sound familiar? No? Those of us bogged down in life on land may be more accustomed to dreary issues like idling for two hours on the tarmac, but dolphin greetings, avian stowaways and whale-shark sightings are all fairly standard for the fleet of seaplane pilots flying for Trans Maldivian Airways. Captain Andrew Farr says it is, predictably, amazing. “It is like going on an all-expense-paid vacation—I can’t believe I get paid to do this.”
While you may be thinking, “Sign me up!,” landing this gig is no easy feat—Farr’s journey to becoming a pilot in the Maldives was four decades in the making. His father, also a pilot, paid for his first flying lesson on a floatplane across a lake in Haliburton, Ontario, as a present for his seventh birthday, and just like that he was hooked. Around that same time, he came to another life-shaping realization when his parents took a trip to Florida during the dead of winter in Canada and came back with dark golden tans. “I couldn’t believe that it could be summer somewhere else in the world,” says Farr. “I made the decision then that someday I would live and work in a warm country.”
Read the full article here: A Maldivian Pilot’s Life