Long ago and far away, I rented a 182 from my FBO in Tennessee and flew off to visit friends in Florida. As often happens, the friends wanted to fly somewhere, so one morning we piled in and launched for Key West. The flight down was unremarkable, even though I probably was a few pounds overgross for the takeoff. We burned enough fuel on the trip down that weight wasn’t a problem for the return flight.
But we might have stayed in Key West too long. It was summer—isn’t it always summer in Florida?—and we took off around dusk, VFR, following the Keys east until the required overwater portion was short. Turning north toward our destination found us over the Everglades on a moonless night. Ground lighting was in short supply—alligators don’t need a night light. The result was little reference to the ground and no natural horizon. That was fine as far as it went, but there were complications.
