Trying, but failing, to fly
Archived posts from this Category
Sunday, 22nd November 2009
Posted by Judith on 22 Nov 2009 | Tagged as: Trying, but failing, to fly
The predicted cold front went through later than expected, so only cleared us at lunch time, when it went from dull to suddenly brilliant blue sunshine. We went out, but on getting to Olot, we could see the ‘duvet effect’ on the ridge next to Puig Sacalm. Our hearts sank – the chances of actually flying were slim.
Still, Geoff is a firm believer in hope over experience, so we carried on. Of course it was NW and too windy, so we continued our inspection of public improvements of the towns in this area. Today’s turn was Anglès. The first time we went there (14 years ago) it was a dump. The next time we went (about 7 years ago) they were improving the old town and it was a building site. Now it’s much nicer. The old town is a typical Spanish rabbit warren with the old 14th and 15th century houses restored, the roads cobbled and the parks landscaped.
It turned into a gorgeous sunny day, shame we couldn’t get in the air.
Thursday, 12th November 2009
Posted by Judith on 12 Nov 2009 | Tagged as: Trying, but failing, to fly
You’ll never guess what happened today? Yep, got it in one…
So we wake up to a forecast of sun, sun, sun and south wind. Perfect for going somewhere other than Santa Brigida. Like, just for a change of scenery. So we arrange with Oriol to go to El Mont, which is forecast to be in sun and it’s south facing. What could go wrong? Here’s the forecast:
Just to make sure, I checked a couple other sources. Like the synoptic… (and just in case you think there’s a warm front to our west, which was bound to cause some high cloud… that was at least 400 miles away, stalled and fizzling out, according to the subsequent 12am synoptic chart).
And the sat pic, which was a little more true:
It started clouding over with high stuff from 11am. Not good for El Mont and a guaranteed fly-down. Then Geoff got some urgent work, so we had to ditch plan B, which was Sant Pere de Rodes as we didn’t know what time we would be able to get there. So plan C was trusty old Santa Brigida (what we used to laughably call a magic mountain). By the time we left home the sky was overcast with thick stratus. No bother, a soaring flight at least. And what happened when we got to Santa Brigida? Strong, gusty NW wind. No sun. On the drive home the sky was full of wave. Again.
So we’ve driven out to fly at Santa Brigida four times in a row and done nothing. What a waste of time! Maybe Geoff should reconsider his aversion to golf.
Wednesday, 11th November 2009
Posted by Judith on 12 Nov 2009 | Tagged as: Trying, but failing, to fly
Complete repeat of yesterday, just with more anticipation before and more sulking after. A sunny sandwich at the Co-operativa in Les Preses made up for some of it though.
Edit on the 12/11/09:
Ok, I was still in a sulk when I wrote that. Now I’m suicidal, but more on that later…
It was a really lovely morning but it clouded over really fast. Roger arrived at Santa Brigida before us and reported strong west wind, so we were all for canning the day and going to Banyoles to walk around the lake. As we were getting our boots on, Roger phoned again to say the wind had dropped and it was coming on. Not having flown for a few days and being keen sorts, we dashed out, but it was getting cloudier as we approached. As we were driving to the car park next to the bottom landing, we could see Roger soaring the ridge. However, the flag on the monastery was NW (and it’s a SE hill). He came down after a five minute flight. First thing I asked him was “when you were flying over the monastery, did you think ‘hmmmm it’s NW”? Roger confirmed he thought exactly that and a lot of extra stuff I can’t write in case there are sensitive types reading.
On the way home, there was a big blue hole over the Val d’en Bas, so that’s where we had our sandwich, looking at Puig Sacalm (biggest rock in the area of Olot), which was showing itself from its pretty side.
Tuesday, 10th November 2009
Posted by Judith on 10 Nov 2009 | Tagged as: Trying, but failing, to fly
The weather forecasting is getting very tiresome. The Catalan forecast gave the warm front as coming through this evening. I should have listened to the Met Office. It was nice and sunny when we got up, and we arranged to meet Roger at Santa Brigida. By the time we got there the front had arrived and the launch was clouded over. All this wouldn’t have been a problem if the promised strong winds had materialised and we could have had a soaring flight at least. As it was, it was nil wind.
We stood around, had lunch, chatted. We then tried to film some online conference trailers which include paragliding. As it is, we ended up with lots of out-takes and none of the footage we need.
Roger did a heroic nil-wind forward launch fly down, but that was it for flying. Ho hum.
Saturday, 7th November 2009
Posted by Judith on 07 Nov 2009 | Tagged as: Trying, but failing, to fly, Work
What a pain today was. It started out alright (i.e. sunny), but then went somewhat downhill. First sound we heard this morning, was a buzzing noise. We’d completely forgotten that the annual Besalu paramotoring festival was supposed to be on this weekend. It’s been postponed to next week due to a bad forecast, but a few people obviously turned up anyway. I had mentioned to Xiliu last week that this year I hoped they would buzz our cliff, as my photos last year were crap. Right enough, four guys flew in front, over and around our house.
The forecast took a turn for the worse with possible thunderstorms after lunchtime, so we wrote the day off to do work. By 11am we were congratulating ourselves on a decision well made, since it had clouded over completely. By noon it was beautiful blue sky with little cumulus everywhere. Arrrggghhh!
The sat pic showed us in a blue hole and the webcams showed it blue to the west and north of us too. We raced out to Santa Brigida, but of course, by the time we got there (45 mins later) the sky was overcast again and the wind was NW. We didn’t even get out of the van, but turned back straight away. It started spitting near Castellfollit and by the time we had the kettle on back at home, the sky had turned a deep grey. It got so dark the floodlighting for the cliff came on. 10 mins later the thunderstorms started. We got a great view of the spectacle from the roof terrace – lightening, thunder, hail, the lot. The landscape was temporarily turned into a winter wonderland, there was so much hail on the ground.
Still, more time to complete work and get the LMSC autumn newsletter ready, which should be sent out tomorrow.
Tuesday, 3rd November 2009
Posted by Geoff on 03 Nov 2009 | Tagged as: Trying, but failing, to fly, Work
Geoff writes: Judith said yesterday that we had a lot to do and we should leave the flying “for a better day. Like tomorrow.” Wrong again! Actually, it was a nice, sunny, warm day, but there were loads of lenticulars, and the wind was forecast north, but not tramuntana. Anyway, we still went to Santa Brigida, meeting up there with Roger, who decided to have a quick flight there on his way to Turin then Paris. It was not to be though, it was, for once, very west, and very windy – though only at Santa Brigida, all the way there it was quite light winds.
So instead, we went for lunch with Roger, gossiped a lot, drank not very much (given the vast numbers of police checkpoints there seem to be this year, and the fact that I’ve already been breathlysed once this trip); then came home and carried on working.
Roger is probably at 25000 feet, on his way back from Paris as I write this. At least he got to pilot something today, even if it is a bit of a bus.
Sunday, 25th October 2009
Posted by Geoff on 25 Oct 2009 | Tagged as: Trying, but failing, to fly
Geoff writes: forecasts in Spain (at least this part of it) are as unreliable as they are in the UK, at least in autumn/winter, but normally when they get it wrong, it’s actually better than they forecast. Today, though, it was worse, which is a shame because it was Wayne’s last full day. The first thing we did was cancel the possible trip to Berga, because Nicky thought it would be crap there (and she was right, it turned out). We thought about various sites around here, and then decided to put off a decision by going to see the Argelaguer tree house, a stunning creation by one man, which we often take visitors to. A massive construction, with three towers to climb up – no chance at all it could ever be built in the UK, given obsessive health and safety rules. And totally free.
Following that, we decided to try Santa Brigida, the site which always works, except this time it didn’t – due to the total lack of sun and wind. Wayne ended up doing a fly down. So we then drove to Xenacs, on the way home, a 900m mountain where you get a great view of the volcanic region here. On the way, I got breathalysed, for no reason at all – the police here don’t need a reason to stop you. But given that we were on our way to a bar, rather than leaving one, it wasn’t a problem.
Xenacs was really nice, as always, and would be a wonderful place to have a launch, and it used to be, except for some reason, people didn’t use it and it has now become overgrown. We finished off with a drink in the bar part way down. And it started raining (not much, but a bit depressing nevertheless).
The good news is that the weather should be good tomorrow. The bad news, for Wayne, is that he is leaving.
Oh well, can’t be epic every visit.